Looks like snow!

I was mid-way through teaching Art with the Infants class yesterday afternoon when the sky blackened. With very little warning, hail started to fall, loudly pinging on the tin roof. We rushed to the windows to get a better look, and as the noise became deafening, I decided to let the kids go outside and experience the hail properly! The rest of the school was already out, running up and down the verandahs, squealing and shouting in pure delight. We stood under the cover of the school verandahs as the hail bucketed down. It was so loud that I couldn't even hear myself shouting!

It kept hailing for what felt like ages, but was probably only 15 minutes. By the time it was finished, everything was white and looked like snow had fallen.

Having spent the last 14 years in the Southern Highlands, we've seen quite a few hailstorms, but this is very uncommon for Wellington. For most of the kids here, it was a new and very fun experience! As the bell went for the end of the day, the high school kids took great delight in skidding along the ice and scooping up hand-fulls of ice to throw at each other. Driving home over an hour later, there were mounds of ice piled up under gutters and the remains of shredded trees lay scattered all over the ground. No ice at home though, so I'm guessing the hail storm was fairly localised.

Since moving to Wellington we have have so much rain. Burrendong Dam, which was sitting at just under 10% full in April is now over 90%, and still rising. Everything is so wet. The ground is soaked and can't take any more water, so it is all becoming run-off. I'm hoping the hail and drenching rain has done some damage to the locust eggs, which are due to hatch any day now.

Holiday visitors

It's been such a long time since I've posted anything here. Life for us has been SO busy and I haven't had the head space to sit down and blog.

We had three weeks of visitors over the holidays - much loved friends and family who came to visit and encourage us in our new adventure in Wellington. I think we've needed the encouragement, because it has proven to be quite a tough assignment for us out here.  Thank you to everyone who made the enormous effort of driving out to the Central West - we loved having you stay! Here is a snapshot of some of our adventures:

The Michie Family:

 Toasted marshmellows

Trivial Pursuit

Morning tea after church - enjoying the winter sun on the front verandah

An activity in learning to get along well with each other - we had heaps of fun making potato people!

 The Michie family, as you've never seen them before!

 

And here is our family, looking pretty snazzy too!

Annabel and I

Sarah and Bri - best friends and beautiful girls.

 

The wonderful Michie family, plus an honorary daughter!

Their willingness to come for a visit over the Long Weekend was so encouraging to us!  Great memories include seeing Bri and Sarah reunited; playing board games at every opportunity; watching Izzy devour Francine Rivers' The Mark of the Lion book in one weekend; and having the opportunity to debrief a little (OK, a lot) about our role here in Wellington.

The Sabbens and the Kings: 

 Feeding time at the zoo

Ok, this really is at the zoo!

Ezri and Linda

The Sabbens 

We loved hanging out with you guys so much! Great memories include playing Bohnanza, eating Garth's brownies, being pushed out of my kitchen (in a good way), eating vast quantities of M&Ms while pruning the vineyard, spending a great day at the zoo, setting up the Prep room at school, staying up late with challenging, inspiring conversation and lounging around in the sun on the front verandah. 

Family

We had a busy, but wonderful weekend.

Michael and Salome arrived on Thursday afternoon. Michael is Geoff's cousin, and lives in the Solomon Islands with his wife Salome, and  their two children Lovelyn and Mikey (who unfortunately couldn't come to Australia). We had been hanging out to see them, knowing we'd get a taste of the Solomons through them being here, and we were not disappointed. The girls LOVED seeing Salome again, and spent the evening playing with her hair, looking at Solomon photos, playing hand games and talking a bit of Pigin. It was just so nice to catch up, and the girls didn't want to go to bed in case they missed out on anything!

Friday afternoon saw my sister Jess, her husband Luke, and their three boys, Jack, Ben and Harry all arrive. It was their first visit to Wellington, and we were so excited that they would make the long drive out here. They'd spent the day at Dubbo Zoo (as did Michael and Salome).

The kids were so happy to play with their cousins ...

Elora helping Harry with a puzzle.

Jack and Brianna enjoying the Autumn leaves together. 

Jack, Sophie, Millie and Ben

Geoff and the girls had been looking forward to having a bonfire ever since we moved here, so it was the perfect opportunity to light up the wood pile and enjoy some toasted marshmellows.

It took a bit of effort getting it to light ...

... but after a while it was so hot we had to move back and wait for it to die down a bit, so we could toast the marshmellows!

On Saturday Michael and Salome left to continue their travels.
We enjoyed a relaxing day at home, with perfect winter weather.

Geoff and Luke set up the new flying fox, much to the delight of all the kids!

The boys all had a turn on the mower!

After a very late night on Friday, I made a concerted effort to have the kids in bed on time! We enjoyed wraps for dinner, then all watched Funniest Home Videos. 

These shows are always funnier when you are in a crowd!

Jess and Luke left on Sunday morning, with a big drive ahead of them. It was such a blessing to spend some time with my beautiful sister and her gorgeous family.

Playing house

It's a rainy, wet Saturday morning here - that means we haven't had to race out of the house for netball by 9am. Yay! Nothing better than knowing we don't need to go anywhere on at least one day of the week (although Geoff is at a prayer breakfast).

Whenever the house is tidy (we had people over last night, so it was tidy for that), the girls suddenly feel inspired to play, and that play usually involves a whole heap of mess! So in a matter of minutes, our lounge room was transformed into 'homes' with blankets, chairs and piles of books.

Elora and Bri

Sophie and Millie in their 'book world'.

The girls spent ages making signs to decorate their homes, but Millie and Sophie were unable to keep the peace in their home, and it all ended in tears!! After some serious negotiations, they decided to make their own homes. Now more of the house has been taken over with blankets and books, but I'm happy to say there is peace once again!

Family favourites

With six people in our family, it is hard finding meals and snacks that everyone loves. I try not to pander to all the individual likes and dislikes of each of my daughters. I certainly don't go down the path of making different meals for everyone in the family. The girls all have to eat just a small amount of whatever is dished up for dinner, even if they don't like it, but it is so much more enjoyable when everyone loves the meal. I am pleased to note that as the girls get older, they are becoming slightly more adventurous with food, but sadly anything with spice, heat or too much flavour (ie, all the things Geoff and I like) are not high on the list of favourites yet! (We're looking forward to the day when we can all sit down and enjoy a good Thai feast - doesn't have to be for a while, because there aren't any Thai restaurants in Wellington anyway!)

The girls favourite dinners are home made sausage rolls, wraps, nachos, spaghetti, BBQ and pizza. Bit boring really. We've been using the slow cooker a lot lately - Geoff joined a facebook slow-cooker group and found hundreds of recipes. We tried the potato and leek soup on the weekend and loved it (well, most of us anyway!)

As far as snacks go, Banana Choc-Chip Muffins are an absolute winner in our house. The recipe is one Mum gave me in a little hand-written recipe folder when I got married. I make them all the time and freeze them for school morning teas. I can whip up a batch quickly on my own, but if the girls are home they are all keen to help, (so a quick Saturday morning task takes ever so much longer).

My oven has been broken for the past few weeks. (I had dinner in the oven, and opened the door to put our dinner plates in to warm them up when the door actually fell off. I was left holding six plates in one hand and the hot oven door in the other!) It took a while for us to find someone who would come out to Wellington to fix the oven. We have replaced the oven at our past two homes, and we didn't feel like spending a fortune doing the same here. So thankfully a man was found willing to drive 'all the way to Wellington' (from Dubbo it is only half an hour), and now, $350 later, our oven is fixed. Yay!

Banana Choc-Chip Muffins

Lightly beat:     2 eggs

                         1/2 cup milk

                         1/2 cup melted butter

Add                  2 mashed ripe bananas

Sift:                   2 cups SR flour

                         1/3 cup castor sugar

Add                  1/2 pkt choc chips

Gently combine mixture.

Bake in moderate oven, 15mins.

Makes 12-15

I always double or triple this recipe and freeze left over muffins for school morning teas.

Beauty all around us

Taken last week.

 Taken this week

Autumn is beautiful in Wellington. The weather is cool in the mornings and nights (so we can sit by the fire), and lovely and warm throughout the day (so the kids can play happily outside). But it is the spectacular colours in the trees on our property and around town that I am enjoying the most. That, and the roses. I have never noticed so many beautiful roses. They are adorning the front gardens of even the most run down looking houses, and make my morning and afternoon drive to school quite a treat.

 We have two small climbing rose bushes near the front door. I had considered getting rid of them, but am glad I didn't. They're quite pretty now that they are covered in little roses.

Having been inspired by the beauty around us, I spent nearly a whole Saturday pruning some old rose bush shrubs, which I'm hopeful will kick back into life with some TLC. We also planted five new rose bushes to enjoy next year. I love yellow roses the best. Do you have a favourite?

Visitors

I consider myself to be quite outgoing and find it easy to talk to people who I don't know. But moving to a new area has forced me to be constantly having conversations with people who I hardly know. After a while it gets exhausting (I know it won't always be like this, but building up new friendships takes time). So it has been wonderful to have some of our family come and visit us - easy conversations, relaxed company, lots of laughs and great encouragement.

Le and Mum drove up for the weekend two weeks ago. We managed to pack a lot into one short weekend - ballet, netball, Wellington Show, a garage sale, tour of the school, fireworks, and church. My favourite parts though were the delicious meals cooked or inspired by Mum, the morning and afternoon teas on the verandah enjoying the views, and the ability to catch up with people we know and love.

The girls had so much fun riding on Geoff's new lawn mower with Le! 

  

We laughed so much when Mum and Bri had a turn on the Dodgem Cars at the Wellington Show. They spent ages stuck in the corner, and couldn't seem to get the car going. When the man came and helped them, they straight away got stuck again. By this stage, Mum, Le and I all had lost it - we were laughing so hard the tears were rolling down our faces. Bri couldn't figure out how to steer, and didn't really know why we were laughing so much. It was so funny!

We're very excited about all the visitors planning on coming soon, (Sabbens, Kings, Harris, Reitvelds, McKenzies, Gillards, Harveys, Schultzs ...) and are looking forward to the laughs we will share!

All is well

We've been in Wellington for 6 weeks tomorrow.

I've been reluctant to blog again for many reasons - I guess my head has been too full trying to keep on top of everything whilst we have been adjusting to a completely different life out here. I know Wellington is not THAT far away, but it is so different to what we were used to.

I think I'm starting to find my groove now. This new blog is to help me stay connected with those of our friends and family who are happy to follow us in the blogging world.

And the title?
Just a reminder that all is well (no matter how hard things might be) when you are where God wants you to be.