Photos for my Mum's Sake :)

Well mother, here they are, finally some photos of the school property. the one up top is of the girls dorms. I stayed in the very far left one, and the one on it's right. the next photo down is of the path that we travelled so many times a day. we really should have taken an average because it must have been so many times! but it had a great view so it wasnt so bad. The next one is of the Hilton, which is the name of the Boy's dorms for our semseter. i dont know much about that place, things went on in there that the girls dont know about. Then its a photo of the main lounge where we would meet before meals, have devotions, chat and hangout. Then there is the Library where many hours were spent preparing bible studies... or trying to prepare bible studies while other people talked to you. some really good conversations were had in that library, and it's also the roof that i climbed to get Flo with a pail of water but it didnt work. Next is a wide picture of the conference hall on the left and the girl's dorms on the right. they were connected which was handy. Then its the main house from the front, and then the main house from the rear. we ate lunch outside when the weather was nice and a whole lot of water fights were battled there. pretty much each and every lunch we had outside ended in a water fight, especially on work days. Then theres a photo of the conference hall from the side door which is where we liked to hang out during morning tea inbetween lectures. it's actually quite the classic shot because Joel is telling a story, girls are eating icecream and the others are just sitting in the sun. the last one is of the foyer. the tele is in the far right corner, you cant really see it, but for those of you who i talked to on the phone, thats where it took place.

beach scene

Well now that christmas holidays are over it's back to the old grindstone... oh wait, not really. yesterday sarah and i went to the beach to meet up with some of her friends and they went swimming, i couldn't because of my silly toe. notice in the picture where i'm leaning back i have only one of my shoes on because i needed to protect the bandage from getting dirty. then we headed back to sarah's place for a BBQ and waffles. mmm oh the heavenly waffles!

war wounds

so this is what i did when i was sandboarding on boxing day. this is my left big toe after i stepped on something, possibly glass. it happened right after my run down the hill, so i really have no idea what i cut it on, but whatever it was it was sharp! i really didnt want to look at it in case i fainted, but i didnt!! hooray! so we went to the hospital and they put about four needles in my toe to numb it. it was so painful!! but to make things worse, the bed next to us (separated by just a curtain) was occupied by this man who was throwing up and making disgusting hacking noises. i thought that i might be sick, but i made it through. so then she cleaned out the wound of all the sand and dried blood and stitched it up with 8 stitches. it was actually pretty disgusting with all the sand and stuff, but its all better now and the stitches come out in a week. the last photo is of me with my sympathy icecream. we went into hungry jacks (which is like burger king) and the guy gave me a huge icecream!! so then i was content and the pain was a lot less.

Merry Christmas!!

hey guys! how have all of your holidays been? mine have been really good and hot...wow, today its really hot. these are some photos from the holidays. the one of me in a box is the costume that sarah and i made for her sister's christmas party. we both went into it, but we didnt wear it for too long because we felt pretty funny and it was hard to walk in and sit...and all the other things you do at a party. but we put a lot of work into it and we had fun which is all that really matters. so what we did for the holidays is this; we had a family dinner on christmas eve out in the shed, which is where aussies like to party. ;) and then we opened gifts inside. sarah's brother, brad gave us each a beanie. kind of ironic, but they're cute and will come in handy when things cool down. i also got an aussie towel from her sister and brother inlaw. and her parents gave us each an amazing hamper filled with goodies and vouchers so that we can have some fun times camping the the 4WD. then on christmas we went to the beach to have lunch with the rellies. we had a swim and played some beach games. good times. then in the evening we had dinner at mumma and pops (grandma and grandpa) with a lot of neighbors and other rellies. on boxing day we went to another beach and took the 4WD right onto the beach which was fun because it reminded me of driving in the snow. where we parked on the beach was a great spot because people kept getting stuck there and we would watch them for a while struggling and letting air out of their tyres. then after a few minutes tom, sarah's dad would help them out and all would be good. then we went sandboarding. it was a really good time but i dont really feel quite like it's christmas because theres no snow. have a good rest of the holidays!!

SHOES!!

these are my shoes. im devoting an entire blog to them because they are so amazing. they were only $19.95 and they are white. there is a beautiful buckle on the side and lovely seams all along the top. i bought them 2 days ago in albany from a store called spend less. its a lot like payless. they have payless shoes as well, but then another one called spend less. i absolutely love them, and they are very flat so they wont take up too much room in my bag. they are so lovely.

albany photos

Alroighty. (thats aussie for alrighty hehe) so the first photo is of a natural bridge in albany. sarah was my tour guide and took me to see all there is to see in albany. the bridge is huge and actually pretty cool to see. as we were walking along the rocks one of them creaked(ps we didn't walk along the bridge, just along the side) so we made jokes about us breaking the bridge. then there is the photo of sarah and i before we went to her cousin's wedding. i've already got to wear my dress three times! how great is that? and the last one is of our beach that we named the foot because of the rocks there that look like feet. how awesome!

more photos

so these are back from school. its fun to look back and see these photos. there is a photo of my church group at the church with the pastor in the center. and then there is one of nicola and i out at the house that is built into the side of the hill (its underground, how cool is that?) and they have roos jumping around in their backyard. then there is a random one of Flo and I sitting on the fence. we spent so much time together, but dont really have any photos of us, so enjoy this one because its pretty rare. then there is one of Joy in the hole that we dug. we then planted her in the hole and she twisted around and i was on the
floor laughing so hard! and then theres a random beach scene. its called the farm and its where lots of surfers go. i got to surf for a long time there, got a really bad rash on my leg, and a super really bad burn on my uppper legs...yeah... it was all girls so i didnt wear my boardies, just my bather bottoms which is a part of my legs that never see the sun. so to say the least putting on pants was extremely painful and to sit was a chore. anyway. these are my random photos!

grad photos

well guys here are some long awaited for grad photos. the first one is from the grad ceremony. flo thought it would be fun to pose with some flowers. cute photo though. There are also photos of all the canadians, all the germans, sarah and i, sale and i (we were taking a family group photo, and flo thought it would be cool to zoom in on the both of us) and then a few of us girls. it was so fun to get all dressed up and act like we were all fancy and stuff when we knew that really not many of us were cut out for the high class, proper kind of lifestyle. So our dinner was amazing and it was all very magical and fun. we were assigned seats and sarah, sale, flo and i were at a table. it was really cold near the end of the evening and we were sitting outside eating icecream balls and chocolates. it was a really good end to the semester. oh, and about my dress. when we went to campbelltown to go shopping, the first store we went into was really nice and they had a sale rack, so i just went to browse, andi found this amazing dress. it was only $30.00! how could i refuse. then we went to go look for some matching shoes. sarah and i both had our dresses with us, but to really see what the shoes would look like we wanted to put our dresses on. so we hopped into target, sliped on our dresses and then walked around the mall in our fancy dresses with little sneakers on. it looked hilarious. so i found some shoes for 20 bucks. bargain! and a necklace for about 10. so in total it cost me about 60 dollars. and i thought about it later, the man who gave me that 60 dollar tip at BP's that one time told me to spend it on something in my time in Oz, and so it came out almost exactly to that amount! so with this really generous man's money i got a grad outfit that i absolutely love. neat hey?

sydney, albany and heaps of fun

Hey guys. sorry that i missed out on filling you all in for a long time. school is all over and we had a few days in sydney as a group of students. we stayed in a hostel in colloroy, a suburb of sydney. there were 17 of us the first night and then we were down to four the second. then the rest of the days were spent in our group of sarah, sale flo and i. we had a lot of fun at manly beach, shopping, other beaches and hanging out at the hostel. on wednesday night, the very last night with the guys we broke off and sarah and sale went to some restaurant together and then Flo and i went to a thai restaurant overlooking darling harbour. it was a pretty flash place and overall it was a really good evening. then we went to the airport the next morning to send the guys off to germany. but unbeknownst to us, their flight had been changed and the airline had no way of contacting them, so the flight didnt even exist. they ended up catching a non-stop flight to frankfurt instead of a flight to taipai and then a 12 hour layover and then to germany, AND they were able to take more luggage (because it was a different airline) AND we had 5 more hours with them at the airport. How amazing is God? So once they were gone sarah and i took a teary shuttle bus to the marriot where one of the students, steph, was staying. we spent the night there and then took a train to the airport which is where we headed off for perth. once we got there sarahs sister, karlene picked us up and we didnt get to albany till 2 in the morning or something like that. the house is amazing and sarah and i are sharing a room (how could we not). sarah and sale are really serious, and she's probably moving to germany as soon as she's got the money. so things here are pretty temporary. im still in contact with the director at school to see what i need to do in order to be able to work there. so at the moment we are doing odd jobs for people here to earn some cash, hitting up the beaches at 6:30 in the morning, learning german and whatever else girls do in their free time. just keeping busy, trying to get fit because of the post-capernwray syndrome (gaining a couple kilos) ech. ~ta

Some shocking news

I wasn't sure how to tell all of you this, but i didn't want to do the whole mass email thing. word travels really fast back home anyway, so i don't have to be too worried about people finding out about this. I might be staying on for next semester here as a staff member in the kitchen. It's not written in stone yet because in order to get my work visa i need to be out of the country, so i may have to fly to new zealand in order to get it. terrible i know. I'll most likely be a cooks assistant and possibly an RA (resident's assistant) to live with the female students. I'm really excited about it, the staff are really excited and the students who are staying on for a second semester are really excited, and believe that God is excited about this too. So thats what is new. Last night i slept outside with just my sleeping bag and a sponge. it was really good, but super dewy in the morning, the bag was drenched, then This morning Flo and i went for our final tuesday morning run. we went at 5 in the morning so that we could see the sunrise and we ended up seeing a kangaroo too!! my first one close-up. then our family group had a lovely brekky outside this morning. we went to a national park and had a barbie with eggs, pancakes, bacon, crussants and youghurt. it was so great. it was on a cliff overlooking the most amazing view of "mountains" which to us are more like big hills. and there i saw my very first aussie snake. it was really big and phil tried to run it over because he hates them so much. things are coming to a close here, and its pretty sad. but on saturday night 17 of us students will be staying at a hostel somewhere in sydney near a beach so that we can all hang out before people take off for real. mm not sure what else to write. i should really eb packing instead of in town, but i am trying to put it off for as long as possible. ~ta