Monday, 8 Jan - Margaret helped declutter the sister's house. Mike ran a weedeater (called a Whipper Snipper here) for 2 hours cleaning up the edges of the sister's yard. Then Mike went home and did the same for our own yard and cut/trimmed some of the bushes. We then went visiting 2 of the sisters and Mike was able to spend some time with one of the husbands - listening to his discourse on politics. Then home for dinner and finish up the blog for last week. The blog takes about 2-3 hours to write and post - much of that due to the slow internet speed we have here. Time to go to bed as Mike wants to start walking again in the morning after a 3 week vacation.
Tuesday, 9 Jan - We had a house inspection today by our realtor. We also went out into the country to visit one of the sister members. She does a lot of fishing and camping, so we were able to get some ideas from her on where to go to see platypus. Back into town to visit another sister who has recently gotten out of the hospital.
Wednesday, 10 Jan - Mike had his usual Skype call to his mum. Then off to the Branch meetinghouse to put up the last of the curtains in the activity room - glad that is done. Organised the "shed" where tools and equipment are kept. We visited another family in the branch and then scooted home to fix dinner for the missionaries. After dinner we held the weekly DTM (district training meeting).
Thursday, 11 Jan - It is overcast and cloudy today. Mike did get in his walk to the river and back - it is about time he stops sleeping in. We went out to Halfway Creek to visit one of the members living out there - a 45 minute drive. We had a good time with him and his two dogs. The dogs (Honey & Midnight) like to play catch so we are always throwing their ball out into the yard for them to catch and bring back. We talked a lot about family history today. The road department is redoing the side road to the house, so we had a bit of an adventure getting to the member. On the way there, they had to move a track based shovel or excavator (our grandson Toby would call it a digger) out of the way and find a place for us to get from the highway across the work area to the side road. After meeting with our member, we drove back on the frontage road to the highway, only to find that more of the frontage road had been dug out and there was NO way to get from here to there in our car. Not to worry, the blokes working on the road were super friendly. The digger operator had a pile of crushed up bitumen (asphalt for the Yanks) and he piled it up and smoothed it out, and then ran his digger up and down on it to compact it. Then he gave us the thumbs up and off we went with a hearty "THANK YOU" to the road crew. These guys were really super nice. We are now home and have fed our bellies.
Friday, 12 Jan - Margaret went Visiting Teaching this morning with the RS (Relief Society) President while Mike went to the Branch meeting house and helped clean it up. The Oldfields from the farm came in for the afternoon and we spent some time with them. Mike had a Branch Presidency meeting later that evening.
Saturday, 13 Jan - President Monson's funeral was held this morning (Friday afternoon USA time) and we watched it on LDS.org. Mowed the grass. Ran errands and a nap. We had one of the Branch couples over for dinner. We had a good time and stayed up way too late.
Sunday, 14 Jan - We have started the "Teaching in the Saviour's Way" or "Come Follow Me" teaching in the 3rd hour. It will take some time to get used to all that is desired, but the branch Priesthood and Relief Society are making good progress in adapting to the new council approach to teaching. We had the Elders over for dinner in the evening.
The "eye" on Monday. back to almost normal. Mike's cheek and eye have been healing faster than expected.
Fabric with the map of Australia. Margaret will use this to make a quilted table runner for one of the senior missionary sisters who will be leaving in a few months. So Margaret needs to spend less time with Mike and more time on the sewing machine -bummer
From the highway through the torn up frontage road to the bitumin frontage road.
On the way home - oops, well not going anywhere yet. There is a dump truck in the way, plus a torn up road that the car could not traverse.
The digger to the rescue. on its way to smooth out and tamp the dark pile of bitumen and dirt in the middle left section of the photo.
The digger operator was good. He probably could pick up an egg with the shovel. Here he is spreading and smoothing out the bitumen.
More smoothing and some compacting
Smash that stuff down and make it hard packed for the Yanks.
Just a few finishing touches to make the ramp nice and smooth for the car. These guys were super nice and friendly.
New fabric with the map of Australia
Some aboriginal prints
More aboriginal prints
and one more
Sister Haley the master table runner/quilt maker at work using the Australia map fabric and figuring out which other fabrics to use.
Love the floppy ears of the brown calf - part Brahma
Here are the floppy ears again.
Sunset in Grafton with Margaret's silhouette
one of our neighbors laying down on the job.
No comments:
Post a Comment