Sovereign Hill Camp

Earlier in the month, Peter was privileged to go with the school's year 3/4 classes to Sovereign Hill for a three day camp. It was a very successful camp all round. The experience offered by Sovereign Hill was perfectly pitched for this age level. The sleeping facilities were adequate. The effort to get all the kids to sleep went reasonably well and within an hour of lights out! The teachers and volunteers (and Peter was one of these) stayed focused on the care and direction they provided. The timetable was well kept to. The food was adequate (though slow at "table meal" times) and the decision to prohibit all personal "snacks" paid off. The picture above (filtered as a painting) hopefully shares the fun and success of the camp without breaching publicly shown school image regulations. For Peter's group, the two best places were the creek (panning for gold) and the sweet making demonstrations (for the free samples that followed). What fun they were!

Woodcraft Last Term

This is a little late in coming. In fact there might be a few blogs like this that are weeks overdue. Time has not allowed posting them. This one is a short "show and tell" on how Peter's woodcraft club went for the school's last term. In a word - good. Peter made "kits" for some students each week to make up, but most of the work produced continued to come from cut blocks and glue. It is remarkable just how good those block models have been. The best model was produced by a year five girl who constructed the Empire State Building from her own design and imagination. The chest of draws, also in the above picture, won first prize in the Whittlesea Show for that boy's age group. So the year finished well and Peter hopes that something similar might be able to continue at the school next year.

Christmas Memories to Process

These pictures are presented in their correct order and so tell a story of our day. There are many layers in that total experience that we have still to process, but it seems unfair not to post nice pictures sooner for those who might be interested. As you can see, we came together for Christmas as Acklands and Funks. We exchanged presents and shared a meal. The storm that lashed Melbourne in the afternoon, causing millions of dollars worth of damage, gave us cause to realise that we were spared the worst of it and something else to think about. It was a sobering and solemn way to conclude our being together. We are now processing the day slowly and thoughtfully. May your Christmas be a blessed one.

Christmas Time Again

Happy Christmas to all. Here is a brief sweep in rough chronological order to give you a feel for our past year. It has been a wild ride, an exciting one where we learned so much more about life, and learned to "befriend life" just that little bit more. It has been good. Even the times when we "fell over" have been gifts of learning.

Remen Ritual

We are still on the same book. It may be our third time through the pages. The author is Rachel Remen and this happens to be one of her latest books: My Grandfather's Blessings. We have a daily cuppa together, light a candle and 'touch base' with one short story at a time. It is food for our souls... like special sunsets. 

Special Weekend

This was a full weekend involving two nights in the Hut at Gembrook and on the Saturday driving on to Warragal to watch Piper and her young ballet peers perform at the West Gippsland Arts Centre. They all did very well. 

On the Sunday, Gembrook had a community market involving kids rides. Piper and Jasper both enjoyed spending some money on things they desired to be on. How different they are.

Grandkid's Breezing By

We had the pleasure of a special midweek visit. Bec brought them over and we caught up for a few hours. Barb was very glad to see them and Peter made it home as early as he could from the school. 

It was all too soon that we had to say "good-bye". Piper especially finds it hard. Thank you guys. See you soon.