Easter Camping with the Cooke's

What a way to enjoy a long weekend! We packed up our wagon and took to the road early Friday morning. Arrived in a place called Orange about 3 hours West and over the mountains. From there I jumped on my bike after driving to catch up to Danny and his Brother, and cycled through the Australian country side. I saw my first australian fox, and bearded dragon right up close as I slugged by their dead bodies on the road. We were then picked up and taken to "Uncle Dave's" farm. I think everyone needs an uncle Dave I'm sure grateful for mine. The following video Evelyn made, tells the rest of the story. We lived gratefully in each others presence praising God for the people we've come to love and Him for his sacrifice.

C.

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=ckroeger1#grid/uploads

Baby Kroeger

Colin's brother, Neil, and his wife, Anita, had a baby yesterday! We are so excited for them and can't wait to meet their little girl, Aliza for the first time. I felt very far away from home today and am EXTRA pumped to return now that there is a new family member. I got to see her on skype today and she is just perfect and super mellow. They're an incredibly adorable family at the moment.

We spent Friday night last week camping on Cockatoo Island, which is the largest island in Sydney Harbor and used to be a prison, then they had the convicts build a dock and it became a shipyard. Now it's more like an outdoor museum and campground. The facilities are super duper and there's even a little cafe on the island which is open from 8-5. I reeeeally like cockatoo island and can't wait to go back. It would be the coolest place to get married, you could have a camping wedding weekend there, it's just so beautiful. Lots of neat places to take pictures with all the empty warehouses & buildings. There are even old heritage homes that you can rent if you don't want to sleep in a tent.

This is just a small portion of the campground:

(We brought our own tent)

Our house is currently under the invasion of large furry caterpillars. I'm guessing they're checking out our digs to see if we're butterfly (or moth?) worthy. For the longest time I couldn't bring myself to kill them, so I'd just put it outside or ask Colin to do it, but last night as I observed one crawling on a wall, I grabbed one of the boys giant basketball shoes, and squashed it. And it was messy. I just don't care anymore, they're EVERYWHERE. I HATE CATERPILLARS!!

Lastly, Colin started his practicum on Monday and loves it. He's in a private clinic in Liverpool which is a 20ish minute drive from my work, so Colin, Drew and I leave at 7am, briefly stopping on the way to pick up another girl in their program, Anne-Lise, who waits for us on the side of the road, and then they drop me off at work and continue on their way to Liverpool. It's great! Our end of day times don't coincide too nicely though, and so far I've been getting rides home from my boss who lives 2 blocks from us. When I asked Colin what his supervisor is like, he said that he's a super nice guy that looks more like a well-fed pastor than a physio. On Tuesday Colin came home and said that it turns out the guy is also a pastor. Too funny.

E.

This is our friend's daughter: Ebony. She enjoyed playing with Colin very much!

Toasty and Chilly

I'm currently smelling burnt toast. Not just any burnt toast, toast that ignited in our sketchy toaster oven. That's the 3rd time that thing has lit on fire in the last month. My vote is always for getting rid of it but I'm outnumbered. Alas, I will try not to breath for the evening.

Camping last weekend was SO COLD! The beach was lovely but our campground wasn't as nice as the last one. I didn't even go in the water it was so chilly but Colin's hard core. In this picture, I'm wearing all the clothes I brought with me on our camping trip.

My friend Jenna did the same.

Monday was Colin's birthday and I made him his favorite cake: Carrot. Except now that we don't live with lots of family, I made his cake into cupcakes so he could easily bring them to school the next day and none would go to waste. 1/4 of our spices are just in bags and some even unlabeled, I guess just because Colin knows what's what. When I was about to add 3 Tbsp of cinnamon to Colin's cake batter, I decided at the last minute to taste the spice and confirm that it was actually cinnamon, even though the bag reeked of it. Turns out, it was actually a dull colored chili powder that had been sitting beside the very pungent bag of cinnamon in the cupboard. Yikes.

My boss went to a course today, so there was only 1 dentist working and it was sooooo slow. I decided to clean the 2nd room that wasn't being used. I took everything off the shelves to dust, wrapped up excessively long cords with elastics, and organized drawers. It was beautiful. When I had finished, the only thing left to do was wash the floors. Just as I was about to start mopping, I knocked over my bucket of soapy water. I quickly started mopping it all up and squeezed it back into the bucket. After several minutes the situation was under control and the floor looked stunning! I walked past one of my coworkers with the mop and bucket and made a comment about my water accident. She started laughing and told me that she had just assumed that's how we wash floors in Canada. I don't think she was joking.

Representing in Australia,

E.

p.s- no bond money has been returned. we have decided to pursue a bit further just to see what happens.