To the Ball

Jesse was reluctant but felt obliged to attend the YSA Ball - besides Tom and Kathleen were going. A quick scout around the family wardrobe yielded a Collette Dinnigan dress and Gucci shoes from Petie and a velvet jacket from Vientiane from Joan, and earrings and a clutch from Jesse's stash and she was done and looking great.

Kathleen was about as quick to get ready and looked lovely - Tom just looked happy to be there.

All in all it was a fun night - they left early when Kathleen had been up for 23.5 hours straight and came home for a long sleep.

Alec ...

.. is in Narooma - about 260 km south of Wooloongong. The new mission president told him to be creative and have fun - and to wear street clothes and go hang out along the river banks and jetties to contact people.

You'd have to believe in inspiration.

He spent about 3 weeks in Chatswood (Greenwich Ward) which he really enjoyed - he was with the Chinese speaking missionary and so the lessons were simple - just Alec's style. Then a new mission president took over and he's in heaven again.

Except that it is bitterly cold -and because the Sydney North Mission and Sydney South Mission merged the rules got a bit confused. South missionaries took their blankets with them to each new area and North missionaries left theirs in the flat - so he arrived to icy conditions with no blankets. All part of the fun.

The Scariest Movie of All Time

Because Tom's girlfriend, Kathleen, came up from Melbourne for the YSA Ball, Thomas and Jesse had a few friends over for a bonfire and movie night. We projected the movie on to the side of the new site hut that will be the QPI office - and made it a scary one. The scariest movie ever made in fact.

When I was maybe 10 years old, Samantha and Petie and I watched House of Wax. I don't quite know how we got away with that but it scared the living daylights out of all of us. For the rest of my childhood I had to have the bed near the door - the other two reasoned that I was the oldest - therefore I had lived the longest - therefore it was only fair that the wax man should take me first. We must have watched the movie without permission because though all three of us were cowering in our beds we never did tell Lee or Joan till we were adults. I slept with one eye open for years. But I did eventually get over it - Sam stills credits that movie for her fear of fire and Petie cannot sleep with an unlocked window - no matter what.

Louisa will back me up - she came in part way into the movie and burst into tears saying it was just too scary - and had nightmares that night.

Max disagrees - he thinks it was funny - what would Max know.

By the way - we like Kathleen very much - she quilts - she's a nurse - and she got ready for the ball in 20 minutes - what's not to like.

Hepburn

Louisa tells me that David and Granny both said she looks like "Ordinary Hepburn - but I don't even know who that is."

Actually it's Audrey - and actually she does.

Samson and ....Toshiba?

Max's primary teacher - Nathaniel Watts - has a knack for story telling and for making Max love him. Today's lesson was about Samson. Max spent all evening interrupting conversations to share another fun fact about Samson.

One of which was that Samson was named after a TV.

Think Samsung.

He's a child of the 21st century!

Alec

Apparently Alec subscribes to the 'a picture paints a thousand words' theory - he sent this picture with no explanation - so we have no idea why he is holding a duck in a house. But we'll take what we can get.

Sunday

Nathan gave his last talk before leaving to serve his mission in Milan and so the chapel was full of Fulcher family and Maurer family. Christensens were there so that gave him a majority of cousins from both sides of his family.

Jesse will miss him.

And when we finally got home I discovered why I have to wash Max's church clothes every week - as if I didn't know that already.