people watching

There was a busker outside work this morning, playing an accordian.

He's been around before, but never right outside.

It made my day (well, the working part of it at least!). There's something about accordians, they're just cool. Selling croissants at the same time, I felt a little bit French (pseudo-French anyway).


There was this one Dad who was with his heavily pregnant wife and kid in a pram who insisted on sitting on the bench opposite the accordian man for about 15 minutes, talking to him, and watching him in awe. It was pretty funny because I could only see the family and not the accordian man - the Dad entranced, sitting down, and his pregnant wife standing patiently (read 'come on, let's move on now!') by.

[note: not actually him. He may have looked similar though]

breathing space

The time where uni is lacking, the days become consistently sunny, and life seems a bit more enjoyable... My holiday's thus far have been filled with many-a good (and sometimes dramatic) thing.

Mon-Wed was EU leadership conference down on the beautiful Murray at one of my favourite camp sites, Ankara. We talked about the important things in life (a mere smattering = the Holy Spirit, poverty & the needy, response to and understanding of our culture), we ate, we laughed, we canoed, we got capsised, we got fat lips and ouchie leg rashes, we prayed, we late-night-hiked, we mix-taped, we watched 40+ pelicans mysteriously linger on the 50m of river in front of the campsite, we had light night convo's about breaking and biting people's noses off and other things that were innocent but if I write them on here they may sound strange and innappropriate.
I also evidently didn't learn how to write short sentances.

Wed I again had the pleasure of Mim and Jordan's hospitality at a short but fun-filled dinner with ever-growing numbers, with Mim and Jordan (duh), Alex (our vip over from Melbourne), Anne, Erin, Edwin, James & Karen, & Liv ... Liv and I then made our way to small group (my first in about 5 or 6 weeks - all my open shifts at work have meant I haven't been able to go!)

Thurs Dad left on his epic 2 week+ journey to Greece
I had an averted incident at work where I very nearly was able to apply the term 'unfair dismissal' to myself (I've told the story too many times already, ask me if you're intrigued! Plus I'm lazy and like being mysterious).
Annie and I also were treated to yummy (highly recommended) tea, tim-tims (in combination), and wonderful girly chatting with Karen at the Harricks'. There's nothing like a 3 1/2 yr old pelting towards the door to open it for you for your arrival, then being enveloped in a leg-bear hug to make your day :D

Fri Brought a meeting about the pilgrimage next year - refocussing, re-gearing, list-making, and firming up of plans (Sudan's most likely out, Kenya, Egypt and Ethiopia are in).

Youth on Fri night led to Emma's sleeping over and...
Sat where we spent the day in creative chaos as we made a going away book for Dave who leaves on Thurs for a 9 month DTS is Quebec. Lisa joined us in the arvo - fun times with millions of photos, sequins, feathers (now affectionately known as 'flever's, lol. Sorry, maybe you had to be there?), glue, and in the end a pretty darn good book. I love time with friends :)

Flew from that to pick Anne up from the girls bball g-final (sadly a loss, but I hear there was unfair tech-fouling and shirt fronting involved - drama!) to whiz to Ez's Gang-Show where we proudly witnessed her writing, singing and dancing abilities.

From there... to Dave's farewell par-tay (the book, now + lovely notes went down well).

Em slept over again which lead to...

Sun - we watched I Heart Huckabees (not quite what we were expecting, but it was quirky), and a SAS dreaming day... ending in Subway, and fun unexpected family couch catch-ups with Dan and Phili dropping round...

Wow, well done if you got the end of that blow-by-blow account!

carickalinga cheer

Even though it was a couple of weekends ago, I wanted to put up some pics of the mini-family getaway we had down at Carickalinga...
These first one's are some of Dad's amazing arty shots - the man's got talent! The latter (the blue scarf makes many a cameo appearance) are Dan and Phili's...

Moody clouds make for great contrasty lighting

My favourite shot - isn't it amazing?! Dad and God make a good team (lol that sounded a lot less corny in my head!)
Mum and Jon

Loving gaze...
Not a very exciting shot - the car, the house (a friend's place we stayed at)
A nice natural windswept laughter shot
Dad goes for the little stone, Jon goes for the massive log!

The sunset - we could actually see the sun slowly disappearing over the horizon, it only took a couple of minutes!
I love that you can even see the bees legs

Dad was very excited that he actually got a natural non-posing shot of me - don't know why ;) Lovebirds...
Sparkling rivulets
Contemplative walks...

Jon doesn't like to thrown any old little pebble in the water, oh no. He seeks out the BIG rocks!
Here I am! Embrace me nature!

The original lovebirds...

Phili, Dan and I decided to take a walk up a nice steep (possibly illegal? We never worked that one out) hill to enjoy the view.
We then discovered that the wind + my blue scarf + mobile phone tower made a very cool combination - that's all wind-stick!
Ahh, the wind is so strong, we've been thrown incapacitated against the fence!

Oh no! The wind changed direction! We're going to blow away! It's true.

Oooh, what happens if we get UNDER the scarf??

OR if we put it over our faces?! Clearly this was turning into a major photo shoot. Lol, you can even tell Phili's pout. Pose, baby, pose. Stunning (yet stern!)
Hey, it's like a ... sail... thing! You can even nudge it with your foot! (who'd have thought?!)

Taut as. The scarf, that is.

Pretend you're a flag pole! Like this?
I am Jess, hear me roar! (there are sadly many more photos where this came from ...)
Come on, if you could have a scarf suctioned on to you, wouldn't you do the same?

Oh, is that a camera?

Oh, how candid!
Phili decided to get into some interpretive dancing
I tried to do a Grace Kelly... (We had to get some hair happening on the left, otherwise I looked a little too urban-Mary)
Dan's turn to pose with scarf! How much can you tell it's him?!

Naww, Dan's ear's got cold. In' he cute?

We had these two flown in from Milan.

Skipping through the meadows! How wholesome and fun :)

Then we skipped (literally) back to the others on the beach. You know, it's really tricky to get a shot of all three people looking like they're skipping at once!

Picture-perfect aren't we? Family reading on the lawn, in the sun. Quite amusing to see what we were each reading, so typical!

Even our feet were relaxed and happy, as you can see.

Intensive reading... I'm trying so hard to look like I don't realise there's a camera there!

Ahh, twas only 24 hours, but lovely times!