Thomas ..

.. has finished his last prac teaching block - and was given glowing reviews.  Which strikes me as remarkable since as far as I can tell he thinks of nothing all day but Kathleen and Savannah!

(At Alec & Sam's wedding)

Crawling Girl

That's Savannah - she is crazy cute - like a wind up toy - and she's getting faster everyday.

She also likes Alec's swag.  It was left on the back pavers for weeks so Alec could sleep out as often as possible pre-wedding - Samantha's a swag camping kind of girl but I suspect she will draw the line at sleeping in our back yard on a regular basis.

Jesse's chapter

War and Peace in our Times: A Mormon Perspective was released officially in the US on September 11 so Jesse, Louisa and I celebrated at Monty's.  Jesse's chapter is titled 'Non-violent responses and Mormon Attitudes: Reasons and Realities'.

Click here to go to a review of the book that mentions Jesse!

Peet the Poffertjes Boy

Peet is working for Lee on Saturday mornings selling poffertjes at the Yandina Farmers markets.   And spending his money on concerts, clothes and chocolates!

Farmer Max

Max has taken to all things farming and food gathering.  His birthday dreams were all about a compound bow and cammo clothes - he didn't dare to imagine they would come true since that is way outside our usual birthday budget.  But come true they did -  and he was a happy and surprised twelve year old.

And this is why Max cried when Alec told us he was about to propose.

As keen as he is to go hunting and raise some meat chickens, Max is also keen on the gathering side. 

He collected a couple of kilos of mulberries and we made mulberry sauce, mulberry tarts and mulberry clafoutis.  I believe there are more mulberries coming this afternoon.

And toady, before it got too hot, Max cleaned out the fireplace and put the ash on the fruit trees.  It was a big job but a fire and s'mores for dessert kept his enthusiasm high.

Louisa ..

.. is a bit miserable and sore - but it won't last forever - just until the braces come off.

In which we get Samantha!

So here's what happened:

Alec and Samantha were friends before Alec's mission - then Samantha wrote to Alec (and vice versa) while he was away - and Samantha and Jesse became best of friends.  This meant that we all started thinking that Samantha was really part of the family - and we whispered to each other 'I hope Alec marries Samantha.'  But we swore each other to secrecy once Alec came home.

And so, when, with no pressure from any of us, Alec and Samantha started officially dating, we smiled knowingly at each other and kept our lips sealed.

Imagine our delight when Alec announced that he was planning to get engaged.  (It's true that Max cried, but that was about losing Alec not gaining Sam.)  Alec brought out the ring and we smiled some more and tried it on.

Then one Saturday afternoon we all got text messages saying: She said yes :) 

And by the time we all met up that night our cheeks were sore from smiling.

Now the engagement party is done and dusted and the wedding is just two days away.  We can hardly wait.  Aside from being perfect for Alec, Sam is perfect for all of us too.

(At the engagement party - there was bunting everywhere, pretty tablecloths that will one day become baby quilts, flowers by the armful and happy people everywhere you looked!)

Alec ..

..was looking at the blog with Samantha a few nights ago and noted that there was nothing here about his homecoming.  That reflects solely on how spasmodically I blog - and not at all on how happy we were to have him home.  Here are the photos to prove it:

There was a line for a hug, the order of which was carefully worked out in the car on the way to airport! As you can see I got the first turn.

Then Roger, and on down through the family, then Lee and Joan and David and Beth and Daniel, Monica, Simone, Robert and Samuel.

It's not an easy thing to get a photo of all of us - but this isn't bad. (Kathleen was working - she met Alec for the first time that night.)

We took him to the beach the second weekend he was home. 

Before his mission, Alec had a hankering for a surf board but pragmatism won out and he waited till he got home - but not for long.

There are no photos of Alec on his surf board - too far out - but Roger took Louisa and Max out for a try on Mitchie's surfboard.

It seems like he's been home forever now (and that almost true - this was at the end of November last year!) - but a mission sure does take a long time.  Good as a mission is, we're glad to have him home.

Guess who got a drivers license ...

See those eyes ...

... completely unretouched!  Most gorgeous eyes ever.

There's a strong little personality shining through there too.  Louisa offended Savannah by talking to Kathleen instead of to Savannah and it took a while for Savannah to forgive.

Thomas is completely enamoured as I always knew he would be - maybe even more so since Savannah is a clone of her mother!  I don't see any of Tom in her - certainly not the sleeping!  Savannah sleeps through almost every night.  Thomas slept through for the first time when he was 5 years old.  I remember it vividly!

It's inconvenient.

Louisa phoned me after seminary to say that she had forgotten her sports socks - and had sport first thing - and yes she had an idea to solve that problem - she would go to Woolworths and buy a new pair.  But Peet wouldn't go with her and could I talk to him.

So I spoke to Peet, who said:  Well it's inconvenient.

In the background, Louisa's voice, which is droll at the best of times, came through loud and clear:  Well how inconvenient would it be if I bought hot chocolate?

Peet:  OK I'll go.

And that was that - it's good to be a girl with a job!

Appendix

In my defence - Peet has an on/off switch for pain.  He is either completely fine and has no need to stop doing anything - or  - he is is the worst pain ever known to humankind!

And that is why, when he came home from school on Monday with stomach pains and lots of groaning and carrying on I put him to bed and ignored him.

Turns out he had appendicitis - and it wasn't the first time either.  Actually I knew he'd had it before - when he was 12.  But since then I pretty much assumed it had gone away.

He was still not completely better on Tuesday so I took him to the doctor - by this stage I was pretty sure it was appendicitis.  The doctor sent us to the emergency room which began a long and very funny day.

Truly - should you ever write a novel and be in need of an insight into the nitty gritty of life - an afternoon in emergency will do the trick.  Luckily we had a bright young doctor who had had his appendix removed three weeks earlier.

Once we had a diagnosis, I had Peet transfered to the private hospital for the actual operation.  And that's where we met Tim.  It was a coincidence, but a good one. After I had to leave Tim stayed with Peet till he was actually asleep.

And an hour and half later he was back to me, appendix free - and in the worst pain known to humankind again!  Not knowing about the on/off switch, the nurses hurried around and gave him a morphine shot and worried a bit.

His surgeon said it was considerably worse than expected based on Peet's behaviour - I'm not kidding - it's an on/off switch!  He also said Peet had had appendicitis many times before.

Later I said to Peet: Sorry about all those times when you said you were in pain and wouldn't go to school and I made you go anyway - maybe you had appendicitis!

Peet:  Well .... maybe.

He came home the same day as the operation, slept on the top bunk that night and was back to normal life in less than a week, with three tiny marks on his tummy.  I remember Barrie marvelling at what surgeons could do when Roger had his appendix removed twenty years ago - the scar was only a couple of inches long and he only needed 6 weeks off work. 

 It's a good time to be alive and get appendicitis.

Swag Camping

There has been a lot of swag camping going on - Alec, Jesse and Max camped in swags on their trip to 1770 and Clermont. 

Alec routinely swags it when he works up at Birdwood. 

Jesse, Max and I rolled out our swags at the Pine camp - it poured rain and Jesse got a little wet but I was dry in Louisa's swag - Max moved into the car.  

Roger, Peet and Louisa camped in swags at Birdwood while Max and I stayed in a motel in Toowoomba.  And in the morning the police came to check on the 'abandoned' car. (It was Lee's truck and luckily Peet had just stopped driving it around Birdwood.)

Though others may fail to see it - we feel very cool camping in swags!

Gratuitous Savannah Post

Granted, it's probably the first of many - but really she just keeps getting more breathtakingly adorable.

Now that he's no longer Bishop...

...Roger has been doing a bit of this...

a bit of that (yep, Roger was driving the yellow tractor and Alec is coming to the rescue in the orange tractor)...

and a bit of this:

That first photo makes me very happy - there's not much I like to see more than four men working on my house.  This time they were building a roof - photos to follow.

iPhone photos

A hotch potch of iPhone photos follows - that should bring me up to date!

Fishing off the Shorncilffe Pier - Peet is probably taking photos and I have taken a break from reading to take the photo.

A trip to Noosa - Louisa brought a friend - Sam Wheeler - who is always welcome.

A new dog arrived - there's quite a story there - not one that Roger particularly loves, but even Roger admits he is glad to have 'Scott' in the family.

One of the first YW nights in our new ward was a Mad Hatters party - Jesse saved the day and made hats for Louisa and I.

A week at Sunshine - see the surfboards - that's Alec's new surfboard and Mitchie's from the unit.  It was all a bit gorgeous.

Scott came with us - Roger coped remarkably well - Max did the hula.

Jesse's graduation - one degree down. 

Scott loves Max.

Bali - Joan, Petie, Sam and I - this would be the view from the villa - last time we got together we were kicked out of the restaurant we were lunching at - this time we made it without making too much of a spectacle - mostly.

Alec, Jesse, Max and Samantha (Gilkes) and David Gray went on a camping trip to 1770 and Clermont - a wonderful time was had.

A bit fo screen time - there's far too much of that happening.

This is what happens when Peet gets hold of my phone - how does he do that?

Nerf gun modifying - the beginning of a craze.

Andrew Barham brought his replica cannon and gave us a demonstration - those battlefields must have been unbelievably loud.

Jesse and Max and I went on the Pine family camp - we slept in swags and loved the swimming dam.

Peet taking some photos of Birdwood for the website.

At the Op Shop in Toowoomba - Louisa and Max heading off to Narnia.

My new toy - a paella pan.

And so on and so forth.