Cutest Couple Ever: A Tribute

(Isn't Mama beautiful?! :))

So today is my Mum and Dad's 28th Wedding Anniversary. 28 years ago they were 7 less children, two less children-in-law 1 less granddaughter and a lot less stressed! :) I have to make this a quick tribute cause I'm swamped with long weekend prep before school finally starts on Tuesday, and that's probably good for everyone cause I can go on :)

Mum and dad first met at a YSA convention, where dad spotted (was checking out...) mum by the pool. Mum travelled to Brisbane shortly after convention (from Adelaide) to stay with some friends, and to cut a long story short (as is the necessity here...sorry!) they started dating. The only problem they had during this time of bliss and falling in love, was that everytime Dad got up the courage to squeak out a 'will you marry me?' Mum would run away. Fortunately, after a lot of prayer and fasting, some lessons about getting answers to prayers, some counsel from a wise Stake President, and a forever destined to go un-used convention ticket, they got engaged! Then Dad - stud that he was and not about to let a good thing slip away, pinned the wedding date down for 6 weeks time! Mum spent half of the following ten years in bed, with awful 'my-body-seems-to-be-allergic-to-babies-growing-inside-of-it' sickness, then giving birth to 7 children, and becomming Supermum. Dad spent those years completing his degree and working to support his ever-growing family and often pregnant wife! They struggled, were blessed hugely of course, and survived! Now they are getting to the almost-back-to-just-us stage of their lives. They go on a date every Thursday night, and Dad takes Mum's birthday off each year to hang out. They are always nice to each other and so cute and in new love (still!), and they haven't listened to me once when I've told them to get a divorce. They like being together HEAPS, and in the holidays they like to get up early then stay in bed talking until the rest of us wake up and crash their party. They always do cute little things for each other. When they go to the movies Mum says she just wants to watch the action movie and Dad will swear he won't be happy until he sees the latest chick flick with her. Every day in December Dad had a little gift for Mum, and Mum is the one who'll make SURE Dad gets to go to every rugby game he might possibly be interested in. There's not a week (or many days!) that goes by without Dad bringing home flowers for mum. Now he buys them, but when they were newly married he used to ask an elderly lady down the road if he could cut one of her roses to take to his wife, because he couldn't afford them...cute!

The list goes on, but I really do have to go do some timetabling.

Thankyou Mama and Daddy for being the most wonderful example of a happy, loving Eternal couple I've ever known. I'm so grateful to have grown up with two people who are so selfless when it comes to the other. You both always put 10000% into making the other happy, and we have all learnt so much for you!! If it keeps going on for too much longer you're really going to have to get a divorce though...

Congratulations, Happy Millionth Anniversary,

Love you lots!!! Abby xo

PS: Have fun on your CRUISE!!!! (hahaha) :) xoxoxox

A good alternative for now.

So if I can't be a mum right now and I have to work in a professsion instead (and this certainly seems to be the case right now), teaching is a good alternative for now.

I don't know this because it's my first day at school with children - I know this even though it was a boring PD day without kids! It wasn't really boring - it's really good stuff to be trained further on, I think it was just the all day sitting in a room listening to presenters speak and speak and speak that I'm using as an excuse for my bad attitude :)

Anyway I thought I'd post a couple of pictures of my humble little classroom (please note the ikky green walls!!!) :) I can't wait for this weekend to be lazy and relaxing! And then Australia Day on Monday!!! And then school on Tuesday :) Will let you know how all goes... xo

This is my fun hippy desk area... :)

This is the Mrs Easthope 'Tag' James put on the whiteboard, see the little DJ in the corner? Yeah...

This sort of shows some of my boardspace and posters too...

Here's the red couch James bought me for Christmas :) Aw... I love it!! :)

And here's the view to the front of my classroom! The blue pinboards used to be the horrible pinky-purply that their frames still are (if they show up looking better than they really are in the photo, just take my word on them being awful. Same with the walls...), but we covered them in cheap blue tablecloth plastic! :) I can't wait to cover the hideous walls with posters and artwork!!! :)

And I put all different coloured smiley faces with each student's name in the front window, but I can't post that because of privacy etc :P but it looks cool :)

xo

My Enabler

All is well and right with the world. Deepa - my banking enabler who I met today fixed my internet banking account (happy sigh) :). She had to delete my whole account and give me internet banking all over again, but it was worth it :)

Other happy things of note:

Yesterday (yes, this is a happy thing that happened to me yesterday but I was too busy wallowing in my lack of internet banking that my priorities messed up and I didn't mention it...) I went to a discussion with James and the missionaries in our ward :) I am always deeply nervous of these things and only said 'yes' out of duty, but it was wonderful :) It was 2, then 4, then 5 girls who live close by, and who are here from Kiribati to study nursing at Griffith on scholarship. They were beautiful and I felt the spirit strongly. When the missionaries were teaching about the Gift of the Holy Ghost I really wished I was teaching, and could tell the girls what I felt about the Holy Ghost, and then the Elder turned the time over to me to tell the girls what I felt about the Holy Ghost lol :) I told them how he makes me feel happy, and like I just love everyone and life so much I want to burst with gratitude, and how I feel warm inside, at the same time. I told them how sometimes I get up to a nightmare and find it hard to get back to sleep, so I pray to Heavenly Father to bless me with peace so I'll be able to sleep, and I feel the Holy Ghost come and bring peace to me so I can sleep. I told them about how sometimes the Holy Ghost reminds me of things that are important, and how you can come to recognise the Holy Ghost as opposed to your own thoughts. One of the girls wants to come to church this Sunday so I offered her a ride since we live around the corner. I hope she comes, and I hope I get to see them again, they were beautiful.

Today I went shopping with James, where we got cute things like bright red,pink,purple and blue folders, a bright pink rubbish bin, a bright red rolly-teacher chair, bright yellow flowers, a bright green photo frame/clock, and bright blue plastic tablecloths then went up to school to my new classroom to create! :) We went in yesterday to meet my teaching parter (she's lovely) and check out the room, and I'm so excited! Yesterday my main impression was that the pinboards that cover most of the walls and are painted a horrible pinky-purple had to be covered up! Today I was stoked though, as we covered them with the blue would-be tablecloths, my whole classroom transformed! I put up our beautiful Edsco posters, put out flowers, fastened brightly coloured material that covers other miscellanious ugly things, etc., etc., I can't wait for school to start! This is way fun!! :) Tomorow is my first official day - teacher planning and professional development during school hours, and I'm excited! We're also moving my red classroom couch (thanks James! :)) in tomorow afternoon :) I've been going through all my teacher things, and picking out resources from previous experiences to take in, ideas for lessons, etc. I'm really excited :) Like, really :) I'll post photos when I remember to take my camera in! :)

Made a yummy chicken dinner tonight :) It was already marinated so I just chucked it in the oven, but isn't it fun when you take it out and can't help picking at your own meal cause it's so nice?! :)

Happy 2nd Wedding Anniversary Jonny and Jessima!!! :) I got to babysit angel Jenna for a bit while they played tennis and basketball at our place, lucky!! :)

I'm really excited for school to start.

My internet banking is working.

All is right with the world, once more (happy sigh). xo

"I'm Addicted!"

I know exactly what Hugh Grant meant - I'm addicted too. I'm addicted to a few things - certain people's opinion on certain things, chocolate of course, but I've just discovered a newer more disturbing addiction, and I've discovered it in the most disturbing way you can possibly discover an addiction - by not being able to access it!

On Friday at work I tried to get into my internet banking, but to no avail. My password just kept bouncing, and just as my little sister said 'If you type it in too many times it will lock you out', I got locked out. I called the banking people, and got given a temporary password, then reset my password, and then on Sunday I went on to bPay our tithing and got locked out again :( I called 'the people' to get a new one, which they gave me, but I can't reset it - the computer won't let me. Everytime I type in a new password it resets the 'type in your new password' page. I tried many, many bizzare number and letter combinations, capitals, smalls, everything I could possibly think of, to no avail. I called back 'the people' but no - they said to go into a branch and check it out today. When I explained this to the lady at the bank today she gave me a new temporary password. I tried to tell you that getting a temporary password from the bank, wasn't my problem. That in actual fact I've had a few, and they've been highly successful. That temporary was not good enough!!! She then explained to me which boxes on the login page to enter all the information into.

I tried again! - I told her I knew that, and that I am in fact a very regular internet banking user, and that it was more the problem with the resetting of the permanent password. The lady looked slightly confused and annoyed, pushed the temporary password towards me, then smiled and said 'yes well here is your temporary password, so you just pop this in, and then you'll be prompted to change it. Try using some numbers or changing around the letters in your previous password. Let us know if you have any more troubles'. (sigh).

I came home, logged in with my temporary password, and am locked out again. It didn't like ANY of my new passwords, and I'm sure I'm barely short of trying every possibility under the sun!

I check our internet banking every day. I go on, I see where the money's come from, and where it's gone. I see how much we have in our savings, and add more from our every day account into our savings, so we can't spend it. I log in again to transfer from our savings to our every day account when we find out I've been a little optimistic with how much we can save this week, again. I just like to know. I like to see where we're at. I want to pay our bills. I want to see our $0.50 interest come in, and watch the rent go out. I'M ADDICTED!!! (sigh).

I'm going to the bank tomorow.

The Glad Game

If you've ever seen or read Pollyanna you'll know what I'm talking about. It's on my list of things to make my children do before I die, even though it was written almost 100 years ago, and the latest movie version is the 1960 Hayley Mills version (think the old Parent Trap at girls camp movie).

I read and watched Pollyanna when I was just a little girl, and I loved it. I loved her eternal optimism, and the part where she tells about where the glad game came from. (I'm also getting warm fuzzy feelings about vague memories of her falling out of the tree and breaking legs, the Sunday evening meal, the whole town coming to visit as she's carried downstairs, then her whole town waving goodbye at the trainstation, and the pretty light patterns made from hanging crystals... will have to re-read.) I wish I had a copy with me I could quote the story from, but her and her father used to be very poor, and the only things they got basically were from the church chest. One day she was thrilled to get the church chest, hoping there was a doll inside, but all there was was a pair of crutches. As she got upset, her dad invented the Glad Game - finding something to be glad about in every single situation. When she asked what there was to possibly be glad about, he said they could be glad that they got the crutches, because they didn't need them!

I have enjoyed this game on my own and sometimes to the torment of those around me for as long as I can remember, and luckily for you, today is a Glad Game sort of day, and I'm going to start us off:

1. I am glad our air-conditioning unit at work has broken down when it's 29 degrees celcius (84.2F), because it's helping me to appreciate air conditioning. I've never really been in a sauna at all before, let alone for this long.
2. I am glad that it's only 29 degrees today - it could be worse... I could actually be in an oven...
3. I am glad that I picked today of all days to bring my own leftoever dinner hot lunch in, because it helped me to appreciate the frozen yoghurt Brodi bought me for lunch dessert, when I don't normally like ice-cream because it's too cold!
4. I am glad that I have absolutely nothing to do today at work other than answer the occassional phone call, because it's helping me have no desire to have a loafing job, and be more and more excited about starting my new official primary school teaching job next week. Also, because I am sitting doing nothing, and sweating. Imagine how much I would be sweating if I were moving more than just my fingers!!!
5. I am glad that the chocolate Freddo Frog in the drawer behind me only half melted in our office-sauna, because I can still eat it without getting chocolate all over me and looking suspiciously unprofessional when clients come in.
6. I am glad that I seem to have hay fever or allergies for the first time in my life, or I still can't shake the flu I had a couple of weeks ago, because it makes me so grateful for the most of my life when I am perfectly health and strong and non-sniffly :)
7. I am glad that I have to work while my wonderful husband has the afternoon off so we can't hang out, because I just called him to say 'hi' and he's scrubbing the walls of our spare room, having noticed while putting new sheets on the bed and cleaning up, that they had some marks. How cute his he?! :)

I am glad for other things that don't take as much effort to be glad for too, but that's my start to the Glad Game today - see if you can turn something around too! :)

xo

Happy Birthday James!!! :)

Sensing a theme?! - Like... I have too many family members with birthdays in the first half of the year! :) Yes today is James' actual birthday, so he's the be 2-3. When I mentioned to James' parents how old it seems they nearly chocked, but from my little naive 22-year-old perspective, it seems like we're progressing life at an alarming rate!

Anyway, here's a picture of James' breakfast in bed:
Yup - those really are chashews you can see in there! The bowl, is oats, with sultanas, cashews and almonds on top, again topped with mango peach yoghurt. James was stoked. If I woke up to that on one of my birthdays, I'd just have to cry. No bacon, eggs, or coco pops. James is a saint - he lives the best way he can in every way, including food. Tonight for a treat he's eating the leftover fruit. When I suggested on the way home that we stop for a treat he said he had just been thinking about what a treat it would be, to finish it off. I was thinking more along the lines of copious amounts of chocolate (sigh). I have a generally healthy menu, and I like to be fit and healthy, but not for a treat, and not on my birthday!!! :) And yup - that's the size of the plates and bowls I have to use for the man!!! - Lol just kidding - that's a platter. The bowl is his regular though.

I love James! He is a wonderful husband to me. Before he was a wonderful husband to me, he was a wonderful missionary. Before that he was a wonderful friend, and son, and nephew and grandson. One day (hopefully in this life!) he will be a wonderful father. I am blessed to have a husband who is my friend, who I love hanging out with, who is good for me, who I can talk about anything with and to whom I get closer every day. I am blessed to have a temple marriage, and to be sealed to a husband who is a worthy Priesthood holder, who teaches me so much, and who has righteous goals and purpose. I am grateful that James is such an active and hard working person, who is always itching to play sport or work hard or help someone out, and that he loves doing fun active things together. James always makes me happy :) We're a great team, I'm unbelievably excited to take that team through the eternities! Happy Birthday James, I love you!!! :) xx

PS: Today we also got good news - James got his uni transfer, so in a month and a bit he'll officially begin studying what he would LOVE to do with his life - highschool PE and SOSE teaching! :) Fun, I'm glad he'll finally be doing something he loves. I just keep reminding him that he might have to get into private school admin to support our 7 children :)

Happy Birthday Micky!!! :)

Okay sorry Mick - in all my posting about our Mexican Fiesta yesterday I neglected to mention Micky, the oldest brother in our family.

Micky is quiet - he rarely speaks in family discussions, partly because he is quiet, and partly because he has sisters and even a brother or two who are so busy speaking loudly over each other that he rarely gets a chance. (In fact, I blame Micky's quiet for me neglecting to post about him yesterday - I would not have not posted on Tammy's birthday, because she is NOT quiet.)

People like being around Micky, because he is cheerful and easy to get along with. Micky accepts everyone - I've rarely heard him say a bad thing about anyone. Lately, Micky has been absent from our family circle a little more often, but when he's there, he's made up for it with the presence of a girl he's been bringing along, who we all like too. She is hard working and blunt and smart and grew up in the country. Micky has been happier than ever lately, so that's good!

Anyway, the reason I really should have been posting about Micky yesterday when I was spilling my life story to you at the same time as I told you about our cool fiesta, is not that he's engaged, but rather that it was his birthday! Happy 26th Birthday Micky! I totally think of you as a menace to society even if that title is rarely used these days for boys your age, but I have faith in your amending that soon ;) Hope you had the best day EVER, and have fun on all those dates we planned, and even the 'Choose Your Own Adventure'! ;)

Love lots, Abby xo