Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving today was an absolute success! This is the first year ever that the responsibility of producing the turkey rested solely on my shoulders; and although the turkey was admittedly a slight bit overcooked, it sure wasn't bad. It was so fun to make (and eat!) all the other side dishes, too - stuffing and mashed potatoes and gravy and broccoli casserole and sweet potato casserole and the cranberry sauce.....and the pies for dessert. It's quite a sense of accomplishment to produce a Thanksgiving meal in another country; even better to share it with such good friends from home.

Happenings

It's been a full-on week. In fact, I'm not quite sure where the last few days went. I'm sure that yesterday was just Monday.

But Friday has come (and almost gone), and before I lay my head on the pillow, we will be well into Saturday. In a few minutes we leave to drive to Auckland to pick up some of our closest friends who are coming into town to see us. Jeremy and Larisa will be here for the next 10 days, along with her family, who will also be spending a couple of days here, too. We are really looking forward to seeing them and having some good time together. It will definitely be good for the heart.

Tomorrow we celebrate a belated Thanksgiving. We decided to wait until Jeremy and Larisa came into town so they could join us. They missed Thanksgiving in America, so we figured it would be fun to feast together here. Today I spent a fair bit of time in the kitchen doing lots of cooking for tomorrow, did a bit of running around town, and taught class tonight. It's been a full day already. I'm tired, but so looking forward to seeing our friends in just a few hours. What a gift to have them come and see us here.

Newsflash

The frozen cranberries have just been discovered. At an exorbitant price, to be sure; but rest assured - they are present and accounted for. For many months it has been expected that such a delicacy was nonexistent in these far-off lands, but tonight that false presupposition has been laid to rest. Thanksgiving celebrations can now proceed as normal.

Our little future gymnist...

...Appears to be busy practicing those headstands. My only question is this: What sort of new stunts are going to appear when the trampoline gets set up???

Surprise, surprise!

This seems to be a recent theme in the Walsh family of late. Today, surprise struck again.

A few weeks back, Graeme and Sabrina decided to send Graeme on ahead to New Zealand before Sabrina for a two-fold purpose: to have surgery done on his knee(s) and also to surprise Nic on her birthday.

After guarding our words carefully for the last few weeks lest the secret slip out, we were at last able to tell Taylor today - after Nic went to work. She was so excited to hear that her Grandad was coming today, and that she got to go to the airport (one of her favorite places) with us to pick him up. We had a great day together, and when Nic got home from school, Graeme walked into the room......let's just say that the response was worth every bit of the anticipation. Nic was shocked!

Graeme is loving being back in New Zealand....I think we're going to have a hard time getting him on the plane to go home. But it looks like he'll be here for quite a while - especially if he does end up having the surgery. Lots of good memories made today; many more to come in the weeks ahead.

Mommy's Little Helper...

....What's with the hand on the hip? :-)

Mr. and Mrs. Duck

We have some new pets in the family. Well, on second thought, "pets" may be a bit of an exaggeration.

For the last six weeks or so, we have been getting daily visits from "Mr. and Mrs. Duck". For a while they only stayed in the field next to our house, but in more recent days, have ventured closer and closer to the homestead. Now it's not uncommon for them to march right up onto our deck, stand next to our floor-to-ceiling windows, and peck their beaks on the glass, asking for their daily food allowance.

Taylor loves feeding the ducks - which, fortunately, provides all (rather, most) of the entertainment that a pet would, without the responsibility. And our only expense? 99 cent bread from the store every week. Not a bad deal.

Report on the day

Aaron and I just got back from one of our favorite spots - the hot pools. It was really cold today - felt like the middle of winter - so we figured it would be a great night to go. Was it ever so relaxing - we didn't want to get out! It's been a good week, but a long one, so we were definitely ready for the down-time.

Today I babysat for some good friends of ours that came up for the summit this week. They have a 9-month old baby girl who is just adorable. She was here for a couple of hours this afternoon, and we had lots of fun playing. Taylor was especially happy when she woke up from her nap to discover that her little friend was here! It was weird - made me realize just how quickly Taylor has grown up (seems like just yesterday that she was that little)!

Tomorrow is going to be a much-needed rest day. Normally I would take Taylor to play center, but I think that tomorrow it would do us both good to have a quiet morning at home.

But until then....time for a good sleep. The hot pools made me sleepy!

Is this cute, or what?

The other day, Aaron found a bug in the house and killed it with his baseball bat. So, today, Taylor found a bug near her toys, and what did she do? You guessed it.........off she went to Mommy and Daddy's room to retrieve the baseball bat and take care of matters herself. Like father, like daughter.

I wish I had a picture, but I don't.........so imagine....a little 2 yr. old girl lugging around a baseball bat (easily her size), on a mission to kill a tiny little bug. Pretty darn cute, I have to say.

House of Prayer Summit

Today was the first day of the House of Prayer national summit we are hosting this week at THOP. We had an extra 20 or so people in the prayer room this morning - made it feel like a full house!

Tomorrow I'll go in with Aaron and Taylor, armed with a bag full of books, paper, crayons, stickers - and snacks - and we'll see how long Taylor manages in the prayer room. Of course, I may end up leaving mid-morning and taking her out somewhere for a change of scenery if (yea, when) necessary, but that's fine with me, too. Then I'll begin the afternoon session for Aaron while he's at a meeting (and Taylor's home with Nic).......should be a pretty full-on day. Guess I better stop blogging and head off to bed!

Fireworks

Today is Guy Fawkes day here in New Zealand....something about some guy who tried to blow up Parliment way back when.....and now everyone celebrates on Nov. 5th with fireworks. So, its been a little loud this weekend (Read=Taylor was up until 11pm last night). And probably will be again tonight. Fortunatley for us (unfortunate for Nic), Taylor's activity of choice at that hour of night was to 'go to sleep' in Nicci's bed. Which meant poor Nic didn't get to sleep until 11pm, either. Tonight promises to be a repeat of last night. Guess we'll have a tired girl on our hands tomorrow. :-)

Girl Time

Today was fun - it was my day to be home with Taylor, and we were livin' it up with 'girl time'! This morning we had a visit from another young mom who actually lives about 3 hours north, but has been in town this week visiting family. I met Anna several months back when we first moved here, but this is the first time we've actually had some decent time together. It was fun to have her over and get to know her a bit, and Taylor had lots of fun holding her 4 month old baby (with Mommy's help, of course!).

Then this afternoon, we had a visit from the other Anna who now lives here. Anna was part of the first internship, went home and got married, and just recently came back to New Zealand with her husband to be involved full time in the house of Prayer. Anna is awesome - a fellow American and also a good friend; I'm so glad she's back!

On a completely different note, I called our local butcher today and ordered our Thanksgiving turkey. I was quite pleased to discover that finding a turkey 'round these parts of the world isn't as hard as I thought it would be; quite disappointed to find out that it probably would have been cheaper to buy the turkey in America and ship it here. A bit of an exaggeration, to be sure; but hey, it will be so worth it! I can't imagine not having Thanksgiving - more to the point, can't imagine having Thanksgiving without a turkey. Hey, if you can't go all out for the holidays, when can you?!

The calm before the storm

That's probably the best way to describe this week. It's been relatively low-key; mostly 'normal' (whatever 'normal' is). But that's all about to change. In a minute.

On Sunday we have someone coming to stay with us for the week.....a lady who currently lives in Townsville who we've known for a while. She's awesome - has been involved with WYAM and IWT for many years, etc. She's the real deal, and is coming through town this coming week. So, since we have an extra room, we gladly put our hand up to host her while she's here.

Also next week we (that is, the house of prayer) is hosting a week-long gathering of people from around the nation who want to gather together, basically, to pray. The schedule will be the same as it is normally for the interns, we'll just have about double the people doing it all with us. The fun part is that our friends, Andy and Bek, are coming up for the summit, too (not staying with us, though)....so we're really looking forward to having some good time with them. It's been a while since we've caught up in person.

Then a couple weeks after the summit, Jeremy and Larisa and their family come into town - can't wait to see them and to have some good times together - just like old times. That's going to be awesome. And then after they leave, Graeme and Sabrina come and then it's Christmas......wow. Where has the year gone? So, all that to say......life's about to get real crazy around here. And really fun. Really fast.

So, we've been enjoying this week. The last couple days, the weather has been beautiful, so Taylor and I have clocked in some good time playing outside and enjoying the sunshine. Hard to believe it's going to be summer soon. That's still so weird to me.......