living on the edge

We have had a trampoline with no padding, no sides and positioned on the concrete patio for all of my children's lives.  I am just that wild. 

Am I ignoring modern health and safety warnings?  Am I flirting with trips to emergency with broken wrists?  I let them climb to the top of the tree, and our treehouse only has fences on two sides.

And then I let them put the hose on the trampoline.

Maybe it is because I am the mother of two girls who know their limits.  I might look at it differently if I had a daredevil child.

But they have learnt to jump in the middle.

And Scooter gets cuter.

She loves the water and spent ages mucking around with the girls running through the sprinkler.  Ahhh puppy.

the dancing bun

No.  Not a bread product doing a salsa.  The dancing bun is what is required for Ballet Exams.  Which is what Gab had yesterday.

She was up from 5.30 am excited about her exam, but for some reason she only started to get ready at 8.45 - we had to leave at 9.  I think she was mentally preparing. 

Part of the preparation is doing the dancing bun.  The best way to do this with Gab's curly hairs is to wet it thoroughly, then put hair gel in it, then do the bun.  As I was doing this yesterday morning I was up to the gel part I reached into the cupboard and pulled out gel. 

Unfortunately it was bath gel.  Her hair started to froth and smelt wonderfully like strawberries.  Back in the shower while I found the hair gel.  Hee hee hee.  I told here if she forgot to smile in her exam just remember she had bath gel in her hair.

 
She was happy and confident going in, and happy and confident when she came out. 

I think the ballet exam was good.

take a breath....

I can feel it coming.  Like a summer storm that has been building, the air seems heavy and tense.  Where one wrong look or glance can be interpreted many different ways and blown well out or proportion.  Where the ice is thin and most mortals fear to tread.

Teenage girl alert.

at school this morning - 96five radio station visit

Apparently they are re-oganising their sensory systems at this age, as well as coping with hormones, friendships, self-value, and mothers who do not understand them.  It is a perfect storm.

When she was born I was so excited to have a baby girl.  So precious and beautiful.  My second thought (my SECOND thought after giving birth) was - I am going to have a grade nine girl.

So even though that is still a few years off we are getting the advance guard of hormones now.  Just testing the waters, scouting the territory, testing the zone limits.

I know some wonderful teenage girls.  I know some wonderful grown up women.  How did they get there?  And how can I get my girls there?

Pray.

Ask my friends.

And take a breath.

big grub alert

Long service - where the days pass by in list-ticking, friend-catching, child-homework-supporting and gardening. 

While gardening today I bumped a branch and with my superior strength it broke it half.  Or maybe it was because it was weakened by this

By the time I had run upstairs to get the camera it had retreated halfway back into the branch so there was not a good glimpse of it's yellow bigger-than-both-my-thumbs body.

I showed the grub alive looking sausage to a guy who had come over to give a quote on tree pruning.  He also took a picture with his phone and said he had never seen anything like it.

When Chris arrived home he pulled it out of the branch.

It does look a bit like he was just about to chuck it on the barbie.

Entomologists - please identify.

thinking and inspired

I have spent a lot of time in the garden in the last week.  Mostly because I am hanging around waiting for a puppy to tinkle.  And while I am standing there for a wee time, I look at my plants and plan away.

So far I have planned the new improved chicken run, the hedge along the bottom fence (lemon scented myrtle - apparently a mosquito repellant), the garden under the mango tree and several vegetable herb garden projects.  In my imagination.

With green thumbs blazing I popped into the Brisbane Green Heart Fair at the showgrounds today to get free plants, free herbs and a free electrical board.  And had a very long chat with a weed management guy - where I found out that much of my green garden consists of noxious weeds that need to be painted with poison.  I need to go to the council website and do a bit of 'what weed is that?'.

This corner of the garden needs some work.  I am thinking I will fence it in and let the new chickens do the weeding.

Gardening.  Lots of weeding, pruning, planning, tending, watering, prickles and joy.

Much like a life lived with God.

gratitude attitude

Am I getting old?  I am about to embark on a blog post talking about 'those young things today'. Possibly.

Today was my first day back teaching grade three RE.  Exciting times talking about Judges - chariots stuck in the mud, tent pegs, and numchukkas (of course the discussion entered the zone of what weaponry was around for the Israelites to use).  I then told the kids a bit about our trip to China.  They listened fairly politely, but their ears only pricked up when I said I had brought back a present for them all (a small one - I had to buy 100 and they had to fit in the suitcase).  At the end of the lesson I distributed little gifts for them - hair clips and little erasers, and chopsticks that are also pencils.  Such fun. 

I have rarely heard such bickering.

(Except of course from my own children).

Can I have something different?  Why did Alana get that one?  I don't want this I want that.  She got more than me.  I missed out on a giraffe eraser?  Mine isn't working.  All the boys took everything.  I want another one.  Did you bring anything else?

I didn't hear an unprompted thank you.  Not that I got them little gifts to be showered in thanks.  But the attitude of expectation that they would be given 'stuff' was very high, and the appreciation was low.

It reminded me to be grateful for small things, and to teach my children to have an attitude of thankfulness.  To treat kindnesses as a gift not a right.  I hope I can practice having more of an attitude of gratitude.

On that note, here are today's things I am grateful for:
- having time in the day to spend thinking, praying, reading God's word and reading a John Piper book about thinking - yay long service leave!
- a fun nearly toilet trained puppy
- old friends who help your daughter with French with a smile and a servant heart
- husbands who cook dinner
- spotting the termite nest under the house before it is a termite mountain
- the opportunity to teach RE at school and the wonderful supportive teachers

Thank you.

same same but different

Being back in Brisbane after spending some time in wild random Asia is slightly surreal. It's like my ears have not popped after the plane and I am in a slightly muffled bubble. I can drink the water from the tap here, and walk across the road when the green man goes beep beep beep beep. I know what to buy in the shop and I didn't bargain with the check out person at Woollies today. Everyone stays in the one lane on the road and we are wearing seltbelts again. I might need to go down to the Asian shops in Sunnybank, buy something random and eat some awesome food.

In other news our puppy is so fun. She is still getting used to living here and we are getting used to her. Her name is Scooter - as a kind of Muppets/Vietnam homage. She does not whinge and is a curious bold sort of dog. She is also very trainable. I am hoping to teach her some cool tricks. After she learns to wee outside (she is currently using the bathroom - which makes sense...).

I don't go back to work until January next year - long service leave. Yay! There is a list building of ideas and projects I want to achieve, as well as much catching up with people. And supporting the girls through what is looking like a very busy term. Such fun. Such fun.

jiggety jig

We made it! Our house seems bigger and our beds are comfy.  We decided to go on a tour in Brunei - of a hotel room.  It was pouring rain in Brunei so we abandoned the idea of going to the water village and instead spent 9 hours in a hotel eating and sleeping and watching TV and reading and mucking around.  So when we arrived back in Brissie today we were a bit more refreshed.  It's a great feeling to walk out behind the glass doors at the international airport and see  faces you love - thanks Grandma and Grandad for picking us up.

For some reason all the billboards in the corridors at the international airport welcoming people to Australia have funnel web spiders and crocodiles and snakes on them.  Is that to warn people early?  Or to freak them out as they get off international flights bleary eyed and ears ballooning?

We flew into Brisbane at sunrise over Mt Gravatt.  I could see our house and follow Creek Rd up to church.  It felt wonderful to be flying back into home.  Even though our travels were great I have missed home very much.

One of my favourite photos from our trip - Gab swimming at sunset at Halong Bay

And this afternoon we picked up our new puppy Scooter.  SHE"S SO FLUFFY!  She has been a wonderful puppy so far - she even put herself to bed at 7.30!

Traveling day twenty-six - on the homeward stretch

Like a horse that can see the stable I can feel my heart turning towards home. Or maybe it is slight dread of tomorrow - a 24 hour airport marathon with already tired children.

Today we flew into Ho Chi Minh City - METROPOLIS. We experienced the tail end of the typhoon in the form of a thunderstorm in the market this afternoon. And had our last meal in Vietnam stretching our money out to the last dong to each have an eclair.

Having two daughters means I have spent a lot of time in toilets this trip. They can never quite seem to co-ordinate weeing at the same time, so I have done a lot of traipsing to the little room, tissues in hand. We have got quite good at squat toilets as well.

After spending four weeks in Asia I am much more comfortable with using chopsticks at every meal, jostling for position on the bus, not wearing seat belts in the car, using the car horn as an announcement, bargaining for purchases, crossing the road into a wall of scooters, having a chat to everyone and attempting Chinese or Vietnamese. Brisbane will seem quiet after this!

Chris' Cultural Tip - There's No Place Like Home
It sounds trite, but as the end of our trip is in sight it seems very real. I'm not sure what it is, but no matter how long you are away when the end is in sight you feel like breaking out the red slippers or slipping into your best Peter Allen impersonation. Traveling is a great cultural experience. And I can also see us being able to live overseas and call somewhere random like Wuhan home. But for now Brisbane is home for us. It is where we have wonderful friends, a great church, and opportunities to minster for God. We could live for God anywhere in the world, but right now we have many wonderful people who we are invested in, and wonderful people who are invested in us. So as I sign off from my cultural tips and this blog, I can say without a hint of cynicism "There's no place like home".


PS thanks Chris for the guest appearances on the blog - you have provided a great balance! And thanks for being a wonderful husband for 16 years (celebrated on this trip!).

Traveling day twenty-five - vroooommmm

Oh yeah.

We did it.

We hired motor scooters in Vietnam and zoomed around Hoi An all day. Although zoomed is quite an exaggeration of my cruising speed of 25 km an hour. It was my first time ever in control of a motorized two wheeled vehicle. I was great going in straight lines, a bit hesitant about overtaking (pushbikes), and quite nervous about turning left into traffic. I only forgot once today that they drive on the right not the left in Vietnam. The oncoming traffic gave me a clue. Both of the girls chose to ride with Chris. He was slightly more confident than me with the scooter.

Here's a (terrible ipad) photo of me with the black beast just before we handed it back tonight and paid up ($3 for the day).


We also visited My Son today - a site of ruined temples from the 4th century. Very interesting. Some of them were bombed during the Vietnam war, and others have just fallen down. There is a process of restoration happening and much archeology. We did some bush bashing through Vietnamese tropical jungle. I tried to imagine what it would be like to be a soldier here.

Late this afternoon we also picked up our tailor made clothes. Very happy with our silk dresses! Such fun.


Only three more days and we are home! I think we are ready to come home, but our trip has been awesome. Excellent time with family and visiting other cultures. What a blessing.

Chris' Cultural Tip - Money burns on the street.
You may think I could be about to talk about how quickly you go through Vietnamese dong when 1,000,000 is only $50. And that is true. But instead one thing that is just as noticeable is the mix of spiritualities in Vietnam.

Communism seems to have had no impact on the proliferation of religion in Vietnam. There are pagodas, temples and shrines everywhere. All a mix of Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism. You will often see locals visiting them to burn incense and pray. Added to that is more folk-religion aspects of ancestor veneration, spirit worship and even deification of patriotic heroes. So most houses and shops I have seen have little shrines to burn incense for one or other of these religions.

One peculiarity is the burning of ghost money. You can often see little cans of burning things on the side of the streets. People get fake money and burn it. This is in the belief that this money will be sent to their ancestors in the spirit world, or to them in their next lifetime if Buddhist. They even burn other useful things like motorbikes, cars, houses, TVs. All in the hope that their ancestors will get the real thing somewhere else.


I can't help but feel like Isaiah - check out Isaiah 44:6-20.

In the end I am glad that I follow a God that knows the difference between fake and real money. A God who can declare "I am the first, and I am the last; apart from me there is no God.". A God for whom the pursuit of material things is far from the ultimate, and in fact nothing but a distraction from faith, hope and love. However until many Vietnamese discover the reality of Jesus I guess we will still see money burn on the streets.

Traveling day twenty-four - we measure up

We arrived in Hoi An today. Love it. Small beach town, quieter streets, great food, excellent accommodation. Our hotel is funky and helpful.

On the drive here we went over the Hai Van Pass - apparently one of the world's great drives. Hairpin turns and children nausea. We headed up up, ready to look at the amazing view. Of the clouds. Due to the typhoon there is a low system over all of Vietnam, and it is cyclonic type weather. So no view for us today. We thanked our driver for making an unnecessary windy drive instead of going straight through the tunnel under the mountain.

On arrival we hired bikes again and cycled downtown to get measured for our tailored clothes. Annika and I got a bit overwhelmed in the first shop with choice and pressure, and unwittingly did the bargaining method of sitting on the curb and crying for forty minutes. They dropped the price. But we went to another shop anyway. Gab was measured for a dress and swimmers, and Annika got a dress she designed herself. I was measured for a party dress! And Chris got shoes. We pick them up tomorrow.

I love the feel in Hoi An, and would have liked to spend more time here. Gab is keen to hire a motor scooter tomorrow. It will depend on the weather.

Chris' Cultural Tip - The Only Australian Animals are Kangaroos and Koalas
When you traipse around the streets people often try and soften you up for the sell by asking where you are from. And in response to saying "Australia" the common response is "Kangaroo! Koala!". Even if they have little English they can usually get that much out. The interest usually stops there as the hard sell comes next. So if you believe retailers in Vietnam the only Australian animals are kangaroos and koalas.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Traveling day twenty-three - one of the greatest $2 spends we have had

While wandering off to visit the Imperial Citadel this morning we passed a sign that said 'Hire Bikes 15 000' - which is about 70 cents. Thinking that it was for an hour we thought we would try bike riding through Hue. It was until 8 pm tonight. So we have ridden bikes all over Hue today, in the sun (we saw the first real pollution free sky in three and a half weeks today), in the humidity (dripping sweat shirts for everyone) and in a thunderstorm tonight when we went to hand them back. It was an exhilarating experience cycling through Vietnamese traffic watching your ten year old daughter negotiate between scooters. We had three bikes - Gab sat on the back of Chris' bike like a Vietnamese kid. She loved it.

The imperial citadel was under repair. It had been bombed in the Vietnamese war and restoration has been going on for many years now. It was impressive in a bombed palace kind of way. If we used a lot of imagination we could imagine to emperor strolling through the garden and making decrees from the gold throne with elephants and officials clustered around.

Chris spent quite a bit of time today trying to find a place in Hue to watch the AFL Grand Final. Unfortunately the best he could do was listen to the ABC commentary online at the hotel. We found the Rugby World Cup, soccer and tennis. But no footy.

We have been sampling much Vietnamese food and I now have a few favorite dishes - mostly variations of food on a stick or food in a wrap. There is also a wonderful French influence of excellent pastries. Mmmmmmmm....

Next stop is Hoi An where we are hoping to acquire some tailored clothes. I am feeling very relaxed.

Chris' Cultural Tip - They really do wear those hats in Vietnam
You know how many traditional hats are just that - merely traditional. Synonymous with a culture, but rarely worn in normal life. Not so in Vietnam. Their traditional hats are very much a part of everyday life. You know the ones. Like this:




They are worn in many places, and not just for the tourists. And it makes sense. They are broad brimmed - keeps the hot sun out of your face. And they are also mostly waterproof. So they double as a rain hat in these tropical climes. So wherever we have been so far, urban and rural, they really do wear those hats in Vietnam.