New Friends

 At church camp at Warroora Station, Asher was sitting on his mattress playing when a goat wandered in the open door of our room and climbed on his mattress. Later Asher shared a piece of bread with Billy the Goat...

Gecko poking!

High Tea!

High Tea- all the ladies

My hat- a teacup

My somewhat oddly shaped dress. It is hard to match a dress to a pink, white, red and black glittery teacup hat festooned with ribbons, rosettes, pearls, lace, diamantes, and bows. I think this is only the second time in my life I have worn this much bling- the first being my wedding!

Speaking of weddings, this is my wedding hair. To clarify, this is the hairpiece I wore to my wedding because we had a morning wedding and hairpieces are so much easier!

And these are the teapot cookies my friend Cheryl and I decorated.

House

A flower from a bouquet my sweet hubby got me as a housewarming present.


The view from our kitchen window.



We do not have an outdoor clothesline yet, so we are making use of any space we can. Luckily, things dry quickly here!

Last night we had a BBQ at our place for the 17-30's Bible Study. The outside of the house isn't finished yet (still no carport or 'landscaping').

But it was a great night!

(P.s. see the water tank past the far end of the verandah? David and Lachlan, the minister at our church, built it. Yes, really.)

Christmas Eve Candlelight Service

Small church, small Christmas eve service. Lovely, though.

Lots of candles.

And a few clam shells.

Exmouth Anglican Church

December so Far

Carols by Starlight in Exmouth last weekend...




And some Christmas baking and decorating. The caravan is a bit cramped for projects like this, so I am not sure I'll do it again until we get the house in January!




The cookies had to be small to fit into the mugs we were giving the staff for Christmas. I think the stars are my favorites- I've decided they are brittle sea stars.


I had to decorate this cookie with toothpicks! So I only made one for each person on staff... at least they recognized what they were.

Thanksgiving

Dave and I celebrated Thanksgiving with the 17-30 Bible Study (the study for people aged 17-30). Everyone brought something, and we did some readings and sharing in-between parts of the meal. Some friends opened up their home for us, and very kindly let us use their new, spacious outdoor setting. Thanks!

The recipe for pecan pie came from my Dad's "Joy of Cooking" cookbook. He gave it to me before I moved to Australia- it has been worth the weight of bringing it over!

I also made pumpkin pies. We had cole slaw, corn on the cob, bread rolls, stuffing, turkey roasts, and even more stuff I can't remember.

I haven't cooked a whole turkey before, and I wasn't about to try! The turkey roasts turned out beautifully.

Here's the twelve of us (minus me, as I was trying to get the photo) enjoying the dinner.

Easter Sunrise Service in Exmouth

Going to church…

David and I attended a local church last Sunday; catching a ride with someone we know who goes there. This is the closest church to us. The church bells rang at half-hour intervals before the service started. We parked out the front as people were filing in through the 3 doors. There were around 100 or so there, sitting in straight-backed wooden chairs in a long room. There were three pulpits, a large one in the centre near the back, and two smaller ones on either side for those doing readings are announcements. All of the men wore nice shirts and trousers, and nice shoes (not the usual flip-flops). The women were quite dressed up, some even in sequins and lace and most in heels (Heather needs to buy a pair of heels, she brought the wrong shoes!) Most people either had Bibles with the hymnal included in the back or a Bible and a hymn book. At the start of the service a loud brass band (trumpets and trombones) started playing on the balcony above us. Then a man up the front read out announcements/finance figures at a quick speed for about 10 minutes. After this the band started playing again and a lady minister in the black robes went up the huge pulpit up front. There was a big mural of a white Jesus on the wall behind her- he wasn't even a tan white, but a pinkish never-seen-the-sun white. She led a couple of songs, familiar tunes, (with the brass drowning out peoples voices), gave an enthusiastic sermon and said a really long prayer, most of which we couldn't understand (as it was all in Indonesian). In the middle of it all a choir, consisting of women in all black and men in black shirts over white shirts, sang something to the tune of "Jesus Loves Me." There were offering boxes at the entrance we went in, and two lots of offering bags (black and purple) were passed around and at one point in the service most people went forward to put money in a box up front. These seemed to be for different church ministries, with the box up front for a youth conference for eastern Indonesian churches being held there soon. At the conclusion of the service people shook hands with those around them and then everyone left, most people walking.

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Also, please keep us in your thoughts and prayers. We seem to have hit a bit of turbulence with Immigration in Australia.