And finally Commissioning Photos

Perry and I after Graduation

Auntie Melissa and Emily. Emily could not last the night

Afterwards during supper this photo was taken. Emily had finally woken up. I really like this shot of us together.

This is me being ordained and commissioned.

Then it was Perrys turn.

Then together we were appointed as Corps Officers - Westport Corps

The 7 God's Fellow Workers together with spouses who are already officers

This was the photo that was used in the official Commissioning 07 Brochure.

Just for the record

I was busy talking to Patrick after the Saturday Commissioning on the way back to college in the van, the conversation went a bit like this. Just remember that I was in somewhat of a whimsical mood after all of the emotion of commissioning.

"Guess what? Your Dad and I have been commissioned as Captains"

Patrick nods and says "Cool"

"Guess what Patrick?"

"What?"

"I outrank your father by 3 and a half minutes"

(I was first to be commissioned because my name starts with A and Perry starts with P)

This evoked huge laughter from the back of the van from Corryn who thought that this comment was hilarious and decided that it needed to be immortalised in the history book.

Commissioning

So Perry and I have finally been commissioned as Officers of The Salvation Army. The last cadets in the world and only cadets of the God's Fellow Workers Session to be commissioned as Captains. But what is in a rank. No matter what rank we are we are still being commissioned to do the most important work in the world - saving lost souls and showing them to a personal relationship with Jesus.

So the timetable for Commissioning went something like this.

Thursday was Covenant day where we sign our covenant to God promising to serve Him faithfully as Salvation Army Officers.

Friday was Graduation. Perry and I now both have Diplomas in Biblical Studies... Our first qualifications ever.

Saturday was the actual commissioning day which began with a march from Courtenay Place to the Wellington City Citadel.

Sunday saw us at the celebration service as the Witnesses for Christ (the next session of cadets) being appointed to their out-training appointments.

And finally on Sunday was the Silver Star lunch where the parents of new officers are recognised.

The weekend was very significant for all of the cadets being commissioned and the culmination of our two years training and now we are being released on the general public. Very scary but we are really looking forward to being involved in ministry again.

The Wedding Ceremony

The date was November 9th and it was our class on Ceremonies..... you know enrollments, dedications, funerals and yes weddings.... This was to be a practical class... Each member of both sessions of cadets had a role to play. Perry had to conduct a funeral complete with grieving family (Lachie, Rochelle and Corryn).

Me ..... well .... somebody in their wisdom decided that I had to get married... to somebody else as Perry already had a part in this fabrication..... So I got 'married' to Steve. And Andrew was our marriage celebrant. Now we were all completely fed up with this whole role play thing and each team decided to make it as funny as it could possibly be and so our task was set to make a ceremony as real and yet as completely ridiculous as possible. Mission Impossible you might think..... Actually not.

Here are some of the photos from the aforementioned Wedding.... The bride is in red ... of course...

The Hysterical (in laughter) Bride....

The Groom (in Red) and the Best Man!?

The Bridesmaid

Signing the Register

The 1st (and last) argument as a married couple. An annulment was asked for and granted on the spot

Even the names of each of the participants was a total fabrication. The Minister was Reverend Seymour Bigamy, (Andrew Moffatt), the Bride was Annette Tocatchem (Annette Bray), the Groom was Willougby Court (Steve Campkin).

Our vows also threw caution to the wind......

I Willoughby take you Annette to be my unlawful wedded partner.
To leave and deceive from this day forward, for worse and lots worse,
in officers salaries and student allowances,
in madness and dementia,
to dislike and argue bitterly with, till after this class do us part.
According to the Majors unholy timetable
and this I declare upon my honour with my fingers crossed.

I Annette take you Willoughby to be my unlawful wedded partner.
To throw out and abandon from this day forward,
in appointments and moves,
to never live in the same town as you,
in visa debt and gambling addiction,
with long hair and in baldness,
to slander and back stab, till after this class do us part.
According to the Majors unholy timetable
and this I declare upon my honour with my fingers crossed.

This and the other ceremonies made for a very enjoyable day out of something that could have been ridiculously boring and we all walked away with very sore sides and multiple tissues were used to wipe away tears of laughter..... I have to say it was a good laugh that proved to be medicine for the soul.....

To laugh or not to Laugh

So this week has been fairly eventful....... Lots to Blog

Yesterday Patrick and Christina arrived home from school and Christina hands me a brown envelope that had been given to her by a teacher at school to give to Perry and I.....

I opened it to discover that it was a letter for Perry and I about the behaviour of Patrick at school.

*****

The first laugh

They obviously did not trust him to bring it home to us, so what better Plan B than to give it to his 'big' sister...... who by the way will take every opporunity to 'tell' on her brother.

*****

The second laugh

Once I read the contents I did not know whether to laugh, cry or just get mad....

And I quote verbatim from the letter:-

*****

'Patrick was involved in a lunchtime incident on Tuesday 6 November where he was seen kissing Georgia on the lips. He has admitted to this involvement and said he was dared to do it as part of a game. he will be on Consequences during Thursday lunchtime along with the other students involved. We are alerting you to this formally as we consider this a serious incident and are sure you would want to know about it. Please feel free to discuss this further with us.
Regards *********** (Teachers Name).

*****

I can understand to a degree that the school is trying to cover themselves on all counts in case some parent gets really upset about these playground goings on but all I could do was laugh... If this is the worst that Patrick is getting up to at school then I am reasonably happy.

Perry on the other hand was very proud of his son..... Kissing the girls already mate....

Patrick's explanation of the incident was that Georgia was the one that was dared to kiss him... And I guess that the only thing that a boy can do is to help in the accomplishing of such a dare.

LOL

It is time to be serimouse (oops serious)

We have just finished one of the more ridiculous and the funniest classes that we have had in recent times. (More about the actual class when I can get photos) My next move was to go to the library and start work on my pastoral care in life's crises assignment a 1500 words essay on what a pastor can do to help themselves in their task....

Something that is supposed to be at least a little bit serious....

Do you think that I can actually get back into the serious frame of mind.....

Absolutely not....

My most recent sentence reads like this

'if they are not careful and watchful these things can sneak up and bite them'

I think that I need to change that last little bit....

Things could go drastically downhill from here I think. This is just in the introduction....

I still have 1420 words to go.

Thanks .... I think

Last weekend (14th) we were having lunch at the Kilbirnie Corps Officers home after church. Cheryl was at the Women's conference and Peter was left to play host..... At the end of the meal I asked Emily if she had enjoyed her lunch and she said that she had and so I asked her 'What do you say to Peter?" and she looked at me then turned to Peter, raised one eyebrow and with a most serious face said "Coffee?" Now that was not the words that I was looking for but it did make us laugh.

Appointments

Well it is finally official. The appointments are out and Perry and I have been appointed as Corps Officers Westport Corps...... Westport is a small town on the west coast of the South Island. We are really looking forward to the new challenge and putting to use all the things that we have been learning for the past two years at college and all the things that we learned before that at East City Corps.

Holiday Antics

We had an amusing day during the school holidays where I was at home on my own while Perry was at the main building doing some study or something and the three 3year old girls from campus (all blonde might I add) where in Emily’s bedroom playing and they were just playing so nicely. I could here them discussing who was being what part of their mum’s and dad’s role play and I was doing some of the required reading that we must do for each class.

The girls had spent the better part of the day changing clothes and wearing all sorts of different outfits including pj’s, swimming togs and normal clothes…. Perry walks in and wants to know what the strong smell was. Well I couldn’t initially smell it but when we opened the bedroom door we discovered three little naked girls who had got into Christina’s girly drawer and found an unopened talc bottle and had proceeded to empty the whole thing on the floor and themselves. They had rubbed it on their bodies, the floor and even each others back. They were covered from head to toe in talcum powder and on closer inspection it seemed that at least one of them had turned up at our house naked… Maybe…..

I phoned the respective parents who happened to be all in the one house and they came over to have a good laugh at our three little princesses. Needless to say it was all three in the bath to wash off the lovely smell….. We did find each child’s respective clothing in the end but it took a while to sort it all out.

Sue did make a quick trip home to see what damage they had done at their home as it was unlocked and an open invitation to destroy or otherwise rearrange. Lucky for her other than some relocation of clothes from drawers to the floor there was no permanent damage done.

Cunning Christina

As most people who have been in or around the college lately are aware there has been this craze of pegging people when they don't know it going around.

This craze has finally filtered down to the children. A few days ago on their way home from school Patrick, Christina and Ethan were pegging one another and on arrival at our house decided to try it on Perry and I this lead to 15 minutes of the three of them trying to peg us and each other. I decided to join in as well. I have to say that a fair amount of wrestling was included in this activity.

It was then time for me to go and get Emily from creche and Christina who had possession of the peg at the time decided to come with me thinking that she might be able to get me too. Then she saw Suzanne in the distance....... Plan changed. She went running up to Suzanne to give her a big hug and then as Suzanne walked away I realised that Christina had managed to peg her.

When did she get so sly? And who has she been learning off?........ Corryn.

Alternative Clothing

Just had to share these photos of Emily coming home from Creche with some interesting choices for clothing accessories........

No Mum I will not put my proper shoes on.

I have a tissue box for one shoe, a muesli bar box for another and a toothpaste box for my glove...

This kid will go far in the Wearable Recycled items clothing range.

Needless to say she was really upset when she discovered that the concrete had worn holes in the soles of her shoes......

Weekend Away - Cafes

So more about my weekend away.

This weekend was totally about rest and relaxation. And I have to admit that it was needed. But I also have to admit a bit a guilt at leaving my family behind and going it alone....

My train was 1 hour last leaving Upper Hutt for half of that time I was sitting on the train waiting for it to leave.... They had to get a new engine from Wellington or something because the one attached to the train was not working properly... A great start to a relaxing weekend I must say.

I arrived at Masterton and Katherine was waiting for me and our first port of call was a local cafe where we spent the next 1/2 hour drinking Hot Chocolates and talking..... This started the weekend pretty much in the way it was intended to go for the rest of the time I was away.... The second place to visit was a local patchwork fabric shop. This to support my growing addition to patchwork quilting....

That night was spent patch working and talking some more. The next morning (after a most enjoyable sleep in I must say.... if you call 8am a sleep in but for me anything beyond 7am without a three year old jumping on me is a sleep in) Katherine decided that we needed to go to the local farmers market and we took with us a member of her Corps with us.... The effort of going to the market was so tough that we just had to visit another cafe on the way home and the three of us sat there for the next hour and a half drinking Hot Chocolates and Coffees and eating yummy stuff and talking.....

The next day just before I was ready to leave. The thought of coming home was just so daunting (I don't really mean it I was looking forward to coming home) that it necessitated a visit to yet another cafe for Hot Chocolate and Coffee.

I have to say it was a perfect weekend and I really enjoyed my time just chilling and doing whatever it was that I wanted to do without interruptions..

I do have to say that I had seriously thought about using some of the time constructively... Assignments, bringing the laptop or even just getting readings done for the following week, just so I didn't feel so guilty for being so selfish as to have time to myself .... However these plans were totally anticipated by Perry who confiscated anything from me that even remotely looked like work.... Going to the extreme of taking my class stuff off me and putting it somewhere I could not find it..... Bother......

Train talk for the railway challenged person

This past weekend I was off for a well deserved weekend away from everything. Me myself and I were going to Carterton to spend the weekend with Katherine Sonntag (Wairarapa Corps Officer). More about the actual visit in another post.........

My first hurdle was the train to actually get to Carterton. I do not travel very much by train nor do I have a very good knowledge of anything to do with trains or train travel.

I arrived at Upper Hutt station and very quickly crossed my first hurdle. I found the ticket office and paid for my fare. My next question to the ticket agent person was..... "How do I know the difference between the train I want and any other train that comes to the station.....?" The answer was the only difference is that the trains for the Wairarapa have a diesel engine on the front....... Like I actually know the difference between a diesel engine and any other train that might come down the track......

At this point I decided that this person was purposely being less than helpful and left the office just hoping that somebody else might clue me into actually how to tell the difference.....

I need not have worried. The train was actually announced by an loud speaker system as it arrived to the station.... Like I was supposed to know that........

Time flys

It is hard to believe that we are already half way through August and that the end of the year is fast approaching. Before we know it Perry and I will be Commissioned Officers of The Salvation Army ready and armed to do damage in the community out there somewhere. I have to admit to all who read my blog that I am starting to get a little bit anxious about where we will end up.

Deep down I know that I know that God has everything in hand but it still that whole thing of not knowing... And I have to admitt that now I WANT TO KNOW......

It is so hard to make plans for the future without knowing even vaguely where we are going to be put.

And I guess that a part of the frustration is that I am now over being 'at school' in training and doing most stuff just in theory. I now want to start putting some effort into something that actually means something, something that will be an ongoing type of ministry instead of just showing up on a Sunday and preaching or leading and then that is it.

I am so looking forward to knowing where we are going, which hopefully will be in the next month or so. Sorry to you out there who are also interested but it will not be made official until mid October.

Although on second thoughts the knowledge of where we are heading might be more frightening than the not knowing.... hehehehe

Daddy Ruined My Day

For you parents out there have you ever had those heart breaking times when a child will say something like "Daddy ruined my day" .... "you don't listen to me" .... "you don't love me" or even the classic "I don't love you anymore"...

Well yesturday I had Patrick in tears around dinner time (having myself been out of the house for most of the afternooon) He was supposed to be folding the washing but taking all year to do it. Patrick had been grounded by his father for certain indiscretions unbecoming an 11 year old..... In short he had blown it.

I asked him what was wrong and he answered that Daddy had ruined his entire day because he had been unable to go out and play (a huge punishment when you have a campus of children your own age to play with) and that he had had to do all the 'jobs' (this meant tidy his room, take out the rubbish, fold the washing and no doubt knowing his father as I do the making of a cup of tea or two).

I spent the next 10 minutes talking to him about the rules of our house. It went kind of like this.
"Do you remember what you are supposed to do when you get home and we are somewhere else on campus?" a sullen reply "Yes" "Do you remember " another sullen "Yes". This went on for another 3 or 4 questions and then I explained to him that he was being punished for not doing what he knew was right......... Then I asked him "Who ruined your day?" a very long pause and then a very very sullen "I did" .

At this point while feeling very sorry for him on the inside I declared victory to myself and congratulated myself on a job well done..... Until about 1/2 an hour later when Patrick came to me and said "Mum how old were you when you left home?"

Now I wonder where this came from........ I am pleased to report that this was just an interest question rather than a response to Daddy ruining his day.

Recess

Well we have just had our first few days back at college after a couple of weeks away on recess. We were really looking forward to having a few days just relaxing and enjoying some time away from the training college.

However what with the weather and the fact that some of us decided that the recess was the best time to get sick it was not the most relaxing time.

We headed up to the Coromandel to visit my parents and grandmother for a few days to start with and then on to Hamilton to visit Perry's family. Then finally we headed to Auckland to visit my sister and to do the business in our storage unit getting everything ready for when we are ready to leave college for our first appointment in December and we need for our stuff stored in Auckland be moved also.

We still had a good time over the two weeks doing a fair amount of traveling and visiting East City our old church along the way.

Here are a few photos of our trip.

Emily on the Beach at Whitianga. We found lots of shells to take to Creche.

Christina on the Beach. I really like this shot.

Patrick the explorer staking his claim on this part of the beach.

While we were in Hamilton we visited this great little place called Candyland. Where everybody who goes on the tour can make their own cool, large lollipop.

Emily had a bit of help to make hers and then did not want us to take a photo of her face.

Christina showing how big her mouth is.

Blah Blah Blah

So there I was just yesturday reading out my sermon to Perry as I was preparing it and trying to work out if what I had to say was actually making sense and there is my youngest child, my darling Emily, who was obviously distressed that she was not getting all the attention and so decided to do something about it.

Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah was what she started chanting as loud as she could.

That is one way to give your mother confidence about the sermon that she has to preach on Sunday........

Emily and Mission Weekend

You know those times when you are out and you are hoping that your children will behave themselves and make a good impression. Well Levin was one of those times, we had all arrived back for dinner to the Corps at Levin and were waiting patiently. Well this was Emily's idea of behaving and making a good impression.

Can she open her mouth any wider than this....

She did redeem herself a little bit with this cute bit of peek a boo.

To Broadband or not to Broadband

Well broadband finally arrived at our humble abode at the Training College on Friday, thanks to the endless metres of trenches that were dug from the main building to all the houses on the campus.... And some technical expertise from ISG.

The only problem is that since coming home from Queenstown on Sunday it has been very difficult to separate Perry from the computer. Yes I know that he has not spent all that time on the internet but the presence of fast internet in the house has increased his dependence on the computer, particularly since he started his own site at bebo and myspace to update with his own stuff... Typical that he has to take something quite simple as blogging and then make it complicated.... Downloading video clips, adding presentations that he has put together ....

Needless to say that much of the last couple of days without classes Perry has been joined at the hip to the laptop. I guess sooner or later that the novelty will wear off and that He will get on with more important things like housework.... Assignments and shaving......

Bad photo days

You know those days when people are trying to take your photo and you just don't want them to well I think that that was the kind of day that Monique was having a few days ago when she was watching TV with Emily......

See for yourself......

Emily thinks that this is a laugh a minute. She loves having her photo taken...

Monique on the other hand is highly suspicious of this camera thing...

She did not want it taken at all.

Ooops this was not quite the photo that she would want to have taken. I really like this picture of Emily though.

I just thought that they looked so cute sitting together on Emily's barbie couch watching Hi5.

Gimme 5

The weekend of the 16th & 17th of June saw all the cadets and children heading for Levin at various stages of the day for our first mission weekend of the year.

There were a number of projects that were to be done including painting at a local school, a sunday service and 1hour outreach thingy for music morning children to come to. I was part of the music morning team. Our brief was to provide a music type afternoon for 50+ kids similar to a Hi-5 event.....

So we did. Complete with our own Gimme 5 song and 4 activites for the children and their parents to participate in..... Our team were; Sue Stevens, Kylie Tong, Rochelle Chisholm, Corryn Smith and yours truly......

Here are a few photos of the Gimme 5 team .... Never fear there is no chance of us giving Hi5 a run for their money.... except with musical composition .. well done to Shelly Toganivalu and Julie Marshall for their musical rearranging skills.......

Round and round the world we go

There are people high and low

People people everywhere

Round and round the world

Playing working helping out

Sharing trusting SHOUT IT OUT

Together is a better way

All around the world

Everybody dance and feel the joy
Everybody, every girl and every boy
Everybody dance and come alive
Because together we are better GIMME 5.

We all had a fantastic time making fools of ourselves. I think that there are times in our lives as adults when we need to make fools of ourselves just to keep us in touch with the children around us..... And also to remind us that God still uses us to impact people even when we make fools of ourselves....

Supermodels in the making

A few weekends ago Christina and Patrick were asked to be models for a fundraiser for Kilbirnie Corps with a fashion parade of clothing from Pumpkin Patch/Urbal Angel..... Christina took to it like a duck to water but Ptrick was more interested in keeping his very young catwalk partner under control than actually showing off the clothes.... Typical boy

Here are the photos....

This energetic young man gave Patrick a run for his money

literally. I must admit Patrick does look very handsome while proving what good big brother he makes whether to his own little sister or somebody else's children.

Christina and Stephanie stepping out together with confidence. I really liked this outfit on Christina... It was at this point that I did have the horrible thought that this little 'fundraiser' could work out really expensive for me.

This little boy again taking up Patrick's attention off the purpose of the event.

Christina comes out in her second outfit... Again looking fantastic.... Although I think the blue looked much better... I still can't get over how tall she is looking....

They both had a lot of fun and the event raise a good amount of money towards 2 or 3 of the young people's trip to Kaivata for the tri territorial youth conference in Jan 08.

Keeping the Aquarium

While doing research for my latest sermon I found this wonderful little illustration in my Libronix computer programme..... I found it really amusing.... I so wanted to be able to fit it into my sermon but alas...... it just will not fit no matter how much I shove it....

Keeping The Aquarium
Dr. Kermit Long says, “With all our education, our fine buildings, our image of the church, we are doing less to win people to Christ than our unschooled forefathers did. We’re no longer fishers of men, but keepers of the aquarium, and we spend most of our time swiping fish from each other’s bowl.” — Christian Victory

Just to keep the copyright people happy the book that this is in if you can find the actual item is as follows:-

Tan, P. L. (1996, c1979). Encyclopedia of 7700 illustrations : A treasury of illustrations, anecdotes, facts and quotations for pastors, teachers and Christian workers. Garland TX: Bible Communications.

Enjoy

Ooops She did it again

Corryn is really doing things hard at the moment.....

Towards the end of last year she gave Perry and I a spare key to her house because she was constantly having to ask the main building staff for access to her humble abode, as she was constantly locking herself out.

Well she has really out done herself in the past two week locking herself out a grand total of 4 times...... One time at 9pm at night.

I think that it is time for a keypad to be installed on her front door so that she does not need to have keys, she only has to remember a combination to get in..... Or maybe we need to slip into James Bond secret agent stuff and get a eye retina scanner or voice recognition thingy installed and then all she has to remember is to take her eyes and voice wherever she goes .... I'm guessing that even she will have a hard time forgetting to take these with her.....

New Kitchen

Well the week has finally arrived.....
Our kitchen is currently being replaced. ON Tuesday 'Dad's Army' arrived to pull out the old kitchen and the plumber and electrician did their thing to make the new kitchen fit in all the right places.....

Emily was adorable bringing in all her friends from on campus to see the empty kitchen..... "Look our kitchen is all gone ..... the boys came and took it away."

Tomorrow sees the new kitchen arriving and being installed.... Yeeha .....
It has been quite odd not having a kitchen although we have been well catered for in the meal department with a couple of conferences in we get to eat with the conferences and experience some of Murray's yummy dinners..... For those who have ever been on campus and had a Murray meal your mouths are currently watering I know this....... The best thing is that I do not have to cook and the dishes are pretty much done for us..

Although I must say that having dinner and lunch with the Territorial Executive Leaders was a bit of a daunting thought.... So much so that I ended up eating lunch in the kitchen and then Emily was not very well so we took dinner home.... Phewww that was a narrow escape ....

All I can now say is bring on Thursday night when all should be returned to much better than its former glory.

Children's Day activities

One of the more interesting things we did as part of our outtraining was to go to things that were going on in the community to try and raise the profile of The Salvation Army Kilbirnie in its area. One the things we went to was the Children's Day 'festival' that was held at Kilbirnie park. By the time we got there after church and lunch it had more or less finished even though according to advertising it still had 2 hours to go..... We did manage to get some cool photos though... Here they are..... I have to say at the moment most of the photos that we have taken lately are of the youngest member of the family.... We may have to do some things to fix that in future days......

We found this funny looking train thing... I

think that it is called Henry... I assume all you

Thomas the Tank Engine fans will correct me if

I am wrong..... Perry looks thrilled to be

aboard... Not....

Emily had a blast on this merry go round thingy.. I thought that she would be frightened but no actually she had a blast...

One of the better things for your child to drink when they are at a festival.... Maybe not but that was about all that was available.... Emily certainly enjoyed it.....

And then there was the River

When we were not playing with the water slide on campus there was always the river to go for a swim in. Freezing cold but refreshing. The only thing I found was that it was not too pleasant if you got a mouthful....

Christina ready for action
The water was very clear and also quite fast moving in some places. Further upstream from here it was deep enough for the boys and some of the girls to jump off the cliff....

Emily decides that the best way to get everybody wet is by throwing stones into the water





Emily enjoying the sun shine on the edge of the river.. I think that the swift current may have been a little to challenging for her.





Patrick building a wall to create a nice sitting place in the river... Where current is no problem.




Patrick the builder.... Still having a great time in the water.... Fully dressed and all.


Go on jump in the water is great.... At this point in time this is our water baby. Emily comes a close second.




The river was definitely a great place to cool down and relax... I had wondered why we never did this at the beginning of last year and then remembered that there was the issue of some sort of toxic algae in the river and so a swim was somewhat ill advised..... We however made the most of it over the summer.

The Hazy Days of Summer

During the first couple of months of Summer quite a lot of fun was has at the college with a great big black plastic, lots of water and dishwashing liquid..... To put it clearly a giant water slide.... Here are some pics




Christina getting up steam to make a dash down the slide....




Christina trying to
'encourage' Sarah to get wet

Christina towing Naomi down the water slide... mmm... a little too much soap by the looks... all those bubbles... Some dishes won't be getting done tonight.


Look out 3 year old with the hose










At the starting line ready to race down the slide... Christina, Kate, Hannah, Tiko, Simeon and Rueben


Patrick hiding out from all the wet stuff..... He did have the excuse of having had heat stroke during the day at school and was avoiding the sun and heat........ Playstation was his adventure of choice.
A group shot...... from left
Christina, Naomi (sitting in front) Hannah behind Naomi, Louis and Ethan.....


Sad to say those days are now over.... The weather has turned cold and not much chance of getting this slide out until December , maybe November if the weather heats up soon enough, but going on this past year there is not much hope considering in Nov 2006 we were still getting snow on them there hills.....

And finally ...... Some pictures

I have finally worked out how to get the photos off my camera.... so for you pleasure and delight some of Emily's 3rd Birthday.... Enjoy.

This is all very exciting for the one getting to open the pressies. Christina looks a little depressed..... Never mind darling your birthday will come around far too quickly..


And what is behind door number 3.

Look at me I am mobile and I want to be off right now..... This big girl bike thing is all just a bit too serious tho and besides it is far to early in the morning to be smiling.......



At last I have escaped with my bike.... Where shall I go.... Maybe just around and around the teardrop at college...... This event was planned by the creche as a fundraiser..... A bike a thon... played into my hands quite nicely really..... They planned it on my actual birthday day. So I got to try out my new bike properly..... I even got to test the helmet when I fell off.



Now I am really mobile.... hehehe. Talking to my Granny Pat when she rang me to say Happy Birthday......

Well I hope you enjoyed these. I will try to add more photos as we go along. Some of them will be a little bit older than this but I have to catch you all up some how.
Ciao