Rebas' Adventure in Ozzieland

Well my dears, I have been to my first Aussie wedding. Now I have been to enough American weddings to know that they can vary to a great degree, so it is hard to say how typical this wedding was, however I will endeavour to tell you about it. The ceremony started at 11am. I wear my new dress and even curled my hair (got lots of compliments too). I was picked up by Damon and Becky who you can see in the pic of the congregation you can also see Malissa sitting next to them looking the other way. Damon and I had a very interesting conversation before the service started about Mars Hill Church; I find that if people recognize the name Seattle, it is because of Grey's Anatomy, Twilight, or Mars Hill. I have had several people ask me if I have met Mark Driscoll (mars hill pastor) or if I have been to Forks WA (twilight). Anyway, the ceremony lasted about an hour. Jane's father past away a few years ago and her mom gave her away, and Tim's dad married them, so sweet. After the processional and greeting the whole wedding party sat down and David (my pastor) gave a 15 min sermon. I have been to weddings were the pastor gives a talk but I have never seen the bride and groom sit down for it. The whole service was nice and relaxed, not very fancy or solemn, and you could tell how happy they were. And then we all mingled in the lobby you can see a picture of the entire Rowbottom family and me and Mal and Melanie.____________ Melanie is my friend who gave me the nick name Sugar Pot. Now I have been trying to come up with a name for her because you can't respond to a greeting of "good morning sugar pot" with "hi Melanie". Much too pedestrian. I have, am I happy to say come up with the perfect name. I all happened when I was watching an episode of Big Bang Theory. In the episode it is revealed that Sheldon's grandmother calls him Moon Pie because he is "nummy and she could just eat him up". And I thought what a perfect counterpart to sugar pot! Melanie was told of this at the wedding and loved it. (Now I know you might be thinking, why didn't I make up my own name instead of stealing one? This brings us to the point that while I excel at telling stories, I can't make one up to save my life, I can't even lie convincingly. That is why I must listen carefully and take great sayings and names where I can get them. Which reminds me, I was a part of conversation last week and a phrase was used by Tim C. (not the Tim getting married, he is Tim L) I always give credit where credit is due. Anyway he used a phrase and the minute he said it, I thought "what a glorious name for my next car!" OK, picture this...a modest sedan or hatchback, hopefully black, plain but with hidden spirit, its name...Stealthy Magpie. Oh it's too marvellous! What a name, such a humorous oxymoron and someone actually used it in a sentence! Could there be a greater encore to Salacious Crumb? (My last car).___________Back to the wedding, sorry about that tangent. After the ceremony we did not have a reception. That's right, in Australia the reception is several hours after the wedding. Usually a smaller group of people are invited (and kids stay home with a baby sitter) and it is for a full meal. The wedding party take the time in between to take photos; they will even drive the beach and other locations around the city and take pictures at several places. Because the Grand final Aussie Football game was on (not American football or soccer, but Aussie football) Jane took pity on her sports friends and timed the break to last the whole game. For the afternoon I was invited to go the Sarah and Emma's house with a group of others. We made lunch and hung out and talked. I took a break around 3:30 and just read in a corner, so relaxing. At 5pm we freshened up and went to the reception. Wow, was it nice, catered dinner, dessert plus cake. No alcohol because the mother of the groom was a teetotaller and they didn't want to offend. The parents gave a speech as well as the best man and maid of honour. And telegrams were read. I don't know if they were really telegrams or emails from relatives and friends who couldn't come. I had seen this in a British TV show once and I really liked it. Jane and Tim both had a grand or a great grandparent who couldn’t make the trip and so we all got to hear their blessing to the young couple, so nice. The evening ending with dancing, except for the first dance it was all club dancing, not my style. My evening was saved however by Jono (all Jonathans are nicknamed Jono over here). Jono is a nice guy (no, he is barely 23) and he knows how to Bush Dance. This is like folk dancing or square dancing. He knew enough to teach me one and taught him the basic swing. It was enough real dancing to make it fun for me. It was quite the bash, didn't leave until 10:30pm.

My friends Tim and Jane are getting married on Saturday and while shopping last weekend with Sarah, I found this dress. I had no intention of buying a new dress, but it was so pretty and it was on sale, really, how could I resist? It is fun to buy a dress when you know you have a special occasion to where it to.______ It was my turn to bring dinner to bible study on Tuesday, or tea. Half my friends call the evening meal Tea and half call it Dinner. Either way, when you are invited for tea, you assume it means dinner. I made Steak Soup, which is a recipe I had as a kid, but I haven't ever made. It turned out well and people liked it. They didn't like the name though. Because while it is called Steak Soup, it has mince in it (aka minced beef, aka hamburger). We tried to come up with a better name, none of which really stuck.________ OK, time for a little "slice of life" piece about bus drivers. Now it is my opinion that you can tell a bus drivers attitude by how they drive. You've got the smooth mellow ride, you can tell the driver is relax, knows his route, business as usually. Then there is the jerky confused ride, you think maybe the driver is new, there is a certain stressful tension communicating itself from the driver through the vehicle. And then there is the driver who is just mean and surly. that is the guy I had today. I waved the bus down and it screeches to a halt just long enough for me to get on and then we are off again. careening around corners, snapping the doors open and close for new passengers with needless violence, talk about a Mr Grumpy-Pants! Hopefully the ride home will be better, because it's Friday, Baby! My housemate, Melissa, is on school holidays for the next week, she is going to Brisbane with a friend for a few days, just for fun! they are going to be seeing the live musical of Mary Poppins, Jealous! I love that movie, I didn't even know that it had been made into a show. Oh, yes, and that brings me to my other news, They owners of my house sold it. We knew it was for sale, but no one ever came by to look at it. Now we have been told it is "under offer". This means that at the latest I will be moving in January, but Melissa said that is it harder to find a place in January because the new year of Uni is starting (college) and all the out of town students are scrambling for housing, so she suggests that we find a place as soon as we know ours is sold. The nice thing is, my housemate is very organised and has already found two potential places, so it should not be to hard of a transition._________ School is good, I got some work done this week ,although I still need prayer for procrastination (did you know all three seasons of Leverage can be watch online for free? Temptation!). The weather is just lovely, I am getting quite tan just waiting for the bus, I bought a big bottle of sunscreen and I put some on every morning other wise my face is bright pink by the end of the day. I will have to be very careful not to get burned as the weather heats up. I also bought some nail polish so my toes can face the world with confidence and a nice pink sheen.

What a strange greeting, you may be asking yourself, but this is in fact how I was greeted by my friend, Melanie, yesterday. Melanie is a Canadian girl who is here finishing her bachelors in finance. She is totally sweet and I like her bunches. I met her when I first got here and spied a kindred spirit, but with school, and work and life, we did see much of each other over the winter (aka summer). About a month ago she asked if we might meet for a weekly bible study, just the two of us. What a great idea! I get to mentor a little and I get to further a friendship that I knew had possibilities. As it turned out we ended up spending all of last weekend together, both turning up at the same events on Sat. and Sun. I told her a joke about a tea kettle and a sugar bowl last week(or sugar pot if you are Canadian) and when I saw her she asked if I would mind if she called me Sugar Pot, because she had been wanting to call me that ever since the joke. Is there any wonder why I like this girl? So add that to my list of alias along with Becca Boo, Reba-chini, and Poo Poo Butt (thanks for that one, Mom)_______ On the church front, things are looking good. The elders and the Pastor are all ready to look at the differences and miscommunication with the goal of reconciliation and God's will being done. There is still some stress, but I have a lot of hope. __________This weekend is turning into a lot of fun. Tonight I am going to Tim and Leoni's house for dinner and then I am being picked up to go to worship practice. I haven't sung for a while and I am really looking forward too it. Friday night Melanie is coming to dinner (I am going to make a dish that I got from Amy, roasted eggplant and feta over pasta, yum!) and then we are meeting Sarah and Emma (who are housemates) at YWAM for the evening service. I will be going home with them and spending the night to have a relaxing morning before we go to Jane's hen party. Jane is getting married next week and Hen Party = Bachelorette Party. She is having a semi formal sit down dinner so we all get to dress up and feel fancy. I am enjoying getting to know Sarah and Emma too. I feel like all of a sudden I have lots of friends instead of lots of acquaintances. It is a nice feeling. I still miss you guys at home though, sigh, but that is the life of an adventurer.__________P.S. the weather is glorious right now, lower 70's F and sunny, just lovely. you can smell spring in the air. I love air.

hey, how ya going? This week was pretty tame. On Saturday I spend all day at the mall (aka shopping centre). And I mean all day. My roommate took pity on me and gave me a ride so I didn't have to waste an hour on the bus. She was availible to give me a ride at 1pm and I have plan to meet some friends for a movie at the mall at 7pm. 6 hours is a long time to be at a mall. I did some shopping, bought an ice cream and took a break by camping out in an area with pretty comfy chairs and read a book for about an hour and half. I went on to more shopping and then my friends showed up and we had dinner before the movie. We saw Salt with Angelina Jolie, I rate it a Fair. Good action scenes, interesting plot more or less, but no humour. where is the funny sidekick? And either it was a predictable ending or I have watched to many action flicks, because I totally called the ending. All in all, a fun day, but I do not plan on going to the mall anytime soon._______This week at school has been good, I have not procrastinated much and I feel good about my work. I have been analyzing my sorghum flour, I did an assay to determine the protein content on tuesday and today I am determining the fat. It is pretty easy becuase we have a machine that does it all for you, you just put your sample in and hit a button! (hence I have time to update my blog). Tomorrow I am focusing on writing, Pray for brain power! I get overwhelmed so quickly when it comes to writing.______The only down side to my week is that there are some politics going on at my church. Pastor vs. Elders. Apparently there have been some unresolved issues for years and they are trying to deal with them. I feel very scared because I can't help but think of worst case sonerios like the church spliting or David (pastor) leaving. I don't know enough to know if it is anywhere near that bad. There are "meetings" going on this week. I pray that the issues would be resolved and that the church will go in the direct God wants it to go. On the up side, I have had a great week with God, I have felt very uplifted whenever I pray and have felt "full of praise". It has been nice. Isn't God good? To give me a feeling of closeness to Him during bad times? Praise God.

Here again we have pics of stuff I have already talked about. You can see me and my friend Sarah in the "The Sizzler" ride at the Dally show, and they rainbow I mentioned. Also a picture of the hotel at the Spanish monk's set up.______This last weekend I help cook for a leaders retreat at a camp. It was your typical woods and cabins, very pretty. There were about 50 people at the camp and two cooks. My friend Jill was in charge and she brought all the food and had all the recipes, great stuff, whole make everything and very yummy. We served Breakfast, Morning Tea, Lunch, Afternoon Tea, Dinner and Supper. We cooked all day! on Saturday I had a very emotional battle with coleslaw. I know that sounds silly, but it's true. I was getting tired and so after we successfully served the lunch i took my meal and hide in my room and read for half an hour. except for that, things went well and everyone was so helpful, we had a volunteer crew come in after every meal who did the dishes, Bless Them! It was fun, but not really a weekend. This week has been pretty normal and this weekend I am doing...wait for it...Nothing! Oh yeah baby, sweet, sweet relaxation. hmmm. I am going to the movies Saturday night and maybe out to lunch on Sunday, but other then that, it is lazy city. I still don't have Internet at the house, I had to give up on the server I was trying and they gave me a full refund. Better luck next time!

Well, here they are at last, If you see the lizard, that is the one I saw on the bush walk, cool huh? and what about that wombat? I had no idea what a wombat looked like before I had my picture taken with one. I always had a vauge idea there were smaller and maybe bat-like in some way, wrong! Apartently they are tough as nails, if you run over one, the car will lose and you will have to pay mega bucks to fix all the damage, it is like driving over a rock. they live in the ground in borrows so if you are off-roading, watch out!