Australia Sunday Jan 12, 2014
Dear Family and Friends:
We have had a fairly quiet week and it has been nice. Monday when we got to the office we had a
Christmas gift from Pres. and Sister Howes, a Cast Iron Skillet, with 2 brownie
mixes. You bake it in the oven. I will have to try it this week. We still have so much chocolate from
Christmas, and we are trying to not eat so much. We are trying to eat just one or two a
day.
At the office we took the Christmas decorations down on
Monday and got them put away. Thank
goodness we did not put too many up.
Sister Williams said what goes up must come down! It was good to get back to capturing cards
without too many interruptions. On
Wednesday we went to the Skin Cancer clinic in Parametta because Dad had a sore
on his arm and he has been concerned about it for about a month. Sister Howes has been to this clinic. It took us over a half hour to find a parking
place and walk two blocks to the clinic.
The Dr. took biopsies of two suspicious things, the one on his arm and
one on his forehead. The one on his head
has 1 stitch in it. We go back on Wed at
5:15 to find out the results. It is a
good thing he has had many suspicious ones before so he knows what to look
for. Take notice everyone, wear
sunscreen and protection when you are out in the sun. They have not bothered him at all, the one on
his arm is still covered until we go back.
Thursday we ran across the street for lunch as we needed to
pick up a couple of things. All of the
decorations outside were down by Wednesday, and they have put down turf (sod)
where the grass was killed.
We went to the Temple Tuesday and it was great to get
back. The workers were telling us Happy
New Year and wanted to know how our holidays were.
Thursday afternoon we had a committee meeting for Australia
days with the Williams, Lyn and Martin from a department at Buckland
House. We are wondering how we are so
blessed to be on every committee for everything. I told Sister Williams we shouldn't do such a
good job. They are also going to combine
the Birthday Tea with it and it is our turn to do that. We are going to have a sausage sizzle, with
buns, homemade salsa and chips and dips, and salads, with ice cream bars for
dessert. We decided to make it easy, and
we have the budget to buy everything. We
are in charge of the chips, crackers, and dips, and ice cream.
Yesterday Dad and I went to Windsor to the Hawkesbury
International Sand Sculpting Championship.
It was held in a park by the Hawkesbury River. The theme this year is “The Lost World” and
they were incredible. Hopefully we will get some pictures posted tomorrow. There were 12 exhibitions. The sculptors were from Australia, England,
USA, 4 from the Netherlands, Czech Republic, Latvia, Canada, Ireland, and
Russia. The sand is trucked in and it is
called heavy sand as each grain is more square, which means it sticks together
better, like building blocks. The only
thing that can be added to the sand is water.
The competitors have 4 days to carve 20 tons each. All formed sand must be altered by hand, no
power tools. They had one man working on
a piece to show people how it is done and he was only using a wide mouth
shovel. They can have helpers but they
cannot enter the plot except to assist with removing forms. The show runs from 29 Dec – 26 Jan. Well worth the $14.00 each to go. After the show ends they will bulldoze the
pieces and haul the sand away to be stored until next year. Before leaving we had an ice cream
sundae. We then went for a ride in the
country. We saw where green onions were
being harvested and saw a lot of turf farms.
We then went back to Windsor to have fish and chips at our favorite
place with the parrot. We then came home. Another very enjoyable Saturday.
When we send the shuttle with images to Salt Lake each
Friday, we plug in the new shuttle for the week. There is always updates from Salt Lake on it,
and when we plugged in the one last week an error message came up and nothing
would download. It has also stopped the
camera from focusing automatically when we calibrate each day. It is a good thing Dad can manually focus it. We have been talking to Danny about it, and
twice he has had us leave the computer on all night so Salt Lake could have a
look at it. We left it on Friday night
so on the way home yesterday we went to the office to check it and nothing has
changed. We shut it off and will have to
wait until Tues to hear anything from SL.
Today at Church was very good. We met with the Ward Mission Leader after the
block and he would like us to visit with a couple of single sisters with
children. We are going to try to go
sometime this week at least to one of them.
I think I will make some cookies to take for the kids. One has 11 year old triplets, a girl and 2
boys, and the other has 4 kids under the age of 14. We didn't get home until 5:30, it is a good
thing I left dinner in the slow cooker.
After the dishes were done I made some rice pudding. We shared some with Archibald’s, no one else
was home.
This week we have FHE tomorrow night, and the Temple
Tuesday. I got a message on Face Book
last week from Jenny West. Some of you
have met her, she did the travel and condo rentals for Hawaii. She is Dad’s cousin, Uncle Barlow’s
daughter. She and Arnold are coming to
Sydney next week, the 17th-21st when they are getting on
a cruise ship to go to New Zealand. We
are going to meet up on Tuesday and take them around. We will probably ride the river cat to the
quays and meet them, then come back and get our car. It is much easier than driving to the
city. We are excited to have them visit.
We have a new young Chinese couple that moved in next door
to us. We had no idea they had moved in
until the alarm went off Friday afternoon after we got home from work. When it didn't go off Dad knocked on their
door to see if everything was ok, or if we needed to evacuate. They were trying to figure how to set it and
couldn't shut it off. They kept
apologizing. Finally a man from upstairs
came down and shut it off. His neighbor
had the same problem when he moved in so he knew the code. Nice way to meet new neighbors. They are very quiet, and we have never seen
them leave or come home.
We are looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow. Until then!
Love and Pray for you.
Mum and Dad
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