Christmas Moments 0f 2008

The Christmas Gift of Relationships

Family is such a precious gift that we can so easily take for granted. I am so grateful for these Christmas moments with family and friends.
Trin had a Christmas party with her friends and teachers from Daycare, the delight on her face as the dips into a bag of sweets, is priceless!
We shared time over lunch with the Montgomery family, Grandad, Vee and Bon in Mandurah on the 14th Dec.
We had Fish and Chips cracked crackers and reflected on highlights of 2008. One of the main threads through the highlights given by each person, was times with family.
Thank you God for giving us family!!!!
Thank you God for coming to earth!!!
Thank you God for giving us relationships!!!
Thank you God for Jesus' birth!!!Amen:)

"WHAT A LONG WALK TO WORK, MUM!!"

It was early one wednesday morning, and wednesday is "work day" for Mum and Trinity who are the main characters in this story. Mum was not looking forward to working because outside her window she could see the sky was already blue and not a cloud in sight, and not even a branch moved on the trees which meant no wind. "What a perfect day for the beach" she thought to herself. But there would be many more days like this to come as summer was only just starting, so she got herself ready for work as Trinity got herself ready too.
While Mum cooks in the kitchen, Trin could play with the kids at the daycare centre, so she enjoyed going to work with mum. She had to remember her bag, her hat, her drink bottle and a soft toy to rest with after lunch. She was ready and waiting for mum at the door.
"Ok" mum said, "let us go", and with that she opened the door and they walked out, mum locked the door behind her.
"Oh no" mum gasped.
"What mum?" asked Trinity.
"I've locked all the keys in the house, we won't be able to drive to work. How about we walk instead, but we will have to be quick, because we don't have long before we need to be there."
And so off they set, down the road, quite quickly to start with and then very soon Trinity said, "My legs are sore!"
"oh dear," thought mum, this is going to be a very long walk, but maybe I could carry her on my back and make up time.
"Hop on my back Trin," said mum. "Alright," said Trin and up she hopped up holding on tight to her mums shoulders as she walked fast down the path.
Then came a little hill, and the panting became heavy from mum's mouth as she tried to maintain the steady pace as they climbed the hill. At the top of the hill mum said, "Ok Trin, when we get to the corner you may need to walk so that I can recover, you can go on my back again when we get to the next corner."
And so that is how the rest of the walk went, some times they walked fast together and sometimes mum walked as fast as she could with Trin on her back.
They made it to work, only a little bit late. They were so happy to have achieved the big walk together and mum said to Trin, "Well done Trin, that was such good team-work, we made it to work walking the whole way!! I'm so proud!"
Trin felt tired, but was so pleased with the achievement of the big walk.
"What a long walk to work, mum!" said Trin, "Good team, mum!"and he pulled her drink bottle from her bag and gave herself a big drink!
The story doesnt finish there, there is still the homeward walk to come!!!
After work, at 2 in the afternoon, mum said "Come along Trin, time to walk home, we can walk along the beach and have a swim before we go home. That will cool us down."
"Yay," said Trin "I love swimming at the beach"
And so the pair set off again down the hill over the big oval, up a steep hill round a bend down another hill, up a road over the big road and down the last hill to get to the beach. All the way Trinity walked by herself mostly holding mum's hand.
"I don't see the beach yet, mum, when will we see the beach?" asked Trin quite concerned that it was going to be another very long walk just to get to the beach.
"When we get to the top of the steep hill we will see the beach, Beautiful Trin," said mum. and she was right when the reached the top of the steep hill, in front of them they saw the sparkling blue waters of the deep ocean. Almost there they both thought.
What a delight when they reached the warm sands of the beach, and heard the thunderous crash of each wave as it hit the shore. There were many people enjoying the refreshment that the cool ocean gave them on this rather warm wednesday.
Trinity had already taken her shoes off and let her feet touch the waters edge, she squeeled with delight!
The waves were rather big so mum said, "We may need to walk to the point ver there," and she pointed to the rockky outcrop quite a way ahead, "and just past the rocks there is a safer place you to swim"
"OK, mum," said Trinity and they walked at an easy pace toward to the place that mum had pointed to.
Trinity picked up shells and placed them safely in her skirt pocket, she climbed up sand banks and slid down with such pleasure. She dawdled and sang, and loved how the cool breeze swept through her hair as she walked.
It wasn't long before the reached the safer place to swim, and Trinity quickly stripped down to her knickers and ran into the cool water. She played and played and played some more, this was the best feeling after such a long walk. She squeeled happily and allowed the waves to knock her down playfully.
Then mum said "5 more minutes, we must head home so we can get the spare key from the Church nextdoor and then go inside to make dinner."
"Ok, mum, 5 more minutes." Trinity replied
And so with that she had the best five minutes of playing in the water that she could before time to get out.
It wasn't a very long walk from the beach to home, Trinity walked some of the way, but was suitably tired out from the days activity and so mum crouched down to allow her little girl clamber up onto her back like a monkey.
And so this was the last leg of the journey home and the two of them recollected the events of the day as the trundled homeward.
Thee next day mum measured the distance they had walked and it turned out that it was 8km to work, and at least 8km back. Maybe if we had known this before we would not have endevoured it so readily!!

Precious Paving

PERFECTLY PAVED WITH PRECIOUS HANDS!























The story of the Pavers goes like this;
One day, not so long ago in the city of Perth, suberb of North Beach, there lived a young maiden who desperately wanted to pave an area out the back of her house for more usable space for herself and her little daughter. She looked everywhere for cheap or free pavers, because her budget only allowed minimal funds for this paving project, but alas she could not find a suitable solution. And then one very warm Sunday afternoon, sitting in the lounge room with her friend, the fair maiden, lets call her Christi, received a phonecall from her dear sister who had spotted a sign for FREE pavers outside a house not far away. Well, what a delight! The only thing was that there were three hundred pavera and would need removing by the "taker". So Christi felt a little disheartened but not for long, for the friend who was at her house said, "I have a tow-ball on my car and the Church(next door) has a trailer, we could go and get them now if you like." And so that is exactly what they did.
I must say the rest of the afternoon was taken up by picking up pavers putting them in the tariler, taking out the pavers and placing them on the pavement along side the house. And the little daughter was brought along for the ride, and made a friend along the way.

So with the pavers in ahnd the next step would be to lay them. Now the young maiden had never laid pavers before but she was positively motivated to get them down and so she started digging up the grass out the back. once the area had been cleared of grass, she stopped, for this first part was exhausting. the ground laid bare for a number of days, until one fine afternoon her dear sister came to visit with her strong and helpful boyfriend. The three of them set to work at leveling the ground, and carrying some pavers from the front to the back.
And then they stopped, for the sun was setting and the dear sister and the strong and helpful boyfriend needed to leave.
A few days later the dear sister, her name by the way is Bron, cam by again to see the progress, but to her surprise there was no further improvement, and so with a little boost of motivation the two young girls and also a little help from the daughter whose name is Trin, the rest of the afternoon was spent paving with their precious hands. It did not take long before the area was fully covered and their work nearly done!
the next phase of the project now awaits to be tackled. To finish it all off so that it looks neat and tidy. But with precious hands the bulk of the job has been achieved. And what an Achievement!!

B is for Baking cookies!

10th October 2008

Today was a special day for Trinity, for she knew that when she woke up and had got dressed and eaten her breakfast, we would bake cookies together and use the special new cookie cutters sent buy Auntie Tam in America to make shapes in the dough!
First step was making the dough and rolling it into a big "boulder" as Trin thought it looked like. It needed to rest in the fridge for a while before it was ready to work with- Trin was very patient and checked on the "boulder" several times.
Then the time came to roll out the dough and cut the shapes out and Trin did such a fantastic job! and the cutters worked well, little shapes of Noah's Ark and just some of the many animals that God told Noah to find and take with him and his family into the big ship to escape the flood all those many years ago. We both enjoyed eating the baked and unbaked cookie dough!!

1/4 of a centuary

14 September 2008
To wake up on my birthday and have Mum, Vee, Bron and Trin all there to wish me Happy Birthday was the best present I could've had, taking into account the practicatility of having everyone I love and care about squeezed into my house from all the stretched out parts of the world not so realistic! I did not need a coathanger stuck in my mouth!
The first birthday I remember having was in Pietermaritzburg, and i got a little green bike for my 3rd birthday- it would have been only 3 days later that Vanessa was born and another reason to celebrate! I also remember my 5th birthday, at Kia Ora, the family farm in SA, Mum made me a swimmimg pool cake and I got three books which I still have today(Trinity reads them now) from a friend Justin Visser. Two weeks later Bronwyn was born, and another reason to celebrate! And so three September birthdays, and now 25 years on, we are all together and really good friends helping each other celebrate our special days!

The weather forced us to find another venue after we tried anyway to brave the beach for a BBQ and Beach Volleyball. We found a quiet little house with enough room in the backyard to play volleyball over the clothes line, and enough room inside to sing happy birthday and eat cake and have a laugh!!
I am so happy to have the Family and Friends that God has given me, and the Eternal gift of Jesus. I recieved countless sms', emails, and Facebook msgs wishing me happy birthday, Thank you so much!!! my love tank is full!
I remember one year when I was in std 3 or grade 5 as it is known here in Aus, and I invited
lots of friends out to the farm for my birthday, and only 2 people could come so I felt really rejected. But on my birthday, to my surprise the whole class had organised a surprise party for me and signed a massive card- which is the one in the photograph- and I still feel warm when i think on that time!!

Trinity a little Ballerina!

20 September 2008
Today my Little Baby, Trinity wore her full ballet costume for the first time after going to ballet lessons for the last three weeks in her OWN clothes and still remaining so positive and listening well to instructions even though she was the odd one out! And the excitement that shone through her as she slipped into the leotard and wrap-around skirt made me feel so proud of her. I have recognised for a while now that she really enjoys dancing, and everything musical and I thought Id wait until next year until I found a ballet class nearby, but when I enquired I thought maybe she could try it out and see if she was ready. And to both of our delight, she has taken hold of the classes well, enjoying having her own little way to express herself and learn some good life skills!