Lots of Snippets from the last couple of weeks

Cards from Aunt Meghan and Uncle Steve were a big hit!

This may be our first photo with all five of us in it!

Among the wonderful gift of having Aunt Kat and Uncle Matt up for a visit and the lovely presents for the kids, were some kites. These were a huge hit at the beach! Also, notice the burgandy State of Origin hat...more on that later.

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Mmmm...birthday cake

The days have been kind of melding together and I easily loose track of time. We are also down to one computer for the moment which means I just don't have as much time to sit and type. So here are some thoughts from hilights from the last couple of weeks, though they might be as I think of them rather than in chronological order...

In the forefront of my thoughts is that today is my daughter's first birthday. It seems to have gone by ever so quickly, but at the same time, a lot has happened! Just before turning one, she also decided it was time to walk. She must have understood my comments of how much later than she was than the boys at reaching this milestone and in one day went from 1-2 step journeys, to wandering accross the room! Less then a week later, she is teetering all around the house like a pro, determined to keep up with her brothers and claim her role as one of the kids and no longer the baby.

Last weekend was a long weekend here and we were blessed to have a visit from Matt and Kat from Melbourne. They met their niece for the first time and spent the weekend enjoying life in the tropics and being worn out by the children. We decided to celebrate the June birthdays while they were here, because we are still short on friends here. The weekend was full of excitement as we had birthday cake, loot bags, a trip to the beach, bbq on the strand, a picnic up top Mt. Sturt and the boys (big and little) enjoyed video games and building lego. The best part for me was having some other adults to talk to and having other people for the kids to play with. It was a whirlwind visit and the rest of the week was a blur as we all tried to find our way back into a routine.

Just prior to this visit, my husband finished his final exam and so has officially entered intersemester break. The placement we were hoping he would get out of the way has been delayed until the end of next semester, which means we are focussing more fully on looking for work. Because he doens't like to sit too long, he decided to undertake a three day race challenge this past weekend. It was marathon distance divided up into three parts and run friday night, saturday morning and sunday morning. He is quickly getting back into shape, made a little easier by the cooler days. Yes, I am laughing as I type that. It is winter here, but feels more like late August or early September. I was cold in shorts and a tshirt once, when we were right by the ocean in the evening. The rest of the time, I'm still happiest in what us Canadians would consider summer clothing.

As for feeling settled, it is slow in coming. Some days are harder than others. The house feels more and more like home, and as we have celebrations here and the kids achieve milestones here (like walking), my attachment to the house grows. I have a running path that I like, but otherwise I'm still almost completely lost the moment I leave the driveway. I have driven a couple of more times, but it is still a very stressful and overwhelming experience. I'm applying for work, but it is pretty discouraging as there really doesn't seem to be anything available in ministry. What else does an MDiv qualify you for? I'm open to suggestions! There are moments that confirm that this is where we need to be, but I am still uncertain of what that means for me.

I've just finished reading Exodus again, and I have renewed understanding of the wilderness experience. This huge group of people leave the only home they have known trusting that they are following God and then they wander and wait. What I love about it, is that the presence of God never leaves them. That is what I am clinging to.

One final image to leave you with. As part of the birthday celebrations, my two youngest received musical cards from my brother in Canada. Both the cards are quickly becoming well worn as the kids return to them over and over. My almost three year old opens his card and pounces on it with both hands trying to stumble accross the right spot to hear the little fishy song and then laughs and dances with delight when it begins to sing. My youngest searches out her card that only needs to be opened to play, but this is a task in itself for a 1 year old, so she turns the card and wrestles with it, until she manages to slip a finger in just the right spot for to open it and then takes it in two hands and opens and closes it repeatedly without ever letting the whole recording play, but laughs with pride and joy everytime. I'm trying to learn from my kids, and return to the things that bring me joy, inviting the little things to be the significant things.

June Update

Our youngest teaching dad how to play basketball. You will also see her excellent shooting form in the later photo. If you look closely you may also catch a glimpse of her first shiner, all part of learning to walk! She is such a tough girl already.

This fountain was a huge hit, but trying to get the kids at the right moment for a photo was certainly challenging. I have lots of pictures that have only the fountain in them. The rest of the splash area is more more impressive, but it is hard to pick out the kids in the midst of it all. It is a great place to visit, particularly because it is FREE!

So I have been a little negligent on keeping this up to date. My husband is in the middle of exams so we have been trying to keep life on the quiet end of the spectrum. Not an easy task with our three! Once exams are over we will all let loose again :) In particular, we are gearing up for a visit from Uncle Matt and Aunt Kat who are flying in for the long weekend, starting on Friday. We will also be celebrating June birthdays during the visit because we will actually have other people to celebrate with that way. Our youngest turns 1 on the 21st and our middle one turns 3 on the 24th. I can hardly believe how fast this last year has gone. I continue the battle of trying to explain to my oldest why his siblings birthdays come first even though he was born first. He still doesn't understand it. He insists that since he was born first, his birthday should be first. Oh well, as long as there is cake and candy he will be happy regardless!

Homeschooling is a bit of a challenge and I feel pretty overwhelmed still. I just got a contact for another homeschooling mom yesterday and I'm hoping this will help us find a social network. My oldest is settling in well for the most part, but still has days he cries because he misses his friends back home and I'm sure having some new little buddies here would help alleviate that a little. I have been trying to work on reading and writing with him, but he really hates sitting down to do either of these. On the up side, his creativity in making up stories and his willingness to create illustrations for them has greatly improved. This even translates into puppet shows, dramatic productions and role playing. We have also been working on some music and we are now called the 'Super Rock On Band'. Our performance debut will be this weekend for Matt and Kat. I will try to convince someone else to take photos of the kids during this performance but will not be posting a recording as it may incriminate me as I am the lead guitarist!

Our youngest is crawling our over and taking staggering steps that have yet to be caught on video, but hopefully will be postable soon. She is generally a happy little girl as long as she can avoid bumps from her brothers.

My husband may be heading off for 3 weeks to do a placement in between semesters. The up side of this would be that he wouldn't have to do it over the Christmas break then. I'm really hoping to have enough courage to drive on my own by the time he leaves. It could be a LONG three weeks otherwise! I continue to sift through job postings and keep hoping I will actually find something in my field, but it is looking more and more like I will just need to take anything I can find that works around my mom duties. I didn't get a Chaplaincy job I'd applied for. I don't have my work visa yet though, so I'm trying not to stress yet. We do need an income soon though.

We are heading into winter here, so it is, um, cool?... yes that is what they believe these temperatures to be I think. It is finally cooling off enough at night that we don't usually use the AC, just for the boys some nights. It feels so strange to have the rest of you heading into the wonderful less structured time of year of summer, with long warm days, and to be in the midst of these short, but still warm days. It is also weird to be in the middle of the year essentially in terms of programs and such. Christmas break seems like a long way off! But then it will also be summer holidays. It is certainly hard to get my head around. The temperature has been great for running though, and I am slowly reminding my body that it once knew how to perform this task. My husband has also been managing to make the most of this climate and has even found a club that he will be joining more regularly with once this exam nonsense is over.

Well that is our news. Thanks for all your news and notes. We love keeping up with things back home too!

Baby steps, driving the car

Fun in the sun at the beach!

My oldest has weekly Skype playdates with his best friend from back hom. They are the hilight of his week. As you can see, he brings his toys to the computer and is learning to make sure he is showing them to the web cam!

I have been itching for more freedom from the house, but so far my fear of driving has kept me within the bounds of where my feet can take me. But today I summoned all the courage I could muster and I DROVE the car. My husband sat next to me and helped me navigate which lane to be in and when to signal in roundabouts while I negotiated trying to find the turn signal instead of the wipers. The kids were also trying to help me out as they would shout at me every time a car came up behind us, just in case I hadn't seen it! Children are SO helpful sometime. When we arrived at our destination my husband offered some encouraging words and then the boys both hugged me and told me how proud of me they were. Very cute, very encouraging, but a tad embarassing. It will definitely take some getting used to as my right and left hands try to adjust to their new roles, and as my brain gets retrained to which ways to look for oncoming traffic. For now, I will consider myself a learner and make sure I have someone beside me who knows what they are doing. But, I have crossed that ever important fear barrier by getting into the driver's seat!

Today was a fun and full day. We had a friend stop bye for morning tea (yes, I think I've made a friend!) which was wonderful. I had a driving adventure to get to 'The Strand', which is a fabulous souped up splash pad that is better then the kids part of Bingeman's, and free! All three of the kids loved the opportunity to splash and play and our oldest ran from the time we released him from the car until we figured they'd had enough sun and he reluctantly took his final lap, ensuring he had ducked under or jumped through every stream of water.

We have also found a Friday afternoon, drop in, basketball time slot for our 8 and under, so both the boys have the opportunity to tear around the gym, practicing their dribbling, shooting and most importantly expending loads of energy. Of course, my husband and I hope all the kids will grow to love playing a little one on one, but for now, we will settle for them enjoying the court time for what it is.

To the far left: Full of smiles as we move toward walking!

Top: Dad and his little girl

Next down: The boys standing in between two small palm trees they planted.

Our middle monkey showing off his garage sale find! We have been going to garage sales as far as our feet can carry us looking to replace some key items that we can't afford new, but would make life much easier. In particular some new bikes, but on this occasion, goggles were the most exciting find!

My oldest with his Grammy! We are all sad that she had to return to Canada, but enjoyed having her here to check out our new surroundings--and get us through the plane ride over! Just a reminder--WE LOVE VISITORS!

Well, our adventures continue. We still haven't been able to find a way for my oldest to attend kindergarten in a semi-affordable fashion so I have been working on collecting resources for home schooling. He is not overly excited about this plan as the part that made school bearable in the first place was the other kids. I guess I will just have to get really creative!

My youngest is crawling around the house and looking for trouble. She is less frustrated, but still moves too slowly to really keep up with her big brothers. We have also discovered that she does not have a gentle disposition. When she meets other little ones her size, she screams at them (in delight? yes, surely in delight) and then takes a swat at them. I'm fairly certain a 10 month old can't be intentionally aggressive, but we will be discouraging this behaviour none the less. (right?...okay, secretly I will just start working on a low tackling position in place of the hitting)

My husband also came home with a new toy that was gifted to us that will make life slightly easier: a '92 scooter! He has decided to refer to it as 'his hog'. Scooters are a common sight around here given they never face any snow and is moderately faster than his pedal bike. Certainly better for groceries and makes it possible for one of us to commute around town. I get a kick out of our little two stroke engine and we are delighted you can fill the tank for 4$...which will do you for quite awhile around here! I will try to get pictures of him on it soon.

The piece of settling in that has been hard on my heart is our discovery that many churches up here in North Queensland don't ordain women and many are pretty limited in what leadership roles women can take. It seems to be most common for women to accompany their husband's in whatever their ministry role is, but I'm absolutely certain that wouldn't work so well for me as I pretty much flunked out of biology in University and medical ministry is definitely not my calling. We are continuing to learn about this area, so may have just not found the more family friendly churches that also support the ministry of women, but we were quite shocked to learn that even what we would consider mainline churches in Canada don't ordain women up here. The uniting church does, though my husband hadn't been overly impressed by his innitial visit. Besides it being a challenge finding a church home, it also poses a significant challenge as I look for work in the field. I would emphasize the people are quite nice, but I'm still praying through what to do with it all.

I'm also thinking of starting a Sunday 'Theological reflections/message' post. Partially to keep me sharp, partially because I would love to hear feedback from any of you out there! So stay tuned for more cute pictures (I know that's what some of you are REALLY looking for) and some moderately deep thoughts (hey, maybe that would be a good label for them...).

Bumps Along the Way

Standing here, and certain to be walking soon!

These are pictures of our backyard. This is the best place to dry clothes outside! Good thing, given that we don't have a dryer! Apparently many people don't here. While I am still sad that I had to give up my fantastic steam washer and dryer, having a small washer means one load a day. I also have to keep those cloth diapers clean or they smell in the heat :)

We have also hit some bumps in our plans. We found out Friday that our oldest won't be able to attend the school we had been looking forward to. State schools (like our public schools) cost about 10,000$ a year for us because we aren't residents, so we had found a wonderful Christian school that had a model of teaching we really liked and would cost less than half of what a state school would have. We had moved right around the corner from this school in anticipation. While they were wonderful to us, it turns out that the student visa we are here on doesn't permit us to go to this school. We are still looking into this, but given that all offices are closed until Tuesday, we haven't been able to fully explore this. It looks like I will be homeschooling for the time being.

I think deciding on how to educate our kids is a significant challenge. I have many friends that I respect deeply who have made various choices. Homeschooling, Christian school, Montessorri, French Immersion, English Public etc. Back home we had settled on French Immersion because I hoped equipping my kids with a second language would increase their capacity to reach out to the world. I also hoped being in a public school would allow my kids to share Jesus' love with those around them who might not otherwise experience it. I also have been committed to public school because all kids could attend there, regardless of financial situation or what their parental situation was, and I wanted my kids to be part of that as long as they still had the freedom to be themselves as Christians. Now, unable to afford 'public' school, we have the opportunity to try out another approach to education. I am sad that my oldest won't be at a regular program, because he LOVED his last class and school, particularly his friends. I also thought his teacher was fantastic and appreciated getting to know the other parents. But here I am looking at homeschooling and thankful that I have a number of inspirational examples of families I know who have gone this route and honoured their children well through it.

The other interesting adventure we are having is trying to find a home church. My husband had narrowed the search already be checking out (and ruling out) a number of places. Having been on the other end of church in many ways, and being part of many discussions on how to attract people, it is a little bizarre to be on this journey. As a young family, with VERY active young boys, it isn't really surprising that our top requirement is that our kids participate happily in whatever children's program that is offered during the service. I would love the luxery of choosing a place where the theology is a good fit, or where the small groups were well developped, or the outreach most biblical. I also highly value the 'neighbourhood church' in the hopes that we could build relationships that would extend through the week. And we currently don't have a car, so walking is the only option (no public transit on Sundays). So I find myself desperately anticipating Sunday mornings where I get the only 2 hours a week where I get to meet people beyond our family. I reread the websites a million times, taking in every detail offered. I try to imagine what being part of this congregation might be like. Will the teaching be good, will the worship music be inspiring, will there be opportunity for us to be involved, is it biblical, have a healthy sense of mission, does exhibit the fruit of the Spirit. I think through all the many things that would help me decide on a good fit for a church home for us...but in the end, no other criteria matter, if my kids won't stay in the building for the morning. I can't check out anything beyond Sunday morning, if my kids don't fit in. It means, that while I LOVED the service and the people we experienced last Sunday, the fact that my kids didn't fit well, in the quiet, reflective children's ministry, means I will only get to visit the church on occasion. The truth is, with three kids, it doens't leave either of us parents in the service is our youngest 2 are restless. Last week we found a church that would also be a good fit, the . But until we have a car, it isn't a regular option. And until I have a car AND become brave enough to drive here, AND know someone we trust to leave the kids with, I won't have the option of attending any of the wonderful mid-week programs.

Funny to think of all the many details that we think through as churches when we are hospitable, and that for us now, it boils down to one thing for us now--is there a Sunday morning program that accomodates my high energy, rambunctious, almost three year old. (Without having to pull us out of the service every week.) If you can do that, you've got us; and I like to think we have a lot to offer a community too.

This whole process makes me miss Wellington Square and reminds me of all they are doing right. An incredible commitment to children's ministry and caring for young parents. Even when my kids would melt down, wonderful people would share God's love with them, pray for them, carry them and if need be, put up with a meltdown so I would get my one hour of week for just God and I. A midweek group with other moms where my kids and I were loved by some fantastic caregivers. And I got some time to be real and honest with other moms who were trying to navigate living for Jesus while taking care of little ones. Not to mention the various meetings/opportunities where child care was available by some fantastic, servant hearted youth.

Today I miss my church, I miss my friends, I miss having a place where I belong, but I am also keenly aware that I am learning a lot about what if feels like to be on the outside and hoping that in the years to come, I will be better equipped to extend hospitality.