24-hour Sydney Visit

This weekend I had the privilege to spend just over 24 hours in Sydney!

Arriving in Newtown. Kind of feels like a "home" of sorts to me, now :-)

Sunset...  

I'm loving the Australian flag these days :-)

Emma, Tamara and I drove up on Saturday to attend the memorial service for Belinda, a friend, missionary and Nazarene who passed away 80 days ago.

This woman is such an inspiration to me - from what I have seen, heard and experienced of her, her heart for mission was so passionate, and I feel that my heart is similar to hers, so I feel connected to her in some special way, even though I really haven't spent much time with her.

Us girls went to Andre's place after the service and chatted, watched TV and drank ginger and lemon tea (thanks, Marcus!).

Marcus also made me practise Portuguese, and I really appreciated the time spent having a [simple] conversation with Andre and him in Portuguese. I love the language! It's hard for me to speak it, because I'm nervous that I'll say it wrong. But as I keep saying to people who are learning English - the more you speak it, the easier and better it will become! I need to take my own advice!!

On Sunday after the morning church service at Enmore Nazarene, Andre and I went into the city and spent the rest of the afternoon there. We had a simple lunch of fish and chips at the Harbour, and then went to the Museum of Contemporary Art [in Darling Harbour].

One piece of art...

I don't think Andre and I are particularly huge contemporary art fans... We found some of the stuff kinda weird... But we enjoyed wandering around the different displays on a few floors there at the gallery!

[And don't take it personally if you're someone who enjoys contemporary art! Each to their own!]

Us :-) How I love this guy!!! I'm so blessed.

A friend's Mum visited from Brasil recently, and my boyfriend kindly kept some goodies for me =D mmm!!

"Sonho do Valsa"

Aaaand... He gave me a very, VERY beautiful necklace :-) SUCH a surprise!!!! I love it!! Thank you, my love!

Guess what [flag] this is?? Some of you SHOULD know!

I hope you had a good weekend! - I certainly did!! =D Nothing better than spending [quality] time with my man, walking around the city, chatting, eating, and silently enjoying each other's company :-)

What did you do this weekend?

~Rachel

Canberra's Skyfire 2012 {PLUS!!! - Justice Crew!}

The weekend of March 25 was a relaxing one for me.

On Saturday, I went with Jamie into Civic just to check out the "city" of Canberra, chill, and get away from the base / home for a few hours :-) It was great to just hop on the bus and then spend a couple hours walking around Civic.

Then at about 5pm, the lovely Emma and Tamara picked me up and we headed to Commonwealth Park / Lake Burley Griffin, for Skyfire 2012.

It felt like we walked miles after we parked the car, but eventually we got a great seat at the centre of the stage, also with a good view of the lake - ready for the fireworks that would happen later in the evening.

Delicious pinwheels that Emma and Tamara's Mum generously provided. Yum!

Dance group

Resting :-)

Canons

Dancing helicopters

I love Australia :-)

Roulettes

Amazing!!!!

And before the fireworks began... We were treated to a dose of Justice Crew! If you've never heard of them - they were the winner of Australia's Got Talent 2010! =D

And finally, the fireworks started! Of course, it started raining about 10 minutes before the fireworks began ;-) Which really made for great photography*......

*Note to self: Trying to take photos of fireworks (aka, looking upwards) from under an umbrella while it is raining, is a hard ask!

hehe, I just love all the umbrellas you see in this one!

The best one of the lot =D

Walking back to the car

We finished the night by sitting in the car for half an hour? - 40 minutes? - waiting for the traffic to pass by. Even then, once we pulled out, it was a long time before we got out onto the road!

A huge thank you to these beautiful girls for inviting me out for a night with them!!!

~Rachel

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