Weekend time

Yesterday was the start of daylight savings for us so we lost an hour of sleep and a number of people were late for church! So if you're in Sydney you can work out the time in Wilmington by subtracting 3 hours and reversing the am/pm. So if you're reading this at 9am Sydney time, it will be 6pm the night before in Wilmington. Or you can just check the clock on this blog!


Given Lucy's stomach flu we stayed home on Saturday. We were all exhausted after a difficult week of cleaning up poo and working late (you can guess who did what). We ordered some more plants for the backyard and we can't wait for April when they will be shipped to us.


Sunday we spent all day at church as we had a meeting after church to talk about some issues.


We are all ready for bed!

Busy bees

It's the end of January already. We are so busy living life there isn't much time for blogging.

Yesterday Lucy and I spent the day outside playing in the sand pit. It was nearly 70 degrees so we were in tshirts soaking in the sun. Once again I can only say the weather is extremely variable! And it was so nice outside yesterday we ignored the computer and just played together! Today however we will be spending time indoors reading books.

We are all tired this week as last night we had a games night with bible study at our house playing Scattergories (it is amazing how many categories were US-centred!) and the night before attended the Yahweh Center Third Annual Blue Ribbon banquet with Michael Reagan guest speaking. I got a cool flower arrangement from the table (note that it is a double vase). Each garden club member donated a unique arrangement and there were truly some amazing ones there. Michael Reagan was very inspirational and I bought his book 'Twice Adopted'.

Tomorrow Lucy and I are going to a dress party and Sunday is Super bowl night.

Now I just need to find 3 consecutive days to potty train Lucy!

Pre-Christmas Dinner

We celebrated our last bible study for the year and the end of our studies on Malachi with a Christmas dinner. We provided the venue and (Australian) wines whilst everyone else brought the rest - lasagne, fresh bread, creamed spinach, apple sauce, and potato casserole. We followed with a 'Derby pie' topped with Reddi whip (the pie is some sort of chocolate gooey pecan pie namd after the Kentucky Derby) paired with Noble One botrytis that I sourced at a wine shop here. We then finished with Williams Sonoma Peppermint hot chocolate. In the end no one wanted to leave! Lucy even got an early Christmas present from her Grammy Lou and Poppy. Note the new blind in the background - the sheets are gone from our windows and we had new blinds installed on Tuesday.

Weekend highlights

With Andrew getting back from Boston on Saturday morning we didn't have a lot planned for the weekend but catching up on sleep was a high priority!

Saturday night saw us at Dean & Debbie's to celebrate the arrival of Pearl, a baby girl adopted from Guatemala. We enjoyed chicken on the grill followed by a marshmallow roast on the firepit.

Sunday saw us at church followed by the monthly church luncheon. A leisurely afternoon where we hung out in the backyard whilst Lucy played in the sandpit.

PS I was incorrect last week in stating that fall had started. It is still summer here with Saturday being 32 degrees again! Go away summer, we want to wear jackets!!! (Or as everyone here says 'we want to wear our fall wardrobe') It is really interesting how people go out and buy specific clothes for the season - fall colours are brown and orange and everyone seems to be wearing them. We will be wearing our Aussie winter clothes so we will continue to stand out in the crowd as being different. Though my Hawthorn jumper will be right at home!

Weekend update

Friday night saw us at church for VBS (Vacation Bible School - like kids club). It was the closing night so all the kids, 55 of them, put on a small concert of the songs they had learnt during the week. This was followed by a hot dog dinner, jumping castles and a clown making balloon animals. Lucy and I had been at VBS a couple of days during the week to help with the nursery and it was really great fun. On Friday we took a pavlova for dessert which was a big hit. But I am sick of making pavlovas and was left with 16 egg yolks to turn into custard pots and home made strawberry icecream for Sunday.

Saturday was a quiet day whilst Sunday saw us have Jenny, Joe, Gabriel and Julian over for lunch. Our first visitors over for a meal! We cooked a lamb roast with our delay start oven and even had some D'Arenberg shiraz. The photo shows Andrew with Lucy and Julian who are 1 month apart in age.

All quiet...

The lack of posting is due to illness. Lucy came down with gastro and a head cold on Wednesday (from daycare!), Andrew caught the gastro bug on Friday and I came down with gastro and a head cold on Saturday. Needless to say we are feeling a bit miserable. Lucy and I are still fighting our colds. But it didn't stop us exploring on the weekend. On Saturday we visited the Farmers Markets downtown, the Cotton Exchange and enjoyed lunch at the German Cafe. The German Cafe was in the old Cotton Exchange which means the walls are rustic brick (much like the restaurants in the Rocks in Sydney are housed in old wool exhanges) The food was pretty good with a few Americanisms thrown in like iced tea and salad with blue cheese dressing. The schnitzels were excellent but sadly the struedels were covered in sugar glaze (ala Krispy Kreme). On Sunday we went to church and then headed out to Rocky Point for the church monthly pot-luck lunch. Fabulous weather!! We sat outside under some shady trees whilst the kids ran around and looked at horses and chickens. Lucy had a ball and we got to meet lots of people.

North Grove

We have been going to a new church for the past couple of weeks called Northgrove Evangelical Presbyterian church. We really like it and will probably stay here. Much smaller congregation than Myrtle Grove but extremely friendly and helpful about practical stuff. They have even invited us to the church lunch next week (in US culture it seems unusual to have people over for a meal) They have adult Sunday school classes before church and we have already been invited to a weekly small group. It is not far from our new house.

Unexpected beginning

When you attend church membership classes what sort of things do you expect them to teach you? Think about it for a minute before reading on. We are attending classes for 2 weeks to find out about MGEPC. This week (the first week) was an hour long sermon on the Holy Spirit. Next week is about Presbyterianism. Then the week after there is a lunch when there is an induction. We are just attending to find out a bit more about the church and what they believe. It is an usual program of events. More next week.

Myrtle Grove Evangelical Presbyterian Church

We attended MGEPC this morning. We got there at 10am for morning tea which included dunkin’ donuts! People were friendly and invited us to various things going on during the week. After morning tea Lucy went into the well-appointed nursery and we got a pager in case we were needed. The service itself was interesting with lots of singing (about 7 songs all up) with a great youth band (3 guitars + drums + piano) led by 5 singers. Everyone clapped and a couple of people put their hands in the air. The words were on the screen but behind them they had moving pictures of clouds, a thorn crown, a cross with a swinging bandage etc. A little strange compared to HPC! The sermon was on God being a jealous God. It was hard to tell if they are doing a series on Exodus or a topic or just random! It may have been random as the 'Azalea princess' and her court were attending church this week as part of the Azalea festival. Next week they have a mission team going to Spain to work with drug addicts. They have a signpost out the front of the church with a sign for each missionary saying how far away they are and in which direction. So all up it is an interesting place. We are going to do new member classes (starting next Sunday) to check them out a bit more.