Saturday, January 31, 2009

Let's recap....January

Dad continued work on our "Great Wall of China" downstairs....
Price of materials: $2K+, Price of labour: $0 (and a few dinners), Watching Dad's dedication to building the strongest and most perfectly braced laundry/cyclone shelter known to man - Priceless!!!





Our beautifully handcrafted leadlight window was installed in the toilet (original design and work by Dad). Best seat in the house! Dad comes up every visit to admire his work ;-)
He is now trying to persuade us to think of a design for another window - our home will soon be a showcase to Dad's leadlighting passion! What have we started!!!!!




We celebrated New Year's with Anna, Adele and Adele's sister's family at Rainbow Beach. Blistering heat, fighting a flu but an otherwise great time away with lots of sand, surf and Israeli dead-sea mud madness. Adele's sisters' two children, Sam and Zoe were absolutely gorgeous and Sam took a particular shine to Andrew - jokingly referred to during our stay as his 'best bud'.




Three members from our afghani refugee family became AUSTRALIAN CITIZENS on Australia Day! The two sisters: Roya and Nasimeh and brother: Akbar. What better way to celebrate Australia day than seeing the two girls take their oaths, as we 'renewed' ours :-)
Just wonderful to see them so happy and feel a sense of belonging at last! They have and continue to have, an amazingly inspiring journey. A real lesson to us all in how they handle every hurdle with such courage and thankfullness! (yes that's Premier Anna Bligh with the two girls).




Andrew and I returned to work after a relaxing 2 week christmas break. A few weeks back at work and I was then off down to Melbourne for a week, to get to know all-things Phytoplasma related (they are bacterial like organisms which cause disease in plants - just look at the red leaves at the top of your pointsettia plants for an example or these grapevines).





A re-Juvenating January full of joyous laughter and new horizons...

2 comments:

Renae said...

Aaaaaaargh! You came down to Melbs and didn't look us up? No, that's fine, really, I'm not upset at all! Ha ha. Hope you had fun down here! Scratchya later!

Renata said...

I love,love, love that leadlight window!!! Your dad is sure gifted!
Sounds like you had a busy January - rainbow beach sounds wonderful!