Of big black birds

Jolene at our 4th of July party


So earlier today a very large, black bird flew into our living room window. Scared me almost to death, but not quite. What is gross is that the bird left spittle or eyeball junk on the window, yuck!

Today was a great day, very sunny and warm. I took Jolene for a walk down the sidewalk and then headed to the park for 30 minutes or so. I really like the location of our house. We are half a block from two footy fields and a cemetery (whenever I see the cemetery I am reminded or Rich Johnston's testimony) and in the other direction we are only two blocks from a large open field (what they call a reserve here, not sure what it is reserved for) and a park. I think we will be getting a lot of use out of both.

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Monday I got my first injury from a footy ball. B, Jolene and I went to the playground for a while to enjoy the outside. Brandon took along the footy ball to practice kicking (he and Josh want to do fall training with a local team). So I was up in the playground equipment while Brandon was kicking the ball around. Wouldn't you know it but the moment I turned my head to say something to B, he kicked the ball. There was a nice collision between the side of my face and the footy ball. The ball was spinning just right so that the point hit my eye and everything. Brandon felt pretty bad. I have been hit in the head plenty of times with balls (mainly soccer balls) but of course that was my own choosing. It hurts a little more when you don't expect it. Thankfully there were no bruises, or Brandon would have felt really, really bad and I could have gone on a nice shopping trip : -) Maybe the bruises wouldn't have been so bad after all? : -)

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This past weekend the RPCA held a women's conference at the Geelong church. Close to 40 women attended, which was an encouragement to all. I went to two different talks, one on missions and the other on hospitality. They were both really good and could have gone for longer then the allotted 45 minutes. It was nice to see all of the RP women here together. They don't have many conferences here, this was the first in several years. Some people from McKinnon/Frankston are thinking about going to the '08 international conference. I really hope they can go, to see the larger church body, to hear the singing, and to make new friends. I know they would love it!

Sigh

Our house is empty, Eleni got on a plane headed for LA this morning. It was nice having someone around during the day, Jolene isn't always that great for conversation. We are hoping to fly back sometime next summer so the family can see the new baby, that seems like forever away.

The above pics I took at the Geelong Botanical Gardens this past week. Eleni, Jolene and I went there Tuesday afternoon to look at all the cool plants. I really like the bottle trees, it would be nice to plant one in the backyard if there is room.


That night we went for a walk along the bay so Eleni could get some pictures of the bayside bollards.

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Allen Blackwood is coming to stay with us on Friday for the rest of his semester. We have never had a student stay with us, it will be interesting to see how it works out. It will definitely be nice to have another option for babysitting : -)

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Spring is just around the corner, I need to start thinking about planting a garden. You can grow some things almost year round. We might get a frost once or twice during the winter and that is all. I would like to have a lemon tree and if we have enough money maybe a lime as well.

LNI

My sister Eleni has been over here since June 8th. She came as part of a missions trip and then stayed an extra few weeks with us. It has been great having a family member over here. There are some many things that you want them to see that are just a part of your everyday life. When we talk on Skype now she will know what we are talking about, she will have images to go with names, etc.

Eleni helped me take the wallpaper off in the kitchen, now I just have to figure out what color to paint the walls. There is ugly, bright red tile at the bottom, not sure what color would look best. If you have any ideas let me know.

We have been trying to do some Australian things with Eleni while she is here. We took her to a footy game, Geelong vs. Caralton. Rode the train to Melbourne, which is always enjoyable. This past weekend Brandon, Eleni, Josh & Sarah McEwen, and I went on the Great Ocean Road to show her the sights. Unfortunately it was overcast and rainy but we still had a lot of fun.

We started the trip with dinner at Moby Cafe. Before we left the cafe us girls took motion sickness tablets for the road. Unfortunately the wine at dinner and the pills where not the best combo. By the time we got to our cabin we could only mange to keep our eyes open till 10pm. Pretty sad for a Friday night and vacation : -)

Saturday, we hiked to some waterfalls, explored rock pools, saw the Twelve Apostles, and were soaked by some gianormous waves (see above pic). The surf was really up due to some incoming storms, great waves to watch crashing into the cliffs.

Today we are going to hunt for souvenirs and go to some opshops before she has to pack up. Two and a half weeks goes too quickly!

More pics of trip HERE

Healthcare and NASA

So, being pregnant requires me to see a midwife every so often to make sure things are going well. Being pregnant has given me an opportunity to see how this free health care works. I must say that Brandon and I are liking the system over here. Before you cry out "socialist!" here my thoughts.

So far I have not had to deal with waiting long hours for appts. and dealing with people who don't know what they are talking about. Here in Geelong you have a private hospital and a public hospital. What is nice about Geelong is that if the public hospital can't help you they send you to the private one and it is still free. If you want to use the private hospital for all of your worries and woes you have to pay for the health insurance. Public, of course, is free. We are using the public system for this baby, and so far I can't complain.

There are three different routes you can take during your pregnancy.

1. See a doctor every time
2. Shared care, see a midwife and a GP
3. See a midwife.
I decided to go with number 3, but have the baby in the hospital (could have decided to have it at a birthing clinic if I wanted). So far the midwives have been great and I feel like the service is the same as it was back home.

Now some people over here like to think Australia as found the perfect system, public for all and pay extra for the posh private. I see their system being in the middle, with the US on one side and Canada on the other. Canada being totally socialist, not allowing private health care (so I have heard) and the US focusing more on the private and only those who have really low incomes getting the public.

There are problems with Australia's system that some people I have talked to don't see. First, Australia has the population on greater LA. Any system will work better and faster on a smaller scale. There are not as many people to take advantage of it and to clog the system. Secondly, you can still get some pretty long waiting lines for certain services. Getting in to see a public dentist takes being on a waiting list for awhile, so I have heard.

Of course the US and Canada have their problems as well. I see particularly the rising cost of health care in the US. We were paying $500 a month for awhile before Brandon was hired on at Delphi and we were not going for the best of the best. My aunt and uncle have had many problems because their son has asthma.

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NASA - I think it should be downsized. Just read an article about Lake Vostok, the underground lake in Antarctica that was recently discovered. I think giving so much money to NASA is a waste when we are finding things like this on our own planet. There is so much of the ocean that still has not been looked at as well. Give some of NASA's money to exploring our own planet. I really don't care so much about planets and trying to find organisms on them when we still have plenty to discover at home. To me it seems NASA spends a lot of money trying to prove there is life outside of earth, that we are not alone. I say let the aliens spend the money to contact us, why should we do all the work? Let them chip in a bit. Where are all their signals and little metal gifts being sent to us? Haven't seen many. We have sent plenty, shows how much they appreciate them, that is if they are out there. I guess you could argue they are shy but hey we don't need to hold their hand. They must come out of their extraterrestrial shell in their own time.

Oh, and a tighter budget for NASA would probably help. They would treasure their expeditions that much more and choose which ones to carry out with greater scrutiny.

Move #4

We moved for the fourth time this year on Saturday, thus the reason for not writing for awhile. All went well and the move went very quickly thanks to all the help we received from our friends. Hopefully we will be able to settle here for the next several years, I am excited. It will be nice to have something we can start to personalize more. The house is great, nice and big. It needs some paint here and there and a few other cosmetic applications but I love the layout. We will put up pics soon.

Yesterday was July 4th. We had 35 people over to help celebrate the event. Lots of food as close to American as we could get. Sparklers, a patriotic reading, and a spontaneous singing of the national anthem help set the mood. Blackwoods came along with Eleni, McEwens, Harts, and a few other families all attended. We missed seeing fireworks but figured it was not worth ending up in jail to smuggle them across the border from Southern Australia. I guess Victoria outlawed them because too many people were getting hurt. I say they should allow them and if people get hurt then they need to learn how to be more careful. People get hurt in cars all the time and they aren't illegal. Anyway, the night was very enjoyable.

We are taking Eleni to a footy game on Saturday, go Cats!

My world cup prediction is not going very well. My final four teams are all out, so much for Brazil. Portugal is a surprise for me, might be cool if they won.

We had our ultrasound on Friday. The baby is alive and kick'n. We found out the sex....either a boy or girl, not both. We decided not to tell, : -) I guess you will all have to wait a few months.

I should go unpack some boxes, catch you up on more events later.

Meg