some pics of england 09

please pray

I have totally been meaning to write for so long but I have been a busy lil Mamma! And now I am almost off to England!! The good news is we managed to get upgraded to Business class for our Sydney to Dubai flight (16 hours!!!!), so that should make it more comfortable with 'A'. SP also got upgraded for the same flight when he comes in 2 and a bit weeks!! All thanks to Mum and Jules' air miles!!

I leave in just over 4 hours and I am feeling a little nervous so thought I would ask you to pray specifically about these few things:

* That 'A's ears would be ok on take off and landing!!!

* That he would be settled on the plane.

* That we would arrive safely.

* That I would be relaxed and not anxious!

* I am starting to get emotional about having to leave SP - please pray that the time might go quickly and we might not to be too sad!

* That 'A' would stay healthy (no swine flu please!), that he might get some good sleeps and that it might be a smooth ride. Turbulence means you have to get the babies out of the bassinet ;(

* Pray for SP also, as he will miss us and we will miss him for just over 2 weeks until he flies out to meet us. Pray also for a safe flight for him.

* Please please please also pray for the adjustment for when we get the other end with 'A', his sleep and the time difference.

I will be in touch hopefully once I get to England!!! Which will be Tuesday night Aussie time and lunchtime UK time!

Adios - hopefully I will write more soon!

nixter is looking for a house/cat sitter

My Mum and Jules are arriving in just over a week which is going to be excellent and we have a holiday house on the South Coast booked for a week from 3rd January til 10th January. We are going with SP's family so it should be fun and we will have a little one by then too.

BUT our other little one - Moses the Cat needs someone to look him!

So I was wondering if I know you in real life and you fancy a little holiday of your own, not too far from the beach (we have Foxtel ;) and you don't mind kitty cats then let me know - comment, call or email me!

Moses is really a good little cat, he likes company and just look how cute he is! He keeps out of mischief and does a lot of this:


If you can help out and you are around that week or even for part of the week let me know ;)

i'm back......

.... actually I have been back since Sunday arvo but have just been a bit slack about writing!

We had a wonderful time on Dunk Island. It was so pretty. Our room had a view of the beach and ocean, we had a king size bed - I now want to buy one - soooooo much room. There wasn't all that much to do on the island, or rather there were things to do if you wanted too but we didn't want too.

A typical day on Dunk Island looked like this:

8.30am - Wake up, get ready, apply sun screen etc.

9.00am - Go down to breakfast - breakfast was included and full of scrummy things. You could have a full breakfast, pastries, fruit - the whole nine yards and believe me folks we did! I'm eating for two remember!

9.30am - Resume position on beach seats, on beach, under palm and banana trees. Sit a little in the sun but mainly in the shade! Read book! Drink a coffee (yes I did have one or two coffees without vomiting)

11.30am - Head up to the lounge and play Scrabble (after a flying start SP ended up being the Scrabble Champ - did I mention I hate losing? ) we did this some days with a fruit mocktail.

12.30pm - Play pool (I was the Pool Champ - did I mention I LOVE to win?)

Approx 12pm - 2pm - Lunch at the Lounge.

2pm - Head back to the room, watch TV or sleep (at the beginning of the week we were both exhausted so had nanna naps!)

4.30pm - Play Tennis (only did this once - my body can no longer take it!) or Table Tennis (we played this everyday and I loved it). We were quite evenly matched at table tennis. Do you think our little baby is going to be competitive?

6.30pm - Down to Dinner - the food was amazing but expensive.

7.30pm - Back to the room where we watched TV and fell asleep by 9.30pm/10pm most nights - just call us Grandma and Grandpa!

So all in all we had a wonderfully relaxing time. The one big thing we did was go for a 2 1/2 hour bush walk around the whole island. It ended up being quite hilly so I wasn't all that impressed AND we saw a green tree snake YIKES! They don't hurt you but I thought the next snake we would come across was an anaconda*.....

I survived the 12 seater plane ride, I was a bit sweaty palmed but I managed, it was a beautiful flight up the coast. The island was very diverse and pretty.

We only took a few pictures as we did the same thing everyday, I will try and post some up tonight!

The coolest thing that happened on our trip was that the first and second night little squiggly kicked quite hard and SP got to feel it. The baby hasn't done many big kicks so it made me jump - but it was cool that SP finally got to feel the little one move. Squiggly is moving more and more and my belly is getting bigger and bigger - will try to post some belly pics very soon, I can only just see my toes!


* Dramatisation! There are no anacondas in Australia! At least I don't think there are?!?!?!?

can you say babymoon?

I can.....BABYMOON!

This Sunday SP and I are going on holiday for 7 nights to Dunk Island and I can't wait. I am almost asleep standing up I am that tired and in need of a good break, growing a baby isn't easy you know ;)

It's only a small island so there isn't too much to do which suits me just fine. We thought now would be a great time for a holiday - not too big so not too uncomfortable! I still can't believe we are going, I don't think I will until I am on the plane!

There will be plenty of relaxing on the beach (weather permitting), lots of reading, massages, swimming in the pool, maybe some tennis, SP and I time, relaxing, movies and that 'not too strenuous' kind of thing! BRING IT ON!

The only downside for me is the small plane trip we have to take from Cairns to Dunk Island, please pray for me as I am a little nervous about it. I am sure it will be great and the views will be magnificent but I am still a little bit apprehensive and prayers would be appreciated.

I really pray that this would be a relaxing break for SP and I to enjoy some time together before our little one arrives ;)

guess who's back?

Yes, it is I.

I have returned from the land of holidays and am now back at home ready to get into work. Well, not actually 'ready' as such but nevertheless after 3 weeks off it is time to be back at work and into 'normal' life. Not sure if me and normal work in the same sentence?

I feel TOTALLY out of the loop, I have hardly spoken to people, been on the internet, read blogs or done any of the things that I normally do. That has been quite nice actually although I have missed catching up on all of your lives, bear with me as I catch up on my blog reading!!! I want to know what you have all been up to during the last few weeks I have been MIA.

I have been having a good ole time. Normally holidays go by so quickly that you wonder if you actually really had a holiday. Not this time. I feel like I have been off forever, ok slight exaggeration but I really do feel relaxed and rested - Praise God. I wonder how long that will last for? So what have I been up to you might ask, or you might not ask but I am going to tell you anyway! This could be a long post so bear with me.

So the holidays started with us traveling down to Canberra the weekend before Christmas to spend time with SP's family, we had an early Christmas with them as SP's sister was spending Christmas with her husband's family. We had a lovely time and it was great to capture little Jasmine's first Christmas on video. I will post some video and pictures up very soon.

We then headed back to home on Christmas Eve with SP's parents who spent the night with us at our place and then we headed to Newcastle for Christmas Day and Boxing Day, we headed home the following day to spend a few days at home - this was lovely. We went to the beach most afternoons, painted our garage (that was hard work) and just enjoyed being off and at our home... Then we had New Year's Eve with some lovely friends, we even had a visit from a missionary friend of ours who serves in China - he is home for a short time and it was soooo good to see him. We hadn't got to see him as we have moved churches, we are hopefully going to have him over this week or next for dinner... So NYE was fun and relaxed and then on the 2nd Jan we headed back to Canberra to spend a few more days with SP's family before we headed off for a week at a beach house SP's parents had booked which was part of our Christmas present. We got to play tennis, catch Yabbies (I have photos) and we also watched the cricket....

We drove down to the South Coast on Sat 5th Jan and stayed until Sat 12th Jan - it was so relaxing. I read a book, swam in the ocean, went fishing, went to the beach, played cricket, ate fish and chips on the beach, ate lovely food (we all took it in turns to cook) and enjoyed our little niece... I also have photos of the hols and will post them up soon.

We got back on Saturday to a new house - while we were away we had floating floor boards put through the living room and kitchen which looks fab! Yesterday we went to the movies to watch 'American Gangster' with Denzel Washington and my mate Russell Crowe...

We are loving our new church heaps and we are looking forward, now life is a back to normal, to getting involved with a bible study and getting to know people better, our new minister and his wife are coming over for dinner next week which should be good.

Anyhoo, that is a quick run through of my life over the last few weeks.

Well, it's good to be back. I look forward to reading your blogs very soon.

holidays = fantastic! God = good!

I have a list of things to write about but I just haven't had the time to write down everything buzzing in my head.

Firstly though I would thoroughly like to recommend holidays. I feel refreshed and it feels good. Before I left everything was an effort, everything was hard, my fuse was shorter than it normally would be, I didn't have the energy or desire to do things that I would normally love to do, SP and I were 'existing', I didn't have many interesting things to write about and I was finding prayer and reading God's word hard.

It is amazing what a holiday can do! We won't be leaving it that long between holidays again = lesson learnt.

I feel totaly different - Nixter has reentered the building! Not to say I was a totally different person but my energy levels and desires were overtaken with tiredness... I have been praying more and God has rekindled a joy in my heart. There have been certain things that have been on my heart to pray for and if I wake up in the night I start to pray or when I am going to sleep I pray - I love that!

SP and I are having more fun and have had the opportunity and time on our holidays to reconnect and just hang out.

Bible Study was great on Thursday (Rev 8-11), I know if you read it you might wonder how I get the word 'great' from this passage, but really God is a merciful God who loves us and has chosen us for himself. Even though there are horrendous things we see in this world and even though life can be really hard at times - the fact that God has sent his son to save us who don't deserve saving is AMAZING! He has spared us!

There are many things I want to say here but I have just got to work so I it will have to wait until later or the weekend.

Praise God for holidays and his mercy!

Have a great Friday.

new zealand here we come

16 more sleeps until we go to New Zealand and I am most definitely counting down the days!

Soooo a couple of weeks ago we booked our flights and most of our trip to New Zealand and I cannot wait!

We leave Australia on in on 2nd Sept and fly to Christchurch where we have a couple of hours lay over before catching a flight to Queenstown, we will be spending 7 nights in Queenstown... It looks so breathtakingly beautiful!! We have planned a couple of trips while we are there:

- Milford Sounds - we have planned a day trip to Milford Sounds, we leave Queenstown and take a coach trip to Milford Sounds where we will get on a boat and see the spectacular views. It's a full day trip but it will be awesome. I can't wait to take some pictures! We also get a picnic lunch -Yay!

- We are hopefully going to ski for maybe 2 or 3 days while we are in Queenstown, we are going to see what the snow is like when we get there and then book a few days skiing and ski hire.

- If we get chance I would also like to go and visit Wanaka - Shania Twain has a house there apparently, a friend told me that - don't know how they know that! This is about an hour out of Queenstown so we might be able to take a day trip there.

We leave Queenstown (we have hired a car for the second week) and head to do a Fox Glacier hike. We are going to go on a 4 hour hike which I am a bit nervous about but I think it will be fun fun fun! And how often do you get to go walking on glaciers?? Errr like not very often! We spend the night there and then we start our driving week.

For the second week we plan on 'making it up' as we go, see where we end up. We want to end up in Auckland at the end of the holiday as this is where we fly out of, so there will be a fair bit of driving involved to get all the way up there. We will have to get the Interislander Ferry from Picton to Wellington to go from the South Island to the North Island.

The plan next is to either go to New Plymouth (where our friend's parents have a farm - I would like to see them) or go to Rotorua, apparently the drive to Rotorua is a lot more interesting and at Rotorua they have Geysers, Mineral Baths, Lakes and lots of wonderful things BUT we only have two weeks and we can't do EVERYTHING so we need to make a choice about that.

We hope to end up meeting up with one of my our dear friends who was one of my house mates in London, she is a Kiwi and lives in Auckland and so we hope to hang out with her for a day or two.. It is her family that live in New Plymouth..

Anyhoo, I am very excited as this is our first 'just the two of us' holiday since our honeymoon - and you know on honeymoon you need to relax after organising and planning a wedding and also if like me you got sick - then it's not much fun! So yay for holidays. We are really ready for it but not too many more sleeps to go!