So this Saturday was moving day. After a little over three years of working for Youthworks, one of my beloved house mates, Julie, has taken a new job up in Sydney to work for a private school up there as one of their outdoor educators. Yes, this school has its own outdoor educators!! She will be organizing stuff from the school but spending at least a third of the year out on trips with students! Cycling New Zealand, Canoeing down the Murray, a 20 day hiking trip . . . you get the idea! It’s an amazing job opportunity and she will be fantastic for it but it’s quite sad to see her go :(
On Friday (two weeks ago now) I was asked to go up to Blue Gum (another youthworks campsite up in the Blue Mountains near Sydney) for the week since they were going to be short on staff. I was excited to go help out and experience a new site but also a bit bummed that I’d be missing out on Julie’s last week living with us :(
Luckily though we had planned a sort of girl’s farewell sleepover!! We borrowed mattresses from work, which we loaded up with pillows and blankets and dunas (like a comforter) to cover our lounge room floor!! Six of us youthworks girls were there (plus Jess who phoned in from England!) and five spent the night. It was such your typical girls sleepover – lol. We made cookies; Julie had bought little men cookie cutters from Germany and I wanted to make some heart ones for V-day! Nomes (former youthworks chic now married to my boss, the one from America, and soon to be mother of two!) brought rice paper rolls for dinner. You stick this hard flat crispy thing in hot water and it gets all soft and flimsy and slimyish. Then you add salad, chicken, and sauce, wrap it up and there you have it! I’ll have to take a close up photo next time we have them – they are a frequent dinner at our house! We watched movies and ate ice cream and stayed up late! Mel made us crepes with fruit and ice cream for breakky and we had a slow start to the day! Too much fun! I truly live with and work with a wonderful group of girls! :) (And boys too) :-P
So a flour fight broke out while making cookies. . . Julie clearly started it :-P
Mel got dragged into the flour fight!
Dinner on the floor - rice paper rolls! yumm
From Left: Mel, Leanne, Nomes, Al, Julz, Me
On Saturday I ended up going dragon boating with Alison and Dave, who are part of a club. It was fun and hard work; made me miss rowing although it is quite a bit different.
Monday morning I was off on the near 3 hour drive up to Blue Gum Lodge for a hectic start to the week with a group of year three boys with very little attention span; a challenge but an experience all the same. We finished the week off with a coed year 7 group. And in between them I managed to take my final exam for the Intro to the Bible course I’d been taking by distance education through Moore Theological College!! The exam went okay – good enough I hope! I think the essay worth 25% went fairly well. There were definitely questions I knew and definitely ones I didn’t know and a few I knew I should know but couldn’t recall!! There was A LOT of information covered in the course and you’re not sure what they are going to ask. A bit more study time may have helped but I think its one of those you can never know it all kind of things. I really enjoyed taking the course and learned a lot from it but I am glad to have the test behind me!
So Blue Gum! It is the smallest of the three youthworks sites so it has a smaller staff: three guys (plus the one in charge) and two girls. Since they are smaller they are a bit more laid back. They have breakky together with the teachers every morning before heading off for devos and setting up for the day. Some of the activities they run are a bit different from ours. No canoeing but they do hike mountain biking, a climbing wall, and a bike ed activity. Unfortunately Youthworks initially only trains you in the activities you need for your site so I was running a lot of archery and initiatives and low ropes this week! I also did abseiling twice at their off-site cliffs – which was pretty cool – it had an awesome view! Blue Gum tends to get mostly younger groups and therefore doesn’t do too many out tips. The year seven group did cook on trangias and sleep out in tents one night but they were just set up onsite.
It was neat and fun to get a chance to experience a different site but I will say that by the end of the week I was missing good Old Shoalhaven and the team. It’s good to go to other sites cause it makes you appreciate what you have and get new ideas!
I got home on Friday close to 6 for a house dinner at the Indian restaurant, where we went for my birthday. Then Saturday was the big moving day. I went home with Julz for the rest of the weekend and for a luau themed 21st birthday party – much fun! We spent today driving around Sydney looking at living options – lots of time in the car but neat too. Have I said I’m sad she’s leaving?? :-P :(
Tomorrow I head out for a four day hike / canoe with year 10 students. It is a coed group so I’m headed out with another male leader, Tom, and then Mel will join us for the canoeing bit to be our safety / power boat driver. Should be fun! The most days I’ve been out though – soo gonna be ready for a shower by the end!
Nearly back to good ole Nowra – caught the train down so Julz wouldn’t have to drive down then back up to her parent’s house.
Hope all is well back in the US of A :)
Miss you all.
<3 <3
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