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Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Tiger's 2014


This year Daddy got called to the Burrumbuttock Lutheran Parish in NSW. Burrumbuttock is in the Albury-Wodonga area which is right on the NSW-VIC border. Our new home, ''Stoneleigh'' is 5 minutes out of Burrumbuttock and the West Burrumbuttock School is on the property and so is the teachers house which has had extensions added and is where we live. We are still doing our own renovations and so far we have built the pantry, made curtains and a whole heap of other stuff. We have  1 horse Lorien, 2 ducks: Mopsey and Flopsey, 3 Guinea Fowl: Bash, Dash and Crash, 7 Silver Sussex and 20 Sheep, 3 of them have names Bob, Jim and Moo Moo.

This year on April 24th we welcomed our new brother Skipper into our family. It was really fun feeding him with the bottle and holding him. I like watching him do different things and seeing him smile.







Earlier this year we went on a holiday to Tasmania.

We went to a place called Tasmazia with life size mazes, cubby house villages and even a correction centre. I liked all the cubby houses the best because they were fun to play in. The mazes were downright annoying because it took ages for us to get into the centre. Mama got completely lost more than once.

We also went to Port Arthur where we learnt about convicts and looked inside prisons and went to the Isle of the Dead. At the Isle of the Dead there were interesting stories of the people who were buried there.  The day we were there was freezing!

In Hobart we visited a replica of Mawson's Hut in Antartica. We got to dress up in the clothes they would have worn and write with their typewriter and read stories about them.

While we were in Tasmania we made of what we did and each of us kids, including Mummy and Daddy, wrote about what happened for every day. We still look at it. It has lots of great memories.

This year I got Confirmed on November 9 2014. Me and my fellow Confirmees stood up in front of the church and proclaimed our faith. Here is my faith statement: I believe that Jesus is my saviour. I am a sinner like all people, and that Jesus saved me by dying on the cross. I also believe that Jesus cleansed me, a bloodied person like every body else, so that I am now with as snow. I chose Deuteronomy 31:6 because it reminds me that I can be strong in God, faithful and trusting him no matter what, and that he will be with me to the end of the age.

2014 has been an adventurous year and I hope 2015 will be just as fun!


By the Tiger  

The Man's 2014

We went to Robinson Cabin at Boonoo Boonoo National Park. We went for a little holiday after Skipper was born. I liked the river and the big rocks called granite. I liked being able to light fires and going bushwalking. In this picture I was holding pure quartz.









When Skipper was born he was very cute and I like that I am his buddy. Being his buddy means that I have to help him when he needs help. Skipper struggled to breastfeed so I got to feed him using the bottle. I liked doing that. Now he has normal food. He likes sweet potato and rice with Korma (we all like Indian food).

 I like going swimming. This year I have got really good at swimming, but I still need a few more lessons.

I miss Toowoomba because I miss our church there.

In Burrumbuttock I like it best because we have a bigger yard and lots and lots of pets. My favourite pet is our chickens.

Tank's 2014

I liked going to the museum of army stuff. I liked looking in the surgery. It was fun to look around in it.














This year we met Sir Tony Robinson. He works with archeologists. I like to watch his show "Time Team". He came to Toowoomba to make a show.

Our baby was born in April and he's so cute because he laughs a lot. I like Skipper because he's very beautiful. When we were in Toowoomba he could not sit up, but now he can. He can crawl.

 I miss Toowoomba. I liked the house we used to live in, but now we don't. It had very good hide and seek places.

Burrumbuttock is a very good place. I like our animals. We have a horse, two ducks, seven chooks, three guinea fowl and 20 sheep. And we even have wild duck in the dam.

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

The Fig Tree...and the Snake

Can you see it? We are grateful to God that I did.
We have a beautiful fig tree in our orchard. I love having "biblical" trees growing. We also discovered a pomegranate as we were clearing out an overgrown garden.

Before Christmas we went on one of our night walks with all the children and feasted on four or more  very large figs. It was a great delight! We are waiting for the second harvest, which looks like it's going to be huge! The tree is still covered in the bird nest from last season, which is great for keeping the birds at bay.

We went for a night walk this week and Tank and I were just starting to walk around the tree checking the readiness of the second harvest, when I saw something under the tree that didn't look like part of the nets. A snake!

It was very still, and we wondered if it was stuck in the net or dead. The children and I talked through our options on how to check out if the snake was alive, and we decided to spray some water on it from afar. This way we could all stand well away from it and no one was going to be silly enough to touch it with a stick!

A small spray from the hose determined that it was not just alive, but firmly stuck in the net. We took some photos and looked up photos of snakes in our region. We are pretty sure this one was an eastern brown snake. A fairly large one at that...about 1metre 30cm to 1.5metre.

We decided the best course to go was to kill the snake as he was so distressed,  and no proper snake catcher would return our calls. We called a parishioner neighbour, who came around with a gun and a rake. The children got the opportunity to touch the end of the dead snake and feel the way the bones move inside it's body when it moves. We were able to talk about snake anatomy.

It was actually a lovely visit. We were able to learn more about our local neighbours, our congregations, mission work, how home education works, share snake stories (this farmer had been bitten by a brown twice!) and develop friendships too.

Who would have thought one could do farm work, school work and church work whilst killing a snake!?