The Triplets

We have a family at church who had triplets, it is lovely watching them grow up- I love watching them at feeding time when they are all lined up in their strollers. I couldn't resist taking a snap of them yesterday.

Amy's Work Customers

Amy is enjoying her job and she just loves the different dogs that come in each day. She has been washing the dogs and been doing some clipping and trimming as well. These are some of the dogs that come in each week. The little white dog is Hugo, who comes in each day for "Doggy Day Care" while his owner is at work.

Family Dinner

Had a lovely dinner last night with Simon, Bindi and the kids. It is great to get together! We played Beetles and Trouble last night- poor Aunty Sue lost both games!

Family Dinner Desert

I suprised myself last night, I was pretty pleased with how my desert place turned out!

Amy's Job

Amy has started full time work this week working as a dog groomer at a local dog grooming salon. She has had a lovely week, going off each day to spend time with dogs which makes her very happy. She is working 9 to 5 so there is going to be some adjustments for her, and getting used to the daily work routine but seems to have settled in very well and enjoying heading off each day and then coming home and telling me all about the dogs she had met that day! She gets a thorough interrogation from our dogs each day when she comes home. She has mainly been washing dogs, but has done a bit of trimming and grooming. It is great to see her happy!

Relief Society Fire Party

Had the Relief Society sisters from church around for a fire on Saturday night, we had a lovely relaxing time, and some of them learnt a few new things you can do with a fire besides toasting marshmallows! We discovered that when you throw flour in the fire the fire goes vroom! They also discovered that if you put a whole lots of sparkler scrappings into a tin can and put it on the fire it makes quite a show!

Pumpkin Picking

The weather has turned cold and the first frosts are not far away, so have picked our crop of pumpkins for the year and left them on the window sill for a week or so to let them set! I have gone 5 months without buying potatoes, zucchinis and tomatoes, will have to start buying them very soon, but looks like I will not need to buy pumpkins for a while.

The Iron Disciplinarian

Bill supposedly has this rule that the dogs are not allowed on the couch in the lounge room- as you can see from this, the man who likes to refer to himself as the "iron disciplinarian" is not very good at enforcing his rules!

Good Friday Picnic

Time for our Good Friday Easter Picnic- we normally have it with my younger brother Simon and his family. I have been inviting them for the last 3 years and they haven't come, but finally agreed to come again this year ( I am sure it has nothing to do with the fact they were living in Austria, but what sort of excuse is that!). It was a beautiful autumn day, and we had a lovely time, having yummy egg and bacon rolls and hot cross buns. We had an Easter egg hunt, egg rolling and just enjoying the beautiful weather. Amy and Bill misbehaved, but everyone else was pretty good!

Clancy's Missing Claw

We might have got him for free but this dog has had a few visits to the vets! He managed to injure his paw and when we took him up to the vets eventually we discovered he had a nail literally just hanging on by a thread. We had called him "Limpy"- now he is "Stumpy" he has his foot bandaged up, is on painkillers and antibiotics, as the missing nail has left a hole and there is a chance of the bone becoming infected, so hopefully all will be well soon!

That Will Teach Me to Go Away!

I go away for 10 days and come back and chaos descends! The first weekend I was away the kids lost their jobs. They had both been working cleaning hotel rooms- Lachlan had worked for 2 years and Amy for a year. It was good hours and good pay and they had both been reliable steady workers. The manager had decided to outsource the cleaning, which is his decision, but he did not have the decency to tell them that that is what he was going to be doing, so they found out from another staff member, and they were never told face to face, just a comment on their final pay check wishing them good luck for the future!

Then once I am home, Amy tells me she is not enjoying uni and is going to drop out. She had been through all this with Bill while I was away, he tried to convince her to stick it out for the rest of the semester and then defer, but could see that it was not going to work, I tried the same thing when I got home, but realised the same as Bill. Amy has struggled with high school and college, not academically but with the anxiety and stress it seems to create for her, and those feelings had all been coming back. She had been at uni 7 weeks, had been going all the time, driving herself, worked it all out, had a great timetable - late starts and a day off, a friend to go with, so it couldn't have been a more ideal start. To me it is sad that she felt she couldn't keep going- a gap year would probably have been a good choice, but that is hindsight, and she knew I would have been happy for her to take a gap year. So now it is off job hunting, work for a while and hopefully she will work out what to do!

Next bombshell was when Lachlan was driving me home after he picked me up from the airport. I was asking him how he was enjoying his semester break, to which he replied that he was really enjoying it. When I asked the silly question - do you intend to go back 2nd semester he replied he was not sure and was thinking of doing an apprenticeship to become an electrician! I don't have a problem with him doing that, would be a great thing to do, but being 2 years into his 4 year degree it would be a shame to not finish. He is still deciding what to do, we are encouraging him to check with uni to see if he can change to a single degree and try and finish it off even if it is part time- so that will teach me to go away on a holiday!