Catching a breath...

It's well and truly spring! After a mild and pleasant winter we have emerged into a gorgeous season, albeit one filled with pine pollen. The azaleas are in full bloom (a little too early for the annual azalea festival) and our bottle brush plants (left) have many many flowers.

As I mentioned last time its been a busy time here and one of the reasons is all the crafts that are going on. I'm hoping to start sharing them with you soon!

We have also had SO MUCH SICKNESS. We have been to the doctor pretty much once a week for the past few months. Everyone seems ok at the moment so hopefully all the germs have gone away.

Today we went to the opening day of strawberry picking. In about 10 minutes we had 3 full buckets of big red delicious strawberries. We're going to make a strawberry cheesecake and some strawberry jam. Of course we all ate strawberry ice cream at the farm. Felicity loves ice cream and screams when the person feeding her takes too long between mouthfuls. She loves all types of ice cream and now she can add strawberry to her list of preferred flavours.

We also did some planting and got our herb garden into shape. No vegetables this year because we'll be in Oz during prime time.

Crazy weather

We are still alive and kicking.

Last week we survived tornadoes, an earthquake and a hurricane.

It has been quite a week.

We lost power during the hurricane on two occasions: Friday 4pm - 6pm and Saturday 3am - 11am. But it was nothing like we were prepared for and thankfully nothing major happened. We had some leaks in our roof which we'll have to fix and the yard was a mess with branches (which are now all cleaned up and ready for pick up on the curb). We survived our first hurricane!

On top of that Lucy was supposed to start kindergarten but school was cancelled because of Hurricane Irene. The school called a few minutes ago and confirmed that school IS on tomorrow. Andrew is dropping her off and then she is catching the bus home. I'm still not sure exactly where the bus stop is but I guess we'll find out tomorrow (and it may involve me running wildly down the street waving)

UPDATE: Hurricane Irene

School is cancelled for tomorrow!! Oh no. Lucy is going to be so mad!

Hurricane Irene

Hurricane Irene is approaching us and is due sometime on Saturday (not sure what time) School finishes early tomorrow so they can get the schools ready to act as evacuation shelters. Lucy was worried they would cancel her first day of school!

We don't know if Wilmington is going to get a direct hit yet. Pray that we don't.

Currently cleaning the garage so we can store lots in there. Not sure if we are going to stay or go. We will decide tomorrow when we get more information.

In the meantime I am focusing on getting Lucy to her first day of kindergarten tomorrow!!!

Weekend summer fun

We are about half way through our summer school break - just another 5 or 6 weeks to go! [And yes I am slowly going crazy with 3 small children and no schedule]

Early last week we had a 105 degree day. Not sure what that is in celsius except to say that is was extremely hot and humid.

Since then it has been 85 degrees every day. It. is. awesome. Repeat. It. is. awesome.

I say this because it is usual for it to be so low! This coming week will see us back to the 95's which is more normal.

So we've been taking advantage of the nice weather by spending lots of time outside playing and eating. We have been hosting a weekly playdate for our mom's group, camping out and barbequing. As well as eating smores, taking family walks and eating ice blocks (popsicles!)

Snow Day

Unexpectedly we had a large snowfall last week. On Monday morning we woke up in our very own snow globe. Three snow days followed but Monday was the highlight for building snowmen, making snow angels and eating snow cream (snow with maple syrup). We stayed home all day drinking Williams-Sonoma hot chocolate, laughing, talking and playing board games.

It's Autumn

As I mentioned the weather has changed. The days are still hot/warm but the nights are cool. It is a really good time of year which will last just a few short weeks. The leaves are red and falling, the mornings are dark and the air at night is cool. We have the air-conditioning on during the day and the heating at night.

Daylight savings ends for us on Sunday.

In the spirit of the changing seasons I've switched out the bedroom decor to be more autumnal. Gone is the new spring bird doona cover, bright green throw and equally green wall art. In comes the red. The old red striped doona cover, red cushions, new wall art and the grand canyon photos.

The only thing purchased was the decal for the wall art. I'd like to get a brown throw but am in two minds about it. I mean there are several brown throws in Culburra so do I really need another?

I've put Lucy's summer clothes away for next year and put all her jumpers into her closet.

We're bunkering down.

Weather update

We're safe and well. Thankfully Hurricane Earl was a non-event for us. It didn't even rain and it wasn't even windy! (So now we have to drag out the sprinklers to water the grass because it hasn't rained in 3 weeks) We did end up going camping but more on that later in the week.

Hurricane Earl

We're bunkering down to meet Hurricane Earl. He's expected to hit the North Carolina coast today. We've put all our outdoor gear into the garage. We've stocked up on food. We've tested the generator. Our camping trip is on hold.

After Earl we're expecting Tropical Storm Fiona. Ironic huh!

Pray that we don't get flooded.

It's Spring!

After a long cold winter the seasons have turned and it is finally spring. Leaves are unfurling on our deciduous trees, hostas are popping up from the earth and the azaleas are blooming.

I have two favourite moments in spring: the blooming of the ornamental pear trees that then shed their confetti like petals and the blooming of the dianthus. The pear trees cast their spell over the week of Henry's baptism whilst the dianthus have shot up their flower stems. I am eagerly awaiting the first sight of colour and the smell that tells me that spring has sprung. (In contrast whilst the pear trees look pretty they smell terrible!)

We are looking forward to a season of quiet renewal. We've been busy doing family things, extended family things. Auntie Kat, Uncle Michael, Nanna and Grandpa have come and gone. It's been a fantastical ride especially for Lucy where each new day brought fun activities, presents and plenty of attention.

Andrew and I are both tired. The baptism was a big event, the majority of which was co-ordinated and delivered by the two of us. Our season of quiet will be short but hopefully sweet starting out this weekend with some weekend camping in the backyard.

I'll post a video of Henry's baptism soon

Some more snow photos

Weekend snow

Yes it snowed! [photo is of the front of our house] We went to a Valentine's Dinner at church on Friday night. On the way home at 8pm it started snowing. We all rushed out into the backyard to catch snowflakes on our tongues. We had a very fun Saturday making snowmen, snow angels and riding on a sled. We have lots of photos which I'll try to upload soon. Now, 48 hours later, the sun has been out and 99% of the snow has melted. It's back to being just plain cold.

Snow snow snow

It's supposed to snow here tomorrow. We hope so. It's so cold it may as well snow. Then hopefully winter will be over and we'll be back to complaining about the humidity.

Weekend rain

It rained and rained and rained on the weekend. Pretty much it rained steadily for 2 days and it was freezing. Literally freezing!! It is so disappointing to go through winter, for it to warm up and for it to become winter again. Oh well. We are enjoying looking through seed catalogs to find heirloom tomato varieties and dreaming of summer harvests.

We watched a lot of Aus Open tennis, played board games and went to dinner at the Lingenfelters (to play Bohnanza). On Sunday we became church members and at night we had a visit from the Atentos. Andrew did some weekend work which made the weekend very unfun. Here's hoping next weekend fares better.

Fathers Day weekend

Apart from the obvious (and I don't need to buy any presents for that!) Fathers Day is our last big celebration this year until December. Andrew enjoyed breakfast in bed (though not as much as Lucy did) and loved his new roasting pan and vegetable grilling pan. He has already put the roasting pan to good use by cooking a lamb roast for dinner. [We gave him the vegetable pan a week ago when we were having a bbq so that he could char-grill some capsicum and zucchini.] We also went out for lunch to Boca Bay to enjoy their Sunday buffet brunch. It was excellent but there was definitely a large bias towards the sweet end of the spectrum so Andrew converted to the Atkins diet of meat and eggs. We all came home and had a 2.5 hour nap!

Weekend update

We were very busy over the weekend and we are all exhausted (esp. Lucy!) Here's a quick rundown:

Weather: On Wednesday it was snowing and below zero for most of the day. On Saturday and Sunday it was 21 degrees celsius. Most people in Wilmington are sick with colds but is it any wonder?

Hardware store visit: Andrew and Lucy went to CB for a pancake breakfast and then onto Home Depot for some shopping and the monthly kids craft. Lucy made herself a lovely trinket box and Andrew got some supplies for the pizza oven.

Visitors: Pastor Phil and Teresa came over for lunch (a lamb roast of course) followed by a Lindt chocolate orange cheesecake. It was Phil's first taste of lamb and he liked it (well he probably wasn't going to say anything else in front of Andrew, but I really do think he enjoyed it)

Pizza: We fired up the pizza oven for our first guests, the lovely Vega family. We had a great time getting everything ready, though we had forgotten how much preparation and clean up there is. Andrew loved putting his pizza apron back on and everyone was excited! Even though this was a last minute thing we still managed some awesome ingredients included lamb, goats cheese, artichokes and sausage. We convinced the Vegas to watch some Aussie Rules and they took home a DVD to watch some more of the mighty Hawks and laugh at the Australian ads. Here are some of the photos. Note in the photos of Lucy her facial expressions: before eating pizza and then after eating pizza!

While you were sleeping...

it snowed!

and the pizza oven construction inched forward!

and not much else apart from all the regular things.

By the way, happy Australia Day!

It's snowing!!!

Weekend highs and lows

Family update: In between Christmas parties (two - Elizabeth & Trung's and one at church) I've been in bed sick. Lucy has been using this time imaginatively by 'going to the beach' which means putting on her swimming costume and loading up a wagon with hats, sunscreen, food, clothes (and whatever else she deems necessary) For some reason she thinks lots of socks are required as she doesn't want to get sandy feet (even though she has NEVER worn socks to the beach before and likes the feeling of sand) Needless to say there is stuff everywhere! Andrew has been cooking and tidying up as well as working on the pizza oven.

Pizza oven update: We are ordering the stones today and wood in being delivered this afternoon

Weather update: Last week it was 20-25 degree celsius every day. It was awesome. Today's temperature range is 4 to -7 degrees celsius! Christmas day ironically will be back to 22 degrees!

Weather update

The weather has been crazy lately as it cannot make up its mind as to which season it is. Here's a rundown:

13 October it was 90 degrees and we were swimming at the beach!

18 October autumn arrived and the temperature dropped to 60 degrees (with lows of 38)

1 November we are back at 75 degrees (and this is still the case today).

We are basking in these North Carolininan blue skies even though we know this weather will break soon. I think God gave NC a extra pinch of something special when he formed it.

Autumn, we are awaiting you!