Garden

We are developing a veggie garden at Clinton's place.

Stewart, Clinton's father helped build the structure. We looked around around at the garden beds that were already made, but none of them seemed that good. After a few pieces of wood and some black plastic we had our own structure.

Next came the filling. First went in a layer of tea tree mulch that expanded as you put water on it. Next, a layer of straw and then bags of potting mix. A friend got us some manure which we mixed in.

The potting mix wasn't the best quality, so we took to pouring on some liquid fertilizer, which seems to have done the trick. We have a worm farm, so we're able to add the 'worm pee' to the garden as well.

At present we are growing corn, capsicum, broccoli, beetroot, silverbeat and trying to grow carrot. We bought small seedlings for all this, except carrot. We got some seeds, and while we could get them to sprout, the heat would zap them before they could get any strength up.

Air show at Amberley

Clinton's father came to visit during camp. Big camp went well, apart from the fact that we all came down with food poisoning after camp.

As a treat and as a something fun to do while his dad was up, we all went to the the air show at Amberley. Amberley is a suburb south-west of Brisbane and is the location of an RAAF base. The show was officially titled Australian Defence Force 2008 Air Show. There were a range of defence force displays but of course the show really belonged to the planes.

The day was oppressively hot, about 32 degrees, and certainly much hotter under the sun. With limited shade opportunities (they seem to avoid planting shade trees on airstrips!) we all left a bit weary from the sun. A good day, however, was had by everybody, with memories of some amazing sights. These include:

1. The Roulettes. Sonja and Clinton have seen the Roulettes on display the last two years at RiverFire. As such it is very cool to actually see the planes parked on the runway. They performed a display later in the day, including a number of death defying stunts. In one display the fly at each other from opposite ends of the runway then turn and pass barely a wing span apart. In another display two planes fly the length of the runway, with one plane flying upside down directly above the other.

2. C17 Globemaster : This plane is gigantic. Clinton estimated that the height of the tail was over 10 metres above the ground. It is actually close to 17 metres tall. You can park two semi-trailers in it side by side. It makes the Hercules parked on the runway next to it look small and insignificant. During the course of the air show, a C17 did a fly by. It was amazing how quiet and manoeuvrable such a large plane could be.

3. The stunt planes. Several stunt pilots performed displays. Throughout the displays, a commentary was given by a number of ground based observers through a series of loudspeakers situated along the length of the runway. During one display, they patched through the radio being used by the pilot. In this way they were able to interview him while his was performing the stunts. The pilot, "Pip", continued to talk throughout his manoeuvres, providing a commentary of his own stunts. The thought of twisting around in one of those planes is mind numbing. Much less, being able to maintain a conversation with the ground based commentators. Another stunt pilot cut a ribbon that was being held up by long poles with his wing tips.

Black sapote pudding

Sonja frequently fantasises about black sapotes or chocolate fruit. Her seemingly greatest lament in life is the chocolate fruit true that she never was able to sample in Rockhampton.

By chance we found someone selling black sapotes at the markets a couple of Sundays ago. We purchased five of them and allowed them to ripen. Knowing, from a previous experience, that they needed to eaten with something, Sonja found a recipe for black sapote recipe.

She made it tonight at my place, using a muffin tray instead of a cake tin. The resulting mini-puddings tasted like a delicate very mild chocolate pudding. Clinton decided that the best way to enjoy them would be with a cherry sauce, like in a black forest cake. As we didn't have cherry sauce, we substituted a Tasmanian raspberry sauce. The sauce was given to us by our friends Lachlan and Clansi at their wedding. It has sat in my cupboard waiting for the perfect opportunity. So for desert, we had black sapote pudding with Tasmanian raspberry sauce! Delicious!

Acceleration....

This weekend achieved a blind acceleration. It started well. By the end, though, we were amazed at how many things we had done.

On Sabbath we elected to have a relaxing day out of the city. Clinton picked Sonja up and we headed up to Mount Tamborine. We enjoyed a relaxed lunch, lamented the fact that the hang gliders weren't flying, then started on a walk to a water fall. The walk ended up taking a bit longer than planned, through Clinton's fault. By the time we returned to the car we were quite foot sore. For tea we revisited a take away in the main street. We were impressed with the potato scallops in the past and ventured to relive this experience. We were sadly disappointed as the take away seems to have changed hands and the potato scallops were almost burnt.

Sunday started with our regular visit to the Mount Gravatt fruit markets. Today the flea markets were huge. We are not sure how the golf range is going to fare with people parking on it. We bought mangoes again today. It is surprising that they are available so early in the year. They are of a reasonable quality, especially given the price (6 for $5), so we aren't complaining.

After eating some of the spoils of our visit the markets, we were motivated to go and look at worm farms. This we did, at the Bunnings on Creek Road. We left with a worm farm, 1000 worms, a tomato plant, and a special pot for growing tomatoes. These were all successfully assembled and planted. We were enjoying the last of our lunch (including a fantastic guacamole, featuring garlic, lemon juice, and chilli flakes) when the phone rang. One of the teacher's from school had a few spare tickets for "My fair lady" and said that if we could get to QPAC by 3 we could have them. It was 2.

We enjoyed "My fair lady". It is less of a musical and more of a drama. The costuming and set was amazing. All this excitement has left as a little tired though!

Lots of things...

Much is to be said. Slow are the fingers! The interval between the last post has seen much happen, so much that we haven't lurked here for a while.

A couple of weekends ago, our friends from Toowoomba joined us for RiverFire. We had an all afternoon picnic near the Captain Cook Bridge. When it came time for the fireworks we were joined by a few friends. The dump and burn from the F1-11 was amazing!

The weekend prior to that we travelled to Bundaberg for church. We wanted to deliver year 12 exam survival pack. Bundaberg church is the coolest Adventist church building in the world!!! It is in the old Presbyterian cathedral in the centre of town. It is even called St. Andrew's Seventh-day Adventist Church! We had a great day.

Sonja is now working at BAC as a teacher's aide. She is really enjoying the work.

Camp is coming up next weekend, so that means year 12 submissions for Clinton. It will be fun at camp this year as Clinton is doing a different job.

Weekend getaways!

On the weekend of the 19th, Clinton and Sonja flew down to Sydney for a friend's wedding. Sharona and Michael's wedding was a lovely one, with Sharona looking truly stunning. We then had to brave Sydney airport with all the World Youth Day pilgrims who were flying out.

The weekend of the 26th, Clinton and Sonja woke up super-dooper early at 4am, and flew up to Rockhampton for the Rocky Church regional day. It was a great day, as Pastor Krause was ordained also. After a good night sleep, we flew out Sunday morning back to Brisbane.

As Clinton seems to enjoy punishing himself, he then left early Monday for a two day Duke of Edinburgh walk with students.

Le Tour De Toowoomba

Motivated by the exploits of more famous tour, we too took to the hills. Or at least Toowoomba. We went and stayed with Braden this last weekend. Toowoomba is a tad cooler than Brisbane at this time of the year and Sonja enjoyed the fireplace at Braden's house.

On Sabbath afternoon we played Boules with Mandi and Daniel. Boules was a suitably French activity for our tour! Although it was a bit cool in the wind, we played for over an hour. It was truly delightful although none of us are particularly masters!

The Sunday leg of the tour moved to a more suitable racing format with Braden and Clinton taking to the track. The small indoor track at Toowoomba is a lot of fun and this was not the first visit. On this occasion, there were very few people on the track which made for exciting jostling between Braden and Clinton. The photo shows Clinton clearly in the lead, a position he held for a few seconds at least!

Dogs and Conferences

One of the latest adventures has been looking after a Maltese puppy called Jack. Jack has provided much amusement. Once we had puppy fenced the yard, plugged up every gap two or three times, the yard was finally Jack proof! Jack provided to be somewhat of a Houdini and had amazing abilities to escape the yard!

Jack's two favourite things in life seem to be food and playing. His favourite game is when Clinton chases him around the back yard. Jack will run up behind Clinton, bark and then race away just out of Clinton's reach. Jack will then circle back, and start barking at Clinton again. Clinton will pretend to ignore Jack, but then suddenly turn around and run after him. Jack get a look of absolute terror on his face and runs as fast as his legs will carry him. Once is is safely out of reach, the whole game starts all over again.

We took Jack to a park where he suddenly discovered that a Wallaby had crept up close without his knowledge. Jack let out a mighty bark and sent the Wallaby scurrying off. Jack then stood guard in case any other things decided to try to sneak up on him. Jack was quite interested in those strange hopping creatures. When one crossed the track in front of us, Jack froze and watched it with wonder until it had disappeared out of sight. Only then did Jack decide to chase it, and he took off! Jack forgot that he was attached to the lead and managed to nearly strangle himself with excitement.

Clinton also recently attended CONASTA, which is the annual Conference of the Australian Science Teachers Association, with John. They presented a paper entitled "A stratified view of knowledge leads to a rich experiential learning sequence".

Nap time with Clinton

Treats from Clinton











Traveling in style

Welcome!

Welcome to out blogspot!

Here we will post our random adventures for our family and friends to read about.

As most of you will be aware, became engaged while traveling overseas. The wedding is planned to happen in April 2009. We are looking at having a weekend together with family and friends at Somerset Lake. We will be booking out the Camp Somerset, which has cabins and wonderful facilities. Further details will appear closer to the date.

Please don't hesitate to leave us a comment, we'd love to hear from you!