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Saturday, December 11, 2021

West Burrumbuttock Lutheran Academy For Excellence 2021 Review

West Burrumbuttock Lutheran Academy For Excellence has had a great year. Our Family Focus is: Faith, Books and Conversation, Music, Being Prepared, Adventures and Fun, and Service.

When it comes to Adventures and Fun, we've had that in abundance with our misadventure back in April and May in Coober Pedy and Adelaide.

This year our favourite books have been "A Place To Hang The Moon" and also "The Age Of Knights & Friars, Popes & Reformers (AD 1000-1517)

We hosted our first LIVE Kidonian News this year, which was lots of fun for all involved. This was the first time the school has been able to widely share their news program.

AD 2020 Tiger graduated from our school. AD 2021 saw Tiger attend Charles Sturt University to complete studies for first year Bachelor of Physiotherapy. He has applied to medical programs at universities in NSW and we await the results of those interviews in January.

Currently Tiger is working long hours at GrainFlow Silos in Oaklands. He's either on the tarp team repairing the tarps over the bunkers of grain or in charge of the E1 silo system.

He continues to urge our school on in making videos, and other fun performances.

Tiger has joined the NSW Rural Fire Service, and is having his final assessment very soon.

Our school photo with Panda, our mascot who goes away
with whoever is going away and has adventures with them.



















The Princess started AD 2021 not knowing where she wanted to head in the future, then in one afternoon walk we talked about her joy in sewing...and within two weeks she was enrolled in TAFE in a Certificate III in Fashion Design and Technology. This has certainly upped her game in all things sewing. This will help her gain entry to university, it she so desires to go.

Whilst in Coober Pedy, to keep her hands busy, we found some fabric in the op-shop there and she hand-sewed a medieval kirtle.

She is currently working towards Grade 8 with her piano, and has started studying recorder. She has 5 recorders; two descant (the size of a school recorder, plays in C), an Alto recorder (plays in the key of F) and two Tenor recorders (play in C, at normal voice level).



The Man has enjoyed a variety of pursuits. His favourite subject is anything to do with engineering. He is currently hoping to do aeronautical engineering someday.

He enjoys video editing, listening to stories, reading, and working in the garden. He has started working with Tiger to learn how to use the chainsaw, and fix things around the property...so that if Tiger goes away we will still have an onsite repairman. He really enjoys these new skills.

He continues to study piano. He loves working with our music tutor and looks forward to his weekly visit.

The Man has joined the Rural Fire Service and this is a highlight to his week.

Our Tank still loves all things outdoors. His particular passion at the moment is fishing. He adores his lamb Biggles, who follows him around more than the other two lambs we hand reared this year.

The lambs were a great distraction through one of our lockdowns this year.

Tank finished primary school work, and is looking forward to participating in high school activities next year. He continues to study piano and is working hard on being RAD (Rhythm, Articulation, and Dynamics).

Tank loves working in the garden to pick food, and get things growing. We have expanded our veggie garden to now be over 100m2. We are growing lots of onion, leeks, zucchini, beans, beetroot, tomato, cucumber, capsicum, potato, and so much more!

Tank has worked hard on the regeneration of the dam area, making it greener so that it is nicer to swim in. This year he also worked with his Dad to make a skiff to play on the dam with. He would love to acquire a canoe or kayak someday that we can take down to the river.





Joybug continues to delight us with her delight in learning new things. She loves to practice the piano, and has enjoyed getting a descant recorder to practice with The Princess and Mama.

She has also taken to sewing like a duck to water. She has been making herself a medieval shift, all without a pattern, but following instructions.

She has been a bit unsuccessful with animals this year; losing a lamb (it was very sick prior to our getting it), a gosling (very sad story), and her bantam chook (whilst we were away a fox got it). Next year we are hoping things on this front go much better.



Skipper has worked well through his books this year. He has a heavy focus on drawing because he loves it so much.

Skipper enjoys his rooster King John, drawing, jumping on the trampoline, playing with lego, swimming in the dam, drawing and playing with lego!

Skipper is great at memorising poetry and reciting.

He also enjoys being chef for the family.



Rosebud began school work in earnest in the past month, after playing at school for most of the year. She loves her bantam chook, which she calls Ella and is looking forward to when Ella has wee babies of her own. She is wearing a dress that The Princess made her for her birthday this year...one to look like Cinderella.

She loves making juice for us to drink...and generally cooking anything...mostly muffins.

Rosebud has helped Mama make a large cottage garden full of wonderful flowers, calendulas, strawberries, cornflowers, and SO much more. She loves to pick the strawberries.


We pray you have enjoyed this little insight into our year this year.





Wednesday, August 30, 2017

KFL Grand Final

The Pepperton Roosters and the Kidonian Rams were on fire today from the very first siren. The first two in the centre were Enoch Fandrich (Rams) and Abigail Fandrich (Roosters). The reigning champions the Rams had the lead in the first half but ended up losing to the Roosters by 5 points.

Roosters: Abigail: 3:1 (19), Sophia: 1:1 (7).

Rams: Enoch: 3:2 (20).

Score : Roosters (Winning Team) 4:1 (25), Rams 3:2 (20).

The KBC will be uploading the footage of the game to their website at: fandrich.blogspot.com.au/search/label/KBC

Written By:

Tiger (KBC Editor, KH Editor, KFL Board President)

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

KBC NEWS Update August

NEWS

WEATHER: Hurricane Harvey has ripped through the Gulf Coast damaging many towns and cities including Houston. The emergency services are having a hard time of it with thousands of emergency calls.

The Kidonian Department of Emergency is planning to build a new storm shelter on the edge of Pepperton which will serve as a place of refuge during storms and tornados.



SPORT: The KBC will be uploading the footage of the KFL Grand Final, held at midday 30th of August.  The competitors were be the Kidonian Rams vs Pepperton Roosters as they chased their chance of Grand Final glory.


ARMED FORCES: Tensions are rising between North Korea and America, China and Japan after North Korea launched a ballistic missile that flew over Japan split into three pieces and landed in the Pacific Ocean over 1,000 kilometres off the Japanese coast. This comes a after North Korea's nuclear missile threats on the Pacific island of Guam on which is an American Army base.

Written by Enoch Fandrich, Executive Editor KBC


Thursday, July 20, 2017

New KBC Website

The Kidonian Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) and the Kidonian Harbinger (KH) are proud to announce the opening of this new KBC and KH partnership website to which we will post our monthly news bulletins, extended articles, and other KBC programs.

During our news bulletins and in our newspapers we will make reference to this website so that viewers can watch and read full articles and stories from the bulletin and paper that may have been shortened due to scheduling reasons.

We hope you enjoy this website.



Tiger

KBC Publisher and KH Editor

Sunday, January 1, 2017

AD 2016 in Review

2016 was a year of rebuilding our shed into a little cottage room, planting around our property Stoneleigh, and continuing to settle into the Burrumbuttock parish, the people of which we have grown to love and learn from.  The highlight of 2016 was getting ready to welcome Bethany Anne into the world.

Sarah Joy was magnificent in continuing the children's education at home, while bearing Bethany. We had a fantastic obstetrician, Dr Simon Craig, who prepared us well, and delivered Bethany in what seemed record time.  Bethany was born a Victorian (no comment), like most children in this southern region of NSW.

I continued working about a day a week at the Gardens Medical Centre, keeping up my general practice skills. A particular highlight in the parish was preaching a sermon series on the Ten Commandments and leading a bible study series called Big Questions looking at the church's response to the social and bioethical issues of Abortion, Euthanasia, Refugee care and Just War. I continue to serve the wider church, being on the NSW District Church Council and the LCA's CSBQ (Commission on Social and Bioethical Questions).

I am very proud and impressed at how Enoch and Abigail have improved in their piano playing with the help of their teacher Gregory Lewis. Enoch and Abigail now regular play for services in the parish.  This year it's Andreas' turn to join the piano lessons. Enoch joined the Brock/Burrum Saints under 14 football team, and Abigail the under 12 netball team. Andreas also played in the Auskick competition for the Saints.

Thomas continues to enjoy the outdoors, and everything 'Bear Grylls'. Sophia is coming along brilliantly with her maths, and Noah continues to be adorable as he learns to speak. Bethany is a joy, and last night slept through for 7 hours (great start to the new year)!

In May we had a great holiday in the Blue Mountains seeing the sights, bushwalking, visiting second-hand book shops (my hobby) and catching up with Sarah Joy's Dad and family friends, Danny and Annette Wotherspoon, and also my aunt Waltraud from Sydney.

I've read some fascinating books this year, several in German, including Hans-Dietrich Genscher's Errinerungen (Memories).  He was Germany's long serving Foreign Minister, who served through the 1970s to the early 1990s, including the era of Mikhael Gorbachev's Perestroika and Glasnost, and the reunification of Germany. I read his book just after he died last year, unbeknown to me at the time.  It was fascinating and troubling, to see his dream of European unification, even towards a United States of Europe, continue to crumble this last year!  His impromptu balcony speech to his fellow east Germans (he grew up in Halle, the birth place of G.F Handel) who were seeking asylum in the overcrowded West German embassy in Prague in 1989 still gives me goosebumps.

This April 5th Sarah Joy and I will have been married 15 years.  For this I am truly thankful.  So now it's time to look for some crystal!

The Lord will watch over your coming and going
    both now and for evermore. (Psalm 121:8)





Sj's 2016

The second half of this year has seen a very quiet blog. I think most of my energy was focused on getting through each day of teaching and being pregnant at the same time.

Praying with Bethany Anne
I have enjoyed going for early morning walks and listening to my three favourite podcasts: Making Biblical Family Practical, the Arts Of Language by Institute for Excellence in Writing, and the Read Aloud Revival. I've also listened to numerous books, one of my favourites was: "Seven Women and the Secret of their Greatness" by Eric Metaxas, so many wonderful women to admire and learn from. All of their stories are amazing. I was particularly interested in the story of Susanna Wesley, mother extraordinaire and pioneer home educator, insisting on a proper education for her girls in a time when it was frowned upon. But in all of this passing on the Faith to her children and making a huge impact on the world through two of her sons: Charles and John. My favourite parenting books of the year was: "Give Them Grace". I personally find that listening to books is easier for me...and it works well when feeding in the middle of the night too.

Becoming a child of God
Our school has continued with a strong focus on "The Basics"...Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic. Our favourite time of the day is just after lunch when we put the young ones to bed and I read aloud to our children. First a picture book or two and then a novel or biography. One of our favourite read alouds was: "A Long Walk to Water" by Linda Sue Park. This is a true story about Sudan, the war there and one of the Lost Boys. It was heart wrenching at times, but it has a beautiful ending. Being a true story, it has taught us about what is going on over in Sudan and given us a further interest in the Lutheran refugee camps that we support over there through Australia Lutheran World Service.

The birth of our beautiful Rosebud has been quite a big slow down for me. It's been quite exhausting and at times frustrating, dealing with significant feeding issues and concern over her health. I'm pleased to say that we have finally succeeded in breastfeeding (we were feeding expressed breast milk for 6 weeks) and that she is moving towards sleeping larger blocks of time at night (7 hours last night). I'm extraordinarily grateful for the extra care Christian has taken of me and our children throughout my pregnancy and since the birth. We have also had much wonderful support and care from our parish for which we are very thankful.
Our most gorgeous Granny

Rosebud was baptised on January 1st AD 2016. A glorious celebration for our family and parish.

I'm looking forward to starting school again this year, next week (no, we don't run to school terms) and having a few getaways with some other pastors wives.

Monday, December 26, 2016

Skipper's 2016

Skipper is now two and a half and such a delightful little man.

He is full of smiles and lots of words. He loves reading books, loves Bob the Builder and Octonauts. He's quite active (what boys aren't?) and loves doing "shows" for us on the trampoline.

Skipper has enjoyed the baby animals on our little farm. Today we had two goslings born, and whilst our Gander will not let anyone near, Skipper happily looks on from a distance.

Skipper is thoroughly delighted with his little sister. He readily sits next to her when she is in the bouncer and plays with her. He is amazed at her little hands and feet and wonders over the grip she has with her hands. Skipper doesn't like to hear her cry and will find her dummy to bring it to her. He's quite gentle and caring with her.

Rosebud

When we knew we were expecting this gorgeous little lady, Joybug was always certain that our baby would be a girl and desperately wanted to call her Rose. Thus we have given her the nickname Rosebud for the blog.

Rosebud is now seven weeks old. It's been a long seven weeks for Rosebud and Mama. On the day we were to be released from hospital, Rosebud was found to have high levels of jaundice requiring days under UV lights. I was allowed to stay in the hospital longer whilst we waited for the treatment to work. When we were released a few days later we were told to come back in for follow up tests in two days. By then Rosebud's jaundice levels had increased significantly and she was continuing to lose weight. She was required to be readmitted, placed under lights and have her feeds via a nasal gastric tube.

Rosebud was losing weight because she was tiring out quickly as she fed with her tongue tie, the jaundice would then increase and make her more tired, which made it harder for her to feed...and down the cycle went. We discovered that she had a blood incompatibility issue which was causing the jaundice, so it was not your average run of the mill "new baby" jaundice. Left untreated it could cause brain damage and even death.

To get out of hospital they require baby to be on all suck feeds, so we gave up attempting breast feeding and moved straight onto a bottle. We bottle fed Rosebud for three weeks solid with little to no attempts at the breast as we endeavoured to help her gain back her weight, strength and health. There are many benefits to bottle feeding, with everyone being able to have a go at it, and most importantly Christian being able to wake up for morning feeds and allow me to sleep in and get some rest. At four weeks we started to attempt breastfeeding. Finally last week we attempted breastfeeding only, with no bottles. We managed to do this successfully in what has turned out to be a super busy week, with Christmas services and a three day Christmas catch up with my family.

We are all thoroughly delighted with Rosebud and her smiles and now gurgles.

Joybug's 2016

I really liked that we got to go to the Blue Mountains.

I really liked Uncle Michael's bus. We went for a ride in it and it has no seat belts. I said "thank you" to him. We got to have fun on the ponies. We got to have a fun time with cousins. I like how we got to have a Nerf gun fight with Grandfather. We had a fun time at Christmas with our family.

I really like feeding Rosebud and holding. I like carrying her around. I can't wait until I am an adult and can have babies of my own.

Joybug has pushed really hard at her school work this year. She really enjoys maths and reading and writing and drawing and anything classified as schoolwork really.

Tank's 2016

This year we had two ducklings. We liked them but they died. We got to go swimming and we got to go to the new pool at Jindera. At home we made a water slide.

Rosebud is my new sister, she is cute. She likes to play with me. I like to get Rosebud to pull my hand.














Ned Kelly was a famous bushranger so is Dan Morgan and Captain Thunderbolt. Ned Kelly was in Victoria new us, but Dan Morgan was in our area. We like to visit Morgan's Lookout. I found how Morgan got up to the top of the rocks at the lookout. I found a metal pin and a rope that he could have used. I also know where Morgan slept. Granny and Grandfather live where Captain Thunderbolt roamed.