Vanuatu Reminiscing

Love these cloud shots taken from the plane.




Local ladies run these market stalls for the tourists and The main street of Port Vila.

Jeffrey our "bus" driver. Local market In Port Vila

Wish I had turned this one around but you get the idea - the water is beautiful.
One of my favourite photos, the whole culture is so relaxed.


Sarumbulu Church of Christ and Patrick and Nick with the Pastor's children and the ball Patrick bought for them with his own money because they were kicking around a flat busted old one.

We went fishing in this little boat that you would not have gone out in in Australia. We jumped over the side and went snorkelling over a coral reef and went out around the point into this rolling open ocean (very quickly decided that we wanted to head back). It was an amazing afternoon.

I had over 340 photos to choose from so it was hard to choose just a few to put here. Hope that you enjoy them.

Weekly Ramble

Well we have had a pretty calm week this last week. Both boys managed to behave themselves at school. (Praise the Lord). Dave had a good week of mowing. We had a wonderful barbeque on Friday night with Michelle, Michael and the girls (Dave's sister and family). We were on pretty strict rashons (not sure if that is how you spell it) as we were waiting for the end of month cheques to come in and to go and have a big cook up barbeque with potato bake was fabulous. I held my first Nutrimetics party on Saturday afternoon and it went very well. I have another one booked for next month. So hopefully if the Coles job doesn't work out I can get some income from the Nutrimetics. On the Coles front I still haven't had a shift yet. Maybe it is not meant to be. We've had a few problems with our tenants in our house in Victoria (namely not having paid rent since they had moved in 6 weeks ago) but we were able to list it with a real estate who is lovely to talk to and seems to know her job very well and they have started to pay rent so that is great. Have been looking through some old photos lately and thought I would share these ones from Vanuatu. We had a fantastic holiday there 2 years ago and would love to go back there. Dave even thought about moving there but it is way to hot and humid for me. Chat with you all again soon.

Vicki and Lovella's Blogs

If you want to have a look at Vicki or Lovella's blog (Lovella's has links to other graduation photos) let me know and I'll send you the addresses. If you want to post your own graduation photos let me know and I'll link them to Lovella's.

Graduation

That is me in the blue on the right.


I was over at Vicki's blog having a look and she had taken up the challenge on Lovella's blog to post pictures of her graduation dress. It is the 20th reunion later this year for my high school graduation and when I was unpacking I found a graduation/prom photo of myself and 3 friends that I scanned and sent to one of those friends. We had a combined graduation and prom night. I too had grown up mostly with home made clothes made by my maternal grandmother. It was often a source of embarrassment especially on uniform free days at school as there were very few people still making their own clothes. I thought that I was extremely blessed to have been able to get a store bought dress for my graduation (looking at Lovella's and knowing the love that would have gone into making her dress now I'm not so sure). We had the ceremony and meal in the high school hall. Some of the students came in special cars. I went to the hair dresser and had my hair done and my aunt did my make up. Last time I saw it the dress was still in the back of mum's wardrobe but there is no hope of me fitting into it now as I am about 50kg heavier than I was then. It is the second most expensive dress I have ever owned (not sure of the exact price but I am positive that it was over $100 an absolute fortune in those days. The most expensive was my wedding dress that was about $250). Schoolies (basically schoolies is where school leavers meet on the coast and drink excessively and party wildly) was just starting then but my friends and I went in the opposite direction and had a week at Hervey Bay with my grandmother as chaperone and it was wonderful. I'll have to dig out the high school photos and do some more reminiscing.

Friday Musings

Well it has been a couple of weeks since I blogged.
Patrick has settled in fairly well to his new school. He has been there 2 weeks now. I got 14 texts from him the first day. He was lonely and lost most of the day and someone took his bag instead of their own. I've spoken to most of his teachers and they seem to think that he is going okay. He was in a fight in class the other day. The guy had squirted him with water earlier and Patrick had told him to get over himself. The guy then decided to invite himself into Patrick's maths class (apparently this is an ongoing problem with the teacher having to spend the first part of every lesson finding out who shouldn't be there and sending them on their way to their own classes) and starting carrying on and Patrick retaliated. Kids from another class had to come and break it up. Patrick had to write a report of the incident but nothing else has been said or done.
Nicholas has been wonderful at home but his teacher has pretty much had enough of him. He talks in class and he has to have the last word on everything. She is at a loss of what to do with him and wants us to take away his privileges at home (we'd already taken away all his computer time). I had an interview a couple of weeks ago where she said that he had started to answer back like his mates did (and yes Nicholas chose to be friends with the 2 worst behaved kids in his class). So when she gave him instructions he would answer her with yeh and ok instead of just doing them. He was also talking a lot in class. I said to her that I had spoken to Nicholas and he said that the other kids were talking to him and he was answering them or telling them to be quiet and he was getting in trouble. She agreed that this was the case but she had spoken to him about ignoring them. Well apparently this did settle down for a while but has escalated in the last week to the stage where she can't take it anymore and has exited him 3 times for what she calls rudeness. When she says Nick get on with your work he is not supposed to say yes or ok he is supposed to just get on with his work. Nick believes that she picks on him and his 2 mates (how many times have I heard that while I was teaching). The next step as far as the teacher is concerned is suspension. So we've had a long chat with Nicholas and hope to see some improvement.
Applied at Coles Supermarket for casual work (6 to 8 hours a week) and got it about 3 weeks ago but have been waiting for everyone else to finish their online inductions (all others were school kids except 1 lady) so that we could go to our store induction. Went for 3 hours on Wednesday night. Typical of all the garbage that has to go on legally now. Union Rep spoke and got us all to join up. Joined the super fund and discussed the staff club. Watched videos on the use of chemicals (as checkout operators we only use one of them), what to do in a fire and in hold ups and all the ways the store can find out if we are stealing from them and filled out work sheets on each of them. Ran out of time to do the ones on the sale of tobacco products and how to pack the customers bags. Also didn't have time to do the store walk to show us where all the departments were and the emergency exits and where to enter the store if we are on opening. Hopefully we will get some training on how to use the registers before we are unleashed on the public.
Dave's mowing is going well. He is continuing to receive new clients from the Government Housing group that he mows for and some new private ones as well. The regularity of mowing properties is slowing down as we head into winter but with the introduction of new clients our income isn't decreasing. He pinched a nerve or something in his back (in the shower not at work) last week but it coincided with heavy rain so he did not miss any work.
Gotta go just got a phone call to say that Patrick has been suspended for 2 days for the fight and I have to go pick him up.

Toorbul and Bribie Island

Had 2 fishing trips the last 2 weekends. Went to Toorbul around lunch time as the tide was coming in. Didn't catch any fish but it was a lovely day.

Went to Bribie Island last weekend with some friends who had come down for the Greek Festival. It was amazing how peaceful and quiet it was beside the water, especially as it was Friday evening.

Went to the Panyiri Greek Festival on Saturday. It was fantastic. We really had a great time. We tried all sorts of food. The first picture if of Fried Baby Octopus - wasn't overly excited about them. But we also ate Souvlaki (chicken and lamb on a stick), Cabbage Rolls (filled with mince and rice), Mousaka (like a lasagne with mince, eggplant and potato layers), Honey Puffs (pastry puffs swimming in honey), Greek Meatballs (bit spicy for me but the others loved them), Houlimi (Fried Cheese), Greek Yoghurt and ice cream, Dutch profitteroles, Baklava (puff pastry with a nutty filling), Greek Shortbread, Turkish Delight, some sort of biscuit that was cooked and then soaked in honey and rolled in a nutty mixture and then cooked again. Now it sounds like we ate a lot but we just bought a serve of each thing and then shared it so that we could all get a taste of lots of things. Steve (our mate), Patrick and Nicholas took Steve's 3 girls on the dodgems and they had a blast. I video taped it as well which turned out really well. I don't have any luck putting it on the blog though. To watch the face of Tara, in with Nick, through the tape is hilarious. She starts all smiles and then has one hand up on her head and ends up with her head in both her hands.

We then got caught in a storm and ended up all soaked. We decided not to stay for the evening entertainment and fireworks and headed home for hot showers, dry clothes and hot milos. Perfect way to finish a great day.

Settling In

Well time is flying by it is almost a month since my last post and it only seems like last week. We are starting to get settled in. The house we are renting, whilst quite expensive, is perfect for us. It is on 3/4 of an acre so Dave and the boys are able to get out in the yard and kick the footy and run around and chase each other like mad things. We have 4 bedrooms so that means we have an office (yah - no more paperwork on the kitchen table) and it is 2 story so that means we have heaps of storage downstairs as well as a spare room for visitors.
Nick has settled into school really well. Left a message for the teacher to ring or send a note if he was having any problems and I haven't heard from her. They actually stream their kids. So they have an elite athletes Year 7 class and a social/recreational sports class and a music class and an arts class etc. Each of these classes gets extra time allocated to their speciality. Nick is in the social/recreational sports class.
Pat is a different story. He gets on really well with the other kids and likes his teacher. But his teacher is currently suspended ( yes the teacher). There is a bit of an uproar in the school at the moment as the teachers are wanting to do less of the paces (booklets that the students work through individually) and more actual teaching and not all the parents are happy about this. Up until last year it was a parent controlled school and many seem to think that they are still in charge. Patrick does not get on with the student teacher who is running the class in the teachers abscence. He has not spent very much time in class over the last 2 days as apparently "he doesn't exist to her and she is not going to listen to him as he doesn't listen to her" and he has spent the day sitting outside or in the office. There are numerous duty of care issues. I don't know that he has learnt a great deal there. At the end of his first week he brought home 27 pages of work that needed to be completed by monday (it was a long weekend). During the next week he brought home 8 pages of work on commas. He had told the monitor (like a teacher aide) that he didn't understand them. She explained them to him and told him he wasn't allowed to go to lunch until they were finished but he still didn't understand them and so he just put a comma after the first word in each exercise so that he could go to lunch and then brought them home for me to teach him how to do them. Students are supposed to do diagnostic testing when they arrive so that it can be decided what level they are up to in each subject and where they are to start. This hasn't happened. He was doing a maths book, english and SOSE. Once a week or fortnight he was going for a science lesson but they only have enough equipment for the teacher to do the experiment and the students watch. He has had 2 art lessons and he gets PE. He finished his Maths book last week but they don't have another one for him to go onto so he got a science book. They have a manual arts shed but no teacher and whilst they said they were looking into options and hoped to have it started before the end of the term I don't see this happening. He is supposed to be doing the Year 9 testing this week but apparently there has been some mix up and a boy in year 10 did they practice tests and he didn't and neither of them are doing the actual tests. There is plenty of other stuff as well. So we have been praying and have decided to look at Tullawong High. It has 1200 or more students but seems to have a reasonable reputation for discipline. It has a good vocational as well as academic program (according to its brochures). Have rung and organised an interview to have a chat about what they have to offer. Didn't bother sending Pat to school today and will probably keep him home until his teacher comes back from suspension or we decide to send him elsewhere.
I applied for and got a casual job at Coles (about 8 hours a week). Am also supposed to be starting tutoring at Tullawong but haven't heard anything back about whether there are any kids. So we'll wait and see. The government allocates $700 for tutoring to each student who does not meet the minimum standard on the Year 3, 5, 7 Testing. I did this tutoring in Victoria the only problem with it is that you don't get paid until the end.
Dave is going to Gympie 2 days per week. And is continuing to pick up some new customers. I have started to design some flyers and business cards so that we can start advertising down here.
We went to Toorbul fishing on the weekend. We were the only ones there and it was really nice to get out as a family beside the water and have a barbie and just relax. We are going to the Greek festival on Saturday with friends from Gympie and out to Bribie Island on Sunday with Dave's sisters family for a BBQ and some fishing.
Well better go. My job for today is to sort out the office and get all the boxes unpacked in here and put away.