One GOOD Weekend

[this was a couple weekends ago... somehow didn't post it straight away. My bad!]

This weekend was such a lovely weekend! I got to spend it with most of the people that I love most in this world!!

On Saturday morning I woke up at 8am... let myself stay in my cozy bed for another half an hour... and after eating a small breakfast, I ran to the Gawler Rec Centre to watch Amy's gymnastics. I got to watch her for 30 minutes, and I loved it! It made me kinda jealous, though! I always wanted to do gymnastcis - and do love all of the stretches, and pretending that I could be some kind of gymnast one day =P ha! - but it's great to see my sister enjoying it :-)

Dad and Jarryd picked us up, and then when we got home, Amy and I started preparing a whole bunch of food for that afternoon. We cut up celery and carrot, made sandwiches (ham and cheese, ham and tomato, and cheese and tomato. We had a great little production line happening!), and cut up fruit for a lovely fruit platter!

Soon after 1pm, we loaded up the car and drove to Rocky Paddock. As it was Ryan's birthday last week, he'd decided to get a bunch of families together, in the great outdoors.

We set up camp under some beautiful trees (just like the ones you see in the picture!), and then all of us "kids" went for a walk through the forest. Ah!! Sooooo beautiful! I just loved it. I took a slower walk, with Kim and Gabby, with a little 3-year-old boy, Peter. He was adorable! Telling us all about the trees, and how much it would hurt if they fell on us, and to be careful of the mushrooms, and poking the trees to see if there was any meat in there. hehe. Cutie!

We saw 3 kangaroos jumping through the forest (too fast for me to grab my camera - and too camouflaged anyway), and found a random golf ball half-buried in the dirt.

Walking back to the home base was hard work - especially for poor little Peter! He was a trooper though! And we even picked flowers for his beautiful Mummy!

To finish our time at Rocky Paddock, we ate food and sang Happy Birthday to Ryan. He even did a speech!! "Ummm... err... thanks for coming...!!!" ;-)

The G-family came back to our place, so we spent time chatting, eating (again), and playing cards (our Mums even played a board game!). It was nice to chill with them. After a while I curled up in the lounge and did some much-needed journalling.

Later in the evening, I did some gardening! It was great to get out in the fresh air again and be productive. Mum joined me for a while, and then we watched the end of Parent Trap with Jarryd =P

Sunday was also a lovely day. After church, my whole family went to Kim's house for her birthday celebrations. Just chatting, eating and chilling together was so good :-) And my present for Kim was a success!!!!!!!! I was sooooo excited! I bought it in Thailand, and had to wait over a whole month to give it to her!! It was perfect. A bag. But not any kind of bag! It was a bright green, converse-shoe-shaped bag. Yup!

Like this, only... a bag. I couldn't find any pictures to show an example to you, and I don't have a photo of it. But, if you know Kim, this was perfect :-) I was SO happy to see her reaction when she opened it!!!! *joy*

And to finish the day, Lici and I went to Elyse's house to join Josh, Julia and the P-family for dinner and a movie. It was so lovely!

I am so, SO thankful for weekends like this one. Good food, good people, good experience, good activities... Overseen by a VERY good God :-)

Praise the Lord!!

~Rachel