Rebas' Adventure in Ozzieland

Christmas was a lot of fun. Unlike last year, we were not in the middle of a heat wave. The weather was lovely and warm, but also breezy and refreshing. I had planned on going to Tim and Leonie’s again for Christmas, but they ending up moving over Christmas week and so to save them bother I invited them to my house as both my housemates had gone home. It was really fun to host Christmas. It was me and Tim and Leonie, their sun Isaac and our friend Jono who is a part of the bible study. On the 23rd we had High Chocolate at the Rowbottom’s. It went really well. I read aloud the book, The Red Ranger Came Calling (which is one of my favourites) I had tried to buy it last year, but it did not arrive until after Christmas. So I have waiting to read it for a whole year. Before I starting reading I gave a short lecture about how one should behave when one is read aloud too. Namely that, come hell or high water, you never ever talk when someone is reading aloud. For Christmas Eve Sue and Cam (sue is the music leader and Cam is the associate pastor) hosted an informal afternoon tea and carol sing at their house. I sang with the music team and tried to do a harmony to Silent Night, but kept slipping into the melody. Still it was fun. For Christmas day in Australia you can either do a traditional roast dinner with the all the trimmings or you can do a cold dinner (since it is summer over here) and have BBQ prawns (shrimp) and cold salad etc. We decide to do a half and half. We had roasted chicken, but eat it cold with a lovely Potato Bake (scallop potatoes) that Leonie makes and cold salads. I had been trying to explain to people what Jell-O salad was, but no one could visualise it or see how a dish make with jelly (jello) and cream could be part of the main course. So I make a jello salad called The Orange Salad We All Like (recipe courtesy of the Sherrie-girl). It was a huge success! They really liked it and it became a topic of conversation at church as everyone wanted to know what on earth a “jelly salad” was. They call Jell-O “jelly” over here. We had a very relaxing Christmas day. Isaac got two huge Lego kits and spent the day building and we just hung out and talked, watched a movie, took a walk, even gave over some time for a ‘break’ where I read and others took a nap. A very good day. I also got to talk to family in the morning so that was really great._______________New Years what just as relaxed. I stayed over at Sarah and Emma’s. We went to a movie with Ali (a girl in the bible study) and where home and in bed by 11pm! We saw Tower Heist, which was much better than I thought it would be. Really funny and an ending I did not expect. Afterwards were got Chinese take away. New year’s day was a Sunday, but because we meet on Uni campus and the campus was closed for the holidays, we could not have church, so has a bible study we had a breakfast at the Rowbottoms. David had been gone most of December. David’s dad, Peter who had been visiting since September had gone home to England the first week in Dec. The next week David got a call that Peter had had a stroke, by the time David flew to England his dad had died. Lorraine and the girls stayed here, but David was gone for several weeks. We asked Lorraine how we could help, she said that bring in meals could be problematic as the girls have allergies, so instead, could we help clean? So for three weeks on Thursday afternoons a couple of us went over. Lorraine was working so what we ended up doing was giving Lorraine some time to herself and helped the girls clean their rooms (although we did give Richard the job of mowing the lawns). Each rowbottom girl got a helper to make sure they did their work. I sat on a desk chair and watched as Rebecca took forever to clean her room. Then we mopped the floors. It was good to do something to help out.