Cricket on the beach!
A BBQ at Matty Gibb's w/ more cricket in the background!
Yum Sausages :-P
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Dec 16-20
Straight after the bush hike,we got back just in time for showers and our Shoalhaven Christmas party at a nearby beach / park. Dan and I took prawns for dinner - very Aussie :-P
A day at work then I was back up towards Sydney for vertical rescue abseil assessment - I passed! The next day was the Youthworks Christmas party in Sydney at a nice resturant on Bateman's Bay.
From there Alison and I caught the ferry to her house to spend the weekend with her family as they celebrated an early Christmas. Here, I had my first encounter with rubarb!
Cooked rubarb - often eaten with ice cream. It has a unique, almost sour taste, but I thought it was good.
Geocaching with Alison and Dave (married)!! I found an Australia Day hat in the Cache!!
Dec 14-15 - Bush Walk Training Hike
So I should be preparing Christian Discovery right now as I am leading it for a year 4 and 5 girls school upon my return to camp / work / Nowra / "home," but instead I am taking advantage of this wonderful wireless internet connection to catch everyone up on my life the past month and a half!
Dan and I planning our training hike. We had to detail our course, where and when we would stop, locate emerency exits points, and plan our menu. This hike would be just Dan and I and our trainer Shell!
Shell and I at Jelly Bean pool after some "bush bashing" / navigating / walking on a compass bearing. I was a bit disappointed to discover the pool was not full of colourful jelly beans :-P Thank you Mel for loaning me your gators! Just wish we had thought to put them on sooner as we all suffered several scratches before remembering we had them!
A "bush cockroach" found at our campsite in the morning. Had to pick it up for size comparison so you could appreciate just how big it is!
A quick detour to "Lost World Lookout"
A "bush cockroach" found at our campsite in the morning. Had to pick it up for size comparison so you could appreciate just how big it is!
A quick detour to "Lost World Lookout"
It was a wonderful, enjoyable two days out the in the Blue Mountains!!
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Day 1 Term 1 2009!
So today marked the beginning of Term 1!
It has been way too long since I have last blogged in detail and I'm not goignt o try to catch up on all that has happened! Instead I'll give a glimpse of what is coming next!
We have a year ten group in this week and we are headed on an out trip tomorrow. I'm going to be hiking both ways (usually you would conoe one way and hike the other but one of the girls here is having issues with her knee so I"m going to hike with her group tomorrow while she canoes with mine).
Getting back on Thursday then Flying out of Sydney to Melbourne for a four day weekend and Jacqui & Aaron's wedding (who I have worked two summers with at Sandy Cove!!) SO really excited about that!
Next week I am running Christian Discovery (CD) for a year 4+5 private girls school so I still have a bit of preparation for that, whcih will hopefully happen at some point on the way to and from Melbourne :-P
I've been taking a Preliminary Theology Course by distance education "Introduction to the Bible" and it has been really good!! I'm learning heaps! It gives pretty much a basic over view of the bible but really ties it all together and points out thinigs that you wouldn't necessarily know or think about. I'm nearly done all the studies from that (there are ten) but then I have to study study before the exam, which will be somewhere btwn Feb 11-25.
Yeah, so that's a brief update on my life at the moment.
All is well down in Nowra! I'm on the work computer at the moment so can't load any pics but will have to do that soon.
Miss you all,
Sending some sunshine.
<3 <3 Laura :)
It has been way too long since I have last blogged in detail and I'm not goignt o try to catch up on all that has happened! Instead I'll give a glimpse of what is coming next!
We have a year ten group in this week and we are headed on an out trip tomorrow. I'm going to be hiking both ways (usually you would conoe one way and hike the other but one of the girls here is having issues with her knee so I"m going to hike with her group tomorrow while she canoes with mine).
Getting back on Thursday then Flying out of Sydney to Melbourne for a four day weekend and Jacqui & Aaron's wedding (who I have worked two summers with at Sandy Cove!!) SO really excited about that!
Next week I am running Christian Discovery (CD) for a year 4+5 private girls school so I still have a bit of preparation for that, whcih will hopefully happen at some point on the way to and from Melbourne :-P
I've been taking a Preliminary Theology Course by distance education "Introduction to the Bible" and it has been really good!! I'm learning heaps! It gives pretty much a basic over view of the bible but really ties it all together and points out thinigs that you wouldn't necessarily know or think about. I'm nearly done all the studies from that (there are ten) but then I have to study study before the exam, which will be somewhere btwn Feb 11-25.
Yeah, so that's a brief update on my life at the moment.
All is well down in Nowra! I'm on the work computer at the moment so can't load any pics but will have to do that soon.
Miss you all,
Sending some sunshine.
<3 <3 Laura :)
Friday, January 16, 2009
HAPPY 2009!!!
January 17, 2009
Wow! It has been over a month since my last post. I suppose that is evidence of how busy my last month has been! Although this is meant to be the relaxing “holidays,” they have been pretty full; especially my last couple weeks.
I led on a holiday camp here (sort of like summer camp back home). The camp was here where I work but I was a counselor on it so I was staying on site with the girls in a cabin / room. It was lots of fun but also busy as I was a counselor but also working at the same time – yeah so kind of weird.
So that ran from Sat-Sat then I had Canoe training Sun-Tues with an overnight camp on Monday and back to work on Wednesday.
Now it is Saturday and I sit at work overhearing the worship music pouring out of the meeting hall from the group that is in. It is so cool to experience all different groups and they ways they interact and worship. We had an African group in last weekend. It’s just interesting how ppl worship in different ways, and so cool to work at a place that provides people with the opportunity to come away together to grow and learn and worship God.
Although I may want to, there is no way I can possibly fill you in on all that has happened since I last blogged. And you probably wouldn’t want to read that all anyway so I guess I’ll just put some photos up of highlights.
I have been missing everyone from home A LOT this past month and have been thinking of you guys and praying for you. MISS YOU ALL and hope all is well. <3>
Wow! It has been over a month since my last post. I suppose that is evidence of how busy my last month has been! Although this is meant to be the relaxing “holidays,” they have been pretty full; especially my last couple weeks.
I led on a holiday camp here (sort of like summer camp back home). The camp was here where I work but I was a counselor on it so I was staying on site with the girls in a cabin / room. It was lots of fun but also busy as I was a counselor but also working at the same time – yeah so kind of weird.
So that ran from Sat-Sat then I had Canoe training Sun-Tues with an overnight camp on Monday and back to work on Wednesday.
Now it is Saturday and I sit at work overhearing the worship music pouring out of the meeting hall from the group that is in. It is so cool to experience all different groups and they ways they interact and worship. We had an African group in last weekend. It’s just interesting how ppl worship in different ways, and so cool to work at a place that provides people with the opportunity to come away together to grow and learn and worship God.
Although I may want to, there is no way I can possibly fill you in on all that has happened since I last blogged. And you probably wouldn’t want to read that all anyway so I guess I’ll just put some photos up of highlights.
I have been missing everyone from home A LOT this past month and have been thinking of you guys and praying for you. MISS YOU ALL and hope all is well. <3>
Sunday, December 7, 2008
A Day in Lieu after SHORE Week
Friday December 5, 2008
A Day In Lieu
Since this job requires us to work a fair amount of odd hours a system has been set in place where we earn “time in lieu” for every night we spend on an out trip or every weekend day we spend on training. I believe it is something like every night we are out we earn half a day off and every weekend day earns us a full day.
I had heard of “Shore Week” very early upon my arrival to Shoalhaven. It is by far the busiest most stressful, anticipated week of the year! Beginning on Sunday, somewhere around 210 students and 25 teachers from Shore Anglican in Sydney arrived at Shoalhaven and the week of fourteen groups began! Numerous “casuals” were called in to work for the week including staff that had worked at Shoalhaven in years past or had worked or were currently working at a different youthworks site.
Since I would be doing two days of hiking on unfamiliar trails I was paired with a guy who had worked at youth works a few years ago. We each had our own group but for the entire out trip part of the camp (the first three days) our groups pretty much operated as one. This was really good as I didn’t have to worry about not knowing where I was going. Not to mention it was nice to have a male leader around, being the only female amongst 30+ guys!
Each of the fourteen groups included one youthworks instructor, one teacher from Shore, 13-15 year eight boys and two year eleven boys who were meant to act as mentors and helpers. As I seem to have a habit of doing, after spending only a few minutes with my group I thought to myself “oh dear!”
In efforts to keep this short I’ll give a quick summary of our week:
Sunday – Tuesday: Out Trip
Sun: 4K / 1 hour Hike
Mon: 8K / 2 hour hike
Tues: 10K / 6 hour hike (Lynches back to Waterslea) With the boys navigating using map and compass between markers. I led a good bit of this hike, giving me experience in navigating the trails and the markers and just managing a group as they navigate through!
Wednesday:
Morning Canoe trip with Ben’s group (about 4K)
Christian Discovery
Caving (using my new head torch!!) Really getting to know the cave and feel perfectly comfortable taking a group through!
Thursday:
Abseiling at the tower
Archery
So although the week may have gotten off to a somewhat roughish start, as seems to be the case with many camps, by the end of the week I was sad to see them go. . .
A Day In Lieu
Since this job requires us to work a fair amount of odd hours a system has been set in place where we earn “time in lieu” for every night we spend on an out trip or every weekend day we spend on training. I believe it is something like every night we are out we earn half a day off and every weekend day earns us a full day.
I had heard of “Shore Week” very early upon my arrival to Shoalhaven. It is by far the busiest most stressful, anticipated week of the year! Beginning on Sunday, somewhere around 210 students and 25 teachers from Shore Anglican in Sydney arrived at Shoalhaven and the week of fourteen groups began! Numerous “casuals” were called in to work for the week including staff that had worked at Shoalhaven in years past or had worked or were currently working at a different youthworks site.
Since I would be doing two days of hiking on unfamiliar trails I was paired with a guy who had worked at youth works a few years ago. We each had our own group but for the entire out trip part of the camp (the first three days) our groups pretty much operated as one. This was really good as I didn’t have to worry about not knowing where I was going. Not to mention it was nice to have a male leader around, being the only female amongst 30+ guys!
Each of the fourteen groups included one youthworks instructor, one teacher from Shore, 13-15 year eight boys and two year eleven boys who were meant to act as mentors and helpers. As I seem to have a habit of doing, after spending only a few minutes with my group I thought to myself “oh dear!”
In efforts to keep this short I’ll give a quick summary of our week:
Sunday – Tuesday: Out Trip
Sun: 4K / 1 hour Hike
Mon: 8K / 2 hour hike
Tues: 10K / 6 hour hike (Lynches back to Waterslea) With the boys navigating using map and compass between markers. I led a good bit of this hike, giving me experience in navigating the trails and the markers and just managing a group as they navigate through!
Wednesday:
Morning Canoe trip with Ben’s group (about 4K)
Christian Discovery
Caving (using my new head torch!!) Really getting to know the cave and feel perfectly comfortable taking a group through!
Thursday:
Abseiling at the tower
Archery
So although the week may have gotten off to a somewhat roughish start, as seems to be the case with many camps, by the end of the week I was sad to see them go. . .
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