This last week has had a bit of a Dr. Seuss theme, but I'll get to that later. First I want to start with a major event for the area here...Elder Russell M. Nelson came! The talk by the apostle was specifically for the leaders of the surrounding stakes, but as Matt and I arrived a couple of minutes late it was clear that news had spread and more than just leaders were present. We were able to squeeze into some open seats but unfortunately I could not see any of the speakers. Here's just some awesome comments Elder Nelson and his wife made:
- What we look at matters! Sis Nelson
- There are no dead, they are living! Sis Nelson
- Men are stubborn, but none are so stubborn that they can withstand the LOVE. Elder Nelson
Gideon final test for choosing his army of 300. Judges 7
The following day we had sister missionaries over for dinner and they shared some of what Elder Nelson talked about with them. Many stories in the scriptures have the seemingly impossible occur such as the virgin Mary giving birth, or Elizabeth giving birth in her old age. These occurrences are to show evidence of God, because how could it be otherwise? In Judges 7 Gideon's army is reduced to 300 to fight an army of around 135,000 men. Elder Nelson told the missionaries that this ratio 1:500 is the same ratio of members to nonmembers today! We are the minority, but just as the Lord showed Gideon and many others...great things can come to pass in small numbers. As my old institute director Brother Richardson used to say "The Lord loves ridiculous odds!"
The rest of the week seemed to fly and on Saturday I got up before Matt at 5:30 am so I could go with Cate Lynch for a run in the city commonly called the bay run. It's a beautiful 7km path around the bay and we got to be there for the sunrise. Unfortunately, we were not in any condition to run the whole way, but we hope to return frequently and improve each time. (Photos below have been instagrammed)
Later that day I met up with Cate and Racheal so we could prepare for the Young Women New Beginnings activity the next Tuesday. Since we had a Dr. Seuss theme we created some large paintings of some key characters. It's been a long time since I had sketched or painted, but between the three of us and the help of our artistic YW Alayna it all turned out really well. We just had the activity yesterday and after tying Green Eggs and Ham, Horton Hear's a Who, and The Lorax to the gospel we played Family Feud! I learned later that Family Feud and Jeopardy aren't broadcast here so many people haven't heard of them :(. It was a lot of fun though and to top it all off we had some Dr. Seuss themed treats!
On Saturday Matt and I also attended a mission farewell for a girl in our ward. We will certainly miss Natalie Payze but I'm sure she will be an awesome missionary in Adelaide. Although I didn't spend all night talking to Natalie, it was really great just to get together with many of the ward members and chat. The Scott family are great hosts!
The major downside of all these activities is that I have eaten a LOT of sugar and baked goods lately! Racheal gave me a loaf of banana bread, I had made cinnamon rolls for one of the youth's birthday, and I made snicker doodles for choir on Sunday. I also still had leftover cheesecake I had bought early in the week. Once you had all of that with the eating out at uni and other catered events - I have officially gained 2-3 lbs! So much for my goal of losing weight! I made a commitment that I wouldn't let myself get over 140 lbs or 25% body fat again. Now that I have I just really need to stick to a plan. So at the beginning of March I am going to be calorie counting again and exercising every day but Sunday.
As for some other events. We had FHE with Brock and Kaytlin as usual. They made these awesome pizza scrolls which I will definitely need to learn how to make! They are so tasty and a little healthier than pizza. After Matt's lesson we had cinnamon rolls and played XBOX Kinect Adventures game!
Another "adventure" came the following day when I was getting ready to go to uni. I noticed the cat was hanging out in the bathroom and when I went in there I found a huntsman (click here for a funny article describing the huntsman)! This particular huntsman was average sized with the body about two inches in length and 1/2 inch in width and overall with legs he is slightly smaller than a palm. He had only four legs - one side had three and the other only had one. I wasn't sure if Shade had just caught legs and eaten them, or he found the spider that way. I kind of felt bad for the non-aggressive spider because with his disability and Shade's attentiveness he had no chance. Unfortunately I had to leave and I was worried shade might eventually eat him and throw up later (they are mildly toxic and he is still a kitten). I gave Shade an opportunity when I coaxed the spider onto a towel and dropped it to the floor, but Shade hadn't seen it and just kept meowing trying to figure out where it was while walking right over it. I decided I would just spray the spider with pesticide and then I covered it with a container so Matt could see it later. Now I have officially had the huntsman experience - time to move on with other things.
I think it is safe to say I need to add a reminder in my phone that goes off throughout the day that reminds me to take pictures of things. Kudos to all those bloggers out there that are somehow capable of taking photos of everything that goes on in their life! I will say that I do have loads of cat photos so maybe I will just start adding lots of cat photos when my life seems particularly empty of pictures. Here is one to start....
Now that I am officially at uni often it has been a boring, fun, and slow start. My lab/office mates are awesome and it is particularly great that I have Kelly who is also doing the MRes program so we can go to things together. Not to mention she's just a blast in general.
We had multiple workshops to go to that were long and I'm not entirely positive were useful, but I tried to make the most of it. Although the one on project planning was longer than I felt it needed to be, I was excited to check out some of the project planning software they mentioned. I was sad that all of it costs money and so I will stick with my excel spreadsheets and calendar system. For those of you that struggle to get stuff done during the day though, I will recommend the Pomodoro technique.
Besides workshops Kelly and I spent some time working on a large yearly calendar for the lab so everyone can see when our workshops and assignment type stuff was due. It is ALWAYS worth spending the time to get yourself organised. I am glad we finished it and especially that the calendar was free from the bookshop.
Kelly was also really helpful as I edited my literature review on tiger vocalisations. There are two really awesome types of referencing software which are SUPER useful for creating citations and bibliographies. I was taught to use a free program called Zotero in the US, but at Macquarie they use Endnote which is not free but the university has a license for us to use it. They are pretty similar, and Kelly was telling me how to add in-text citations with Endnote and so I figured out how to do the same in Zotero. In the end I cleaned up my citations and bibliography! If you look up a lot of articles and things I highly recommend using one of these programs.
As for Matt, he has had some good and bad times recently. The good news was he got a side job painting a beautiful unit right next to the Manly Wharf. The bad news was that the woman owning the unit broke her leg about an hour after he met with the woman who owned it for the first time. Additionally, he may have received multiple tickets for running a red light (they have camera red light systems for some intersections and if you run a red light you will see a flash and later get a bill in your mailbox). The other good news was that Matt was able to finish that job in three days! The bad news was that he had to work 12 hour days to finish it and we didn't do anything for Valentine's day. Unfortunately, he also had a small accident with a parked car that he slid into due to the wet roads that damaged the front bumper and hood of our car. More good news is that he's all done and back to regular work hours (until that job's done) and we did get to have a nice dinner when he finished the job.
Manly Wharf view from the apartment
Another major event was the beginning of a "Come Dine with Me" activity organised by our friends Erika and Mike Barnett. Basically each couple makes a fancy two course meal for the others along with an activity or conversation starter. We rotate each month until everyone has done their meal and we pick the top 3. This turned out to be really stressful because Matt and I went first and two of the girls are pregnant so I had to avoid soft cheeses and things for them, and one is also gluten intolerant. I wanted to do italian but I was stressing how to make my chicken cordon bleu, pasta, and cake roll gluten free. I had just figured out what to do when that couple dropped out. In the future I think I might try making more gluten free food so I can have those skills, but in the end I reverted back to the non-gluten free options. We had chicken cordon bleu, roasted garlic parmesan asparagus, salad, mixed steamed veggies, rolls with oil and vinegar to dip, shell pasta, and an amazing homemade garlic alfredo sauce. For dessert I made a sponge roll with homemade whip cream and candy bar bits. Sorry for the lack of pictures but you will just have to use your imagination! I think it turned out well although I was surprised the cheese wasn't melted in the chicken and I made way too much pasta - leftovers? Also, a wonderful perk was that everyone gets along so well that there was no need to plan a conversation activity since everyone had no problem contributing to various topics from tattoos, movies, books, documentaries, and church stuff. It was a fun night, but I must say I am glad my night is over and the next 4 months we can enjoy someone else's big meal!
And there's just a few more things I thought I should add.....
like the view from my run one Saturday,
Matt super happy playing a Lego game with Brock,
And the centipede Matt found one day that the cat REALLY wanted to eat,
As usual I have waited too long for posting. My goal this year was to post weekly and of course when we fail we don't give up...we keep trying!
Last week was incredibly "church" eventful starting with a fun jar making activity with Young Women, getting visited by home teachers (they do exist!), setting up a youth dance with a Chinese New Year theme, and heart attacking one of our Young Women for her birthday.
During this week, Matt and I had the upcoming doom with his last day being Friday at work. Not to mention he hadn't been paid in a while and I still hadn't received my financial aid. We had an upcoming energy bill that I wasn't sure when it was going to charge and our rent bill. My account got down to a low $70 and we were just praying that we were going to get money in time for the next bill.
I had a couple of interesting issues where I went to lunch for my supervisor's birthday with other lab members but I forgot my credit card and someone had to pay for my lunch. Although I didn't intentionally do this, it was fortuitous since I found out I had less money than I thought.
For a while I have been using Sheer Cover mineral makeup and they send auto-ship orders which means it wasn't too long till I had too much makeup. Months ago I called and I thought I cancelled my membership but when another shipment appeared it turns out I had only put a hold for six months. This made me really upset because I got charged for it without any e-mail notification that I was getting anything sent to me and of course to send it back I lose $12 in shipping. Through a lot of arguing on the phone I was able to get them to pay for shipping to return the products and cancelled my account. Somehow I got the product back and had to resend it again. By the time they got the product I had already been charged for the second payment! Needless to say I was extremely upset with the company and their customer service is atrocious! DON'T BUY SHEER COVER PRODUCTS!
Hanging on the edge of having absolutely no money Matt's employer finally paid him half of what he was owed. We wanted to put the money in my account since that's where the bills come from and I panicked as I rushed to the bank minutes before they closed. When I got there the teller was closed, but an employee showed me how to use the ATM deposit system that not only counts your money right there but it shows up instantly on your account! As I checked my bank account at home it turned out that I had also received my large financial aid deposit!
It all happened in the nick of time before our bills were due and Matt was out of work. Not to mention we were nearly out of food and cat litter. We celebrated by finally going to TGIF's as we had planned for my birthday. I must say that they have terrible service here but at least the food is good and this time it wasn't a three hour dining experience.
Matt and I also went rock-climbing where Matt managed to break upon the same blister from the last time we went as well as create new ones. It was a short trip since Matt lost so much skin, but I was proud of myself for trying harder and finally getting to the top of more than one bouldering route. I'm still at the lowest level, but hopefully I can build up the strength to do harder routes.
On Sunday I had the joyful experience of being the chorister for sacrament meeting. I messed up a lot and it didn't help that the first song actually changes the count multiple times in the song. It's amazing how bad I am at that, but having someone there is better than nothing. Additionally I held a meeting after church to start our ward choir! I'm no choir director but I'm hoping that we can all work together and come up with some good songs to add to our sacrament meetings. We have a wonderful ward!
This week Matt and I switched places where I went to uni every day and he stayed at home and slept in. He now has his ABN (tax number for businesses) which allows him to do painting work on his own. Through friends he has also had little opportunities to make money. Mike from our ward has a business doing deliveries with his van and invited Matt to help deliver pianos and things. A friend from the painting job he was at got him signed up with his wife's casting agency and he went to a casting call (basically they just call the agency if he fits the bill for an extra in their movie). Also, the builder of that same job hired Matt for a few odds and ends for the last two days. We have been very blessed with spectacular friends!
As for me, I now have a desk with my other lab members! This means that I will go to uni regularly to work on my project, read articles, etc. I'm working with Tasmanian Devil girl Kelly, Dingo girl Eloise, and Bat guy Time. I'm excited to be tiger girl and I am excited to get started!
Unfortunately, we are still waiting on Taronga Zoo paperwork before starting research and this week was mostly filled with workshops. The Masters of Research program is filled with many workshops and checkpoints, so to speak, to help us complete this large thesis. It's mostly really boring, but I'm trying to get as much out of it as I can.
I also got a fun late birthday package from my family! The best thing was the cat toy which Shade destroyed the first day and yet still plays with the mangled remains. He's a goofball!
Last week I posted on my birthday, but now I can officially report how I celebrated it! Matt and I originally planned to have a nice dinner at TGIF's but as funds are low for the time I knew that wasn't going to work out. Conveniently, my supervisor Jennifer Clarke and the others in her lab offered to take me out to lunch on my birthday. We went to a nice Italian restaurant near uni and the food was amazing!! Italian food is my favourite! I had homemade spinach and ricotta ravioli, garlic bread, and a beautiful flan for dessert. I learned that flan is called cream caramel here and this actually led to a large debate because the Aussie's claimed cream caramel is not the same as flan. Having tasted it I would say there is no difference, but the only French girl in the lab later confirmed via the web it is definitely the same thing.
In the evening Matt and I went rock-climbing at a really small local place called the Bloc. We learned it's not a big rope-climbing place but focuses more on building skill and strength with bouldering. I've never been as big in bouldering because I burn out fast. Also, I love climbing not necessarily for the challenge but to get the top which is not really the purpose of bouldering. The rating system is different too and I felt so weak when I could only complete a route on the lowest level - number 1. My hands hurt a lot at the end, but I'm looking forward to future visits to improve my skills.
To top off the night we watched the movie Red 2. Sometime during the movie our cat shade suddenly perked up and headed toward the door. Not too long after we had a knock on the door and found a surprise birthday cake on our front doorstep! I was sad I didn't get up with the cat and catch the mysterious cake givers in the act, but I later had confirmed suspicions it was Brock and Kaytlin! It was a great day!
I originally figured I wouldn't get a cake for my birthday so I had already made plans to make cinnamon rolls. I have officially decided I am getting a lot better at making homemade cinnamon rolls! Not quite Cinnabon style but each time the dough is getting better.
The day after my birthday I went to meet with the Young Women presidency to make gratitude jars as examples for the young women the next week. It later turned into more of a fun chat between girls. To my surprise Cate had also gotten me a cake! Normally I don't really like cake but the two chocolate cakes I had for my birthday were really good!
Matt surprised me Friday night by bringing home huge rolls of carpet from work. It's brand new carpet that was going to be tossed! So we spent Saturday morning cleaning and cutting the carpet to fit our dining room. It feels so weird to walk on nice normal carpet where I'm used to walking on our pink disgusting carpet! Matt is also planning on using some large tubes from work and leftover carpet to build something really fun for the cat so stay tuned for updates on that!
We also were able to enjoy the weekend with some Super Smash Bros Brawl and movies. We've now unlocked all the characters in the game! Matt's now discovered even more fun things to do in the game. I am thinking that we will eventually have to buy our own game since this is the Butler's game with their Wii. As for movies we have watched The Lovely Bones which we both hated in the end (long story) and Kon Tiki. A long time ago my mom advised I read Kon Tiki and I loved the story of how just a handful of guys sailed across the ocean on a handmade raft! I definitely would recommend the book and the movie!
Australia day was this last Sunday which is basically the Australia equivalent of Independence Day in the US. For the first time ever I participated in singing the national anthem here titled Advance Australia Fair! As for any other traditions I don't really know, but I am told that it is a popular day for some serious drinking.
Since the Monday after Australia day is still a public holiday, Matt didn't have to work and I had plans to do an early morning hike with the Young Women. Unfortunately, the hike was cancelled but instead Cate, Racheal and I decided to organise the YW cupboard. It was crazy some of the stuff we found in there such as picture frames that looked from the 70's and tons of posters where most were duplicates. It was fun just to talk and make things look better.
Cate said she was going to Manly beach later with her friend Mariella. I asked Matt if he wanted to go but he wasn't too interested in join anywhere and he would be the only boy. In the end it became just a girl's day out at the beach with Cate, Mariella, Kaytlin and I.
The weather was beautiful and the water was great. My only issue was that the water was really dirty from all the storms we've had recently. Kaytlin was saying how she was glad there weren't any blue bottle jellyfish around. Surprisingly my biggest fear of getting in the ocean in Australia is not sharks, but jellyfish.
As Kaytlin and I went back to the water for a second dip in the water they announced over the speaker that some people had been stung by blue bottles and were advising if you get stung there is no immediate cure so to just remove the tentacles and wash with fresh water. I wasn't too worried since we were going into the main swimming area with loads of people. As Kaytlin and I got about hip length in the water I felt something really itchy on my leg that began to sting. I eventually pulled my leg out and saw blue stringy things around my left leg! Naturally, swimming time was over and I walked out of the water and the rest of the strings had come off in the process. While walking back to our stuff we saw three blue bottles just lying on the beach. After washing it off it was still stinging pretty bad and eventually I got little puffy dots where the strings had been wrapped around. About an hour later the stinging had subsided and overall I decided it wasn't so bad. They made several announcements that there were at least 50-70 blue bottles just on the beach and if you didn't want to get stung you shouldn't be in the water. My favourite was when they said if you didn't want your kid screaming for the rest of the day from the pain then you shouldn't let them in the water! In the end it wasn't quite as bad as a bee sting or even a mosquito bite because those throb and itch whereas stinging pain you can just wait it out.
Cate, Katelyn and I
Mariella, Cate, and Katelyn
The puffy spots from the jellyfish sting on my leg
Other pain soon showed up from the beach trip. All of the girls had gotten burned even though they regularly reapplied sunscreen. I didn't feel burned at all but after I got home and had taken a shower the truth came out. My back was badly burned along with parts of my legs and my face. Katelyn and Brock came over for FHE later and I was lathered in Aloe Vera and I let her borrow my solarcaine for the very severe and painful burns.
Matt and I finished off the Australia day weekend with a classic Australia movie called The Castle. It has a lot of swearing unfortunately, but it's just a fun David and Goliath kind of movie that I saw years ago when I first came to Australia. It's been a wonderful week!
What goes up must come down right? Well this last week has had some good things and then some surprising news.
Last week we had a great FHE with Brock and Kaytlin. Brock was excited because he won the game Zigity and in the past he hasn't had too much success with the games we've played. This week they both killed Matt and I at Sequence so I think it's safe to say Brock's losing streak is over!
On Sunday I spoke to the missionaries and asked what they had planned for their p-day. I was surprised to hear they had no plans because on my mission sometimes p-day activities were all I had to look forward to. So I invited them all to come to our house for games. I made a huge list of tons of games you can play with a lot of people for free and helped give them ideas for future ideas. Then we played telephone pictionary (click here for rules) which turned out so well!
Not too long after all 9 missionaries left to get to work I had the Young Women in the ward over for a movie night! Since the girl's struggled to decide on a movie I picked my favourite - Everything You Want. It was a great and busy day!
Over the last week I had a couple of meetings for Young Women's. I'm so excited to be working with these girls and the other leaders Cate Lynch and Racheal Laugery! Our first meeting as a presidency was great and I was positive Cate is very inspired since when we went to the Stake meeting later some of the things they suggested we were already doing.
Matt and I also have enjoyed watching some movies including Warm Bodies and Red Dawn, but my recent new favourite is Cake Boss. I've watched so many episodes that even though I don't like cake, Matt and I are both interested in trying a Carlo's Bakery cake some day. I think sometime I'd like to try and make a nice professional cake too.
Some really great things that happened this last week is that Matt finished building the stand for our new air conditioner! Finally we have a nice working air conditioner to keep our bedroom cool so we can actually sleep at night.
Also, I have great school news! Firstly, my financial aid has been processed and I will be getting my loan money soon. Secondly, I met with the tiger keepers at Taronga Zoo with my supervisor yesterday and we are going to start my research project as soon as the final paperwork is done! They have a great set up to do audio and video recordings. It was so cool to be so close to them, although unfortunately one of the tigers suddenly was really anxious and started running toward the bars where we were and full on did an aggressive roar. We're not really sure what set him off, but he seemed to be targeting the one male of our group and the zoo doesn't have any male keepers. Unfortunately this made the keepers more nervous about having us in that same area again so we'll see what will happen.
Some other great stuff is I've heard from my sister on her mission and she is loving it! She just left to Dallas, Texas and I'm so excited for her!
With all good news there seems to come bad news. Unfortunately I am getting less financial aid than I was originally offered because they didn't account for my scholarship money. That same day Matt came home and let me know that his boss said that as soon as this last big job is done that he will need to find another job. I know Matt is a very high quality painter, but apparently his boss would prefer him to sacrifice more of his quality for speed. For someone who has done very fast and high quality work for over 12 years it's not so easy to start lowering standards. We hope this will be a blessing in the end, but as Matt hasn't been paid yet we are running rather thin. We're praying he will be able to find another painter than can appreciate his high quality work and pay him what he's worth.
Oh and I guess I should mention today is my birthday....happy 28th birthday to me! Money is tight at the moment so maybe I'll celebrate later. Have a great week!
My favourite thing about the new year is the feeling of starting anew. I make goals all the time throughout the year, but at the beginning of the year is where I really assess if I met last years goals and make new ones for this year.
I managed to get Matt to sit down with me and we made long lists of goals for the new year. At first the list seems very long, but we started the year by picking just one item on the list to work on per week. The next step is actually working on that goal, which through the use of phone reminders and a nifty goal app called strides (click to see iTunes app) I can remind myself to do things as well as track my progress each day. I truly believe anyone can achieve their goals if they make a plan and find ones to help motivate them to keep at it!
Besides making goals, Matt and I had a good New Years week because Matt didn't work the day before or after new years.
New Years we went to our friend's Gideon and Clarissa's party at their family's house complete with pool and BBQ. We went together with Brock and Kaytlin and played in the pool, ate some good food, played games, and of course watched the amazing Sydney firework show on TV.
I learned that besides the heat in December, there are other New Year's differences from the US. Unfortunately you can't buy your own fireworks here so you don't see mini firework shows on the street. Of course there are still those daring people breaking the law and doing their own show at home. The upside of this is that the city firework shows are bigger and better!
Gideon and Clarissa Watts
Kaytlin and I
Matt and I took advantage of his day off and decided to go to Terrigal beach up north. There is nothing so relaxing as being able to do swim and body surf in the ocean and then dry off in the warm sun. It turned out to be a beautiful day for it!
Now that the new year has begun I am supposed to be working on my Master's work again! Unfortunately I do not have tigers to study yet! Dreamworld said they won't be able to participate at this time, and the other sites haven't responded. So right now I'm basically waiting and hoping this all gets sorted soon. I need to have this sorted before I can be enrolled which may effect my financial aid and scholarship. Not to mention I need to get an ethics application in by Jan. 28 but I can't do that if I don't know where I am studying the animals!
In the meantime I have been finding time to watch recent movies like Frozen and the Hobbit! Frozen is amazing (see my favourite song below), but the Hobbit is somewhat unsatisfying because it is the middle of the movie series and there is no real end.
Additionally I was able to find e-books for the Tiger Saga series by Colleen Houck that I started months ago. If you recall, I read the first book but the library didn't have the second. So I have now finished the series! I loved them! Although the love triangle drove me crazy for a long time. Poor Matt dealt with a lot of me ranting about the books. I was so aggravated that the last book I spent all of one day reading to finish it. Can't wait to start some new series!
Other than that, we are just going about doing our daily stuff! It's going to be an interesting and exciting new year!
There seem to be about five stages that I go through on school breaks. This first stage is where I am just so excited that I don't have any assignments and want to do all the things I couldn't do before. The second stage is actually attempting to do those things I wanted to do but didn't have the time like practice the guitar, play the piano, organising the house, researching things, etc. The third stage is where doing productive things dies and your time is somehow completely filled up with TV, movies, and games. During this stage I am just happy I don't HAVE to do anything. The fourth stage is where I realise I am super lazy and have no desire to do anything productive. At this point it seems like there just isn't time enough during the day to do useful things. Finally, on stage five I am fed up with being lazy and the usual TV, movies, and games don't hold the same appeal. It is at this stage that I actually miss school and having a regular schedule of some sort to plan productive time and fun time. After a month break I'm already at stage five. Despite my perpetual laziness, there have still been some interesting occurrences in the past month and a half. First of all Matt and I were able to host a large Thanksgiving dinner with four other couples on a Saturday. It was quite a busy day with a baptism in the morning, Thanksgiving meal in the afternoon, and a youth activity in the evening. Matt gave a talk at the baptism while I stayed at home figuring out how to cook a perfect turkey. Luckily the meal turned out well including my turkey and surprisingly 10 people at one large extended square table allows for many good conversations. It was actually hard to get people out so Matt could get to his youth roadshow that evening on time. s
Our cat Shade is also getting a lot bigger! He is now over 4 months old and we have been finding plenty of new tricks for him to perform. We are still working on toilet training which has led to a very messy toilet seat and a couple of accidents, but he is doing well.
We went to a fancy ball for the stake one night and discovered that although we were an hour late since we fed the missionaries beforehand, they hadn't started yet! We waited around and chatted with the few people from our ward that was their and eventually they got started. My friend Erika from the ward and I tried to grab some food and were politely told it hadn't been blessed yet. So we danced a little and finally they blessed the food. We learned that night that maybe balls aren't our thing, and that our stake is comprised of mostly polynesians. At least Erika and Mike Barnett were there so we had fun chatting with them.
Closer to Christmas we went to two ward parties. One was for our ward, and the other was for my old ward that I went to before Matt was here in Australia. The Greenwich ward had a lady with two small donkeys for everyone to pet and they had a spectacular Christmas tree.
Both parties were a lot of fun, but I learned there is one Christmas tradition here I don't like - pavlova. It is a meringue type dessert with fruit and I did not like it. Also fruit cake and fruit pudding is common here and I don't like those either.
Early in the month I was told to arrange a Christmas program for sacrament and I had been practicing O Holy Night on the piano nearly every day to perform on the 22nd. It was difficult to arrange it all and get people for musical numbers, but all went well on the day of...except for my part. I was so nervous that I played the wrong notes frequently, I didn't project my voice very well, and my right legging was shaking so bad that it was hard to keep it on the piano pedal. It was easily worse than any time I had ever practiced it and I was the last performance! I was mortified, and I was so grateful for my honest husband that was willing to tell me it was bad when everyone else just commented how it is so hard to play and sing at the same time. There were also the few that somehow heard something other than me and stated I had the voice of angel..haha. Anyway I was just grateful that it was over and that at least the other musical performances by the YSA and the sister missionaries were wonderful and brought the spirit.
On the bright side....that day was when they announced my new additional calling in the Young Women's! I'm so excited and so was one of the youth Amelia who later people commented about her huge reaction upon the announcement. This next year is going to be awesome!
The whole month we have been watching various Christmas movies, but it still didn't feel like Christmas so we decorated our cat tree with tinsel and put lights around our living room. It helped a lot and when it came closer to Christmas we had a blast!
The day before Christmas Eve we went to the Sydney temple to see the fantastic lights and the Life of Christ display. They had many giant prints of various paintings depicting the life of Christ. Outside they had different sets showing the story of the birth of Christ, as well as a large image of the statue of Christ.
The day after that I spent all day cooking for Christmas. I made two batches of cinnamon rolls, banana oat muffins, and two batches of oreo truffles. It was a LOT of cooking. For the rest of Christmas Eve we went over to Brock and Kaytlin's for games on the Xbox and Wii. It was a great night although I guess it wasn't very centered on Christmas.
Christmas morning Matt and I got up early and opened up the presents we got each other. Normally we don't do presents, but since my family wasn't doing presents this year it wouldn't feel like Christmas without something to give to someone you care about.
After that we went straight to making the ebleskivers, french toast, eggs, and sausages for our large breakfast with all seven of the sister missionaries. They all helped set everything up and it was a wonderful morning. It was the first every Christmas for the two Chinese sisters and I hope it was a memorable one. We got them all gifts of coloured pencils and a small notebook so they would have something to open as well.
Many of the missionaries needed to use Skype including the two elders that came over later. So up until nearly 3 pm we had missionaries rotating on our two laptops calling home. Luckily with my Skype account the US missionaries could call home for free to make sure their family was available and online. Our only Aussie sister couldn't get Skype to work but luckily should could still use FaceTime on my phone! Yeah for technology!
While some were talking with their families upstairs, we played games with the rest downstairs. We played a game called Martian Fluxx and surprisingly I won most of the time!
After we said goodbye to all the missionaries we went over to the Bishop's house to have a late lunch/early dinner with them and play more games. We were so exhausted that we left by 6pm and went home to watch our favourite Christmas movies - The Grinch, and The Muppet Christmas Carol.
The day after Christmas is called Boxing Day here and is kind of like the Black Friday in the US where there are massive sales at many stores. We had no plans for shopping however, and had previously planned on going to the beach that day. Reports of rain and electrical storms hindered our plans with friends so instead we decided to go to the zoo. Surprisingly by the time we finished talking to our family it was a beautiful sunny day outside and our zoo trip didn't require an umbrella.
So that's about it! Here are some recent photos we took of our little family. Happy New Year!
Another "adventure" came the following day when I was getting ready to go to uni. I noticed the cat was hanging out in the bathroom and when I went in there I found a huntsman (click here for a funny article describing the huntsman)! This particular huntsman was average sized with the body about two inches in length and 1/2 inch in width and overall with legs he is slightly smaller than a palm. He had only four legs - one side had three and the other only had one. I wasn't sure if Shade had just caught legs and eaten them, or he found the spider that way. I kind of felt bad for the non-aggressive spider because with his disability and Shade's attentiveness he had no chance. Unfortunately I had to leave and I was worried shade might eventually eat him and throw up later (they are mildly toxic and he is still a kitten). I gave Shade an opportunity when I coaxed the spider onto a towel and dropped it to the floor, but Shade hadn't seen it and just kept meowing trying to figure out where it was while walking right over it. I decided I would just spray the spider with pesticide and then I covered it with a container so Matt could see it later. Now I have officially had the huntsman experience - time to move on with other things.
