Camping at Cervantes

This weekend I went camping a little ways up north with a group of 24 20-40 year olds. It was a great weekend! We just relaxed, played games, played in the water, and got to know each other better. It was really nice. This is a group photo taken just past our camp site by the path down to the beach.

From top left to bottom right: Alfred, Jeff, Masi, Emily, Wes, Melaine, Brooke, Amy, Rob, Ben, Chuck, John, Siana, Nic, Sarah, Elliud, Eddie, Ronald, Jess, Amber, Matt, me, Charity

Melaine had some zinc with her so we all "prettied" up before we hit the water! The other girl in the picture is Sarah Andrews, who went to Western with me.

There was a little boy that kept riding his bike back and forth by us even though the whole rest of the beach was empty. He was really funny. I love his little mud boots he's wearing!

And this is Matt Andrews. He built a really cool looking sand wall. He's wearing zinc- that's why his face is blue!

This is Amber. She is more paranoid about the sun than I am! The water was really cold getting in, but you did get used to it. There was part of an old jetty out in the water a little ways and so we swam out to it and jumped off it several times. It was a lot of fun. But I kept being paranoid that there were sting rays around because we saw some around another jetty close by.

We went to see the Pinnacles at sunset. It was really cool. This is one of the sights to see in WA. I think that the earth is sandstone and the pillars are limestone so the limestone erodes much slower than the sandstone. Resulting in these really unique landforms. I really liked it. It seemed eally stark and old.

That's pretty much the weekend! It was lots of fun. This Friday I'm hosting a murder mystery dinner. I can't wait- it should be lots of fun. It's set in Roman times so I'll take some pictures for sure!

A Recap of "Mo-vember"

Over here November is the month that is designated for prostate cancer and men's depression awareness. so they call it "Mo-vember" and men grow out their mo's for charity. Of course, Alan just couldn't resist the urge to have some unusual facial hair! The first picture is how he had it all month. The second two are just for kicks when he was shaving it off.

I've been trying to "homey" up the house a little bit lately so that it doesn't seem so sterile. One of my recent projects was recovering the dining room chairs. I really love the fabric and am pretty pleased with how they turned out.

In other news, we got to celebrate Thanksgiving day twice this year... go figure! They were both very nice (not quite like home (really missed your squash casserole, mom!), but still good). And Alan and I went to the beach for the first time this season. We didn't get in the water, just went down and relaxed for a little bit. I am going camping up north in a little bogan town called Cervantes this weekend. We will be close to the Pinnacles so hopefully I'll have some good pics after that!

Pictures for Mom

Mom asked for more pictures, so here are a few. You can tell things have been quiet around here because I'm taking pictures of laundry! I actually like hanging out the laundry. But you have to stay on top of it or else you'll need to do the wash and it will be raining! And you can't leave it after it's dry in case there's a shower. We do have an old dryer, but it takes less time to dry on the line than in the dryer!

Here are some pictures of the house. The fishpond is right out the front door and has about 10 little fish. There are neighborhood cats routinely seen with their paws in it! We have a cute letterbox. I love it that they are all different from house to house. Sometimes when we letterbox flyers I have to search around to find people's!

This last picture is my inspiration for decorating the house. Alan thinks it needs to look a little "homier" so I am going to get Eidrah, a lady from church, to do a big oil painting for me. She's really good. I found this bowl and love the teal color. So I am going for a cool, cottage-y look. Our walls are a really, really pale green and we have a dark blue couch, so I'm going to stick with blues and teal tones. I'm not going to do much, but at least I'll have a couple of things around! I collected these shells from Albany, on the Southern Ocean. They may have come from Antartica!

We are headed to Bunbury this weekend. That's a little town about three hours south of here. A couple of the members asked Alan to come down and preach there. I guess that's about it for now!

Halloween

So Halloween isn't really celebrated over here much. But someone from church had a party anyways- so we got to get dressed up! It was a lot of fun. I hadn't dressed up for anything in ages! I went as a peacock, I know it's kind of random! And Alan went as a 70's baller! He was definitely the best there! Some may say it was the scariest costume as well!

I'll try and find a better picture of Alan- everyone was taking pictures of him and he kept doing hillarious poses! This next picture is just a wildflower that is really pretty over here. They are called everlastings or paper whites. Their petals feel like tissue paper! And then it is a picture of the air show that I went to today with the Legg family. It is on the river downtown. We weren't there long- but it was pretty neat.

Well, that's what's been happening here lately. I'll add more soon! Love to you all!

Go, Buns! and various other things

Alan has started playing gridiron, which is what they call American football. It is pretty exciting! The season just started and they've won their first three games- and that includes last year's season champs!

We went to the Perth Royal Show a couple weeks ago. This is basically a really expensive fair. It was fun and there were lots of cute animals but I don't think we'll go next year! This was a pretty fun thing- it is a wood chopping event. The men chop a niche out of the pole then put a board to stand on and keep going up until they get to the top and chop the log that's nailed to the very top. Pretty crazy!

What a shock!

So yesterday was an absolutely baeutiful day! It was warm and sunny and the air was still so you could really feel the warmth. So I went to an arobics class (It was my first in a while) and when I got home I thought " The pool looks great. I think I'll jump in." So I hung some clothes out so that I could get a little bit warmer and then I took the plunge. And yes- it was a shocker! I immediately had pins and needles. I got out as fast as I could! So I guess we have a few more weeks before it's really warm enough!

Up and Running!

Welcome! I've finally got this blog started. Not too much to talk about right now. I've been busy doing the reception at a natural medicine office- just filling in while the usual receptionist recovers from an operation. Melaine and I have been working hard to organize the resource room at church. We had a teacher training session last week that went really well. We only had about ten people, but hopefully there will be more in the future.

I have been pretty homesick lately. But I got to talk to everyone today so that makes me feel a lot better!

Well, I'll add more soon- I'm mainly just trying to get this set up the way I want! Cheers!