Van Wollingen Marries Cunningham

The main reason for Barb's visit to Western Australia was to attend Bethany and Matt's wedding. Bethany is Nonna's youngest and everyone thinks Matt is a super match for her. This pic shows the four married couples (now).

Asher and Jaye will have their baby around June. Asher was the mastermind behind a few very surprising and adventuresome acts to kick start Bethany and Matt's married life. Ask them if you want to know. And the cake was cut...

Good friends made available the grounds their large property for the evening reception. Barb thought everything was so tastefully done with lanterns everywhere. There was also a photo taking arrangement catching willing guests who went over to it. The whole place had a carnival atmosphere and there were lots of 'side shows' like that one, according to Barb.

Barb's Travels

Barb had the pleasure of visiting Western Australia a second time. Her good friend Nonna took her in for most of the days and she stayed with one of Nonna's friends the other days. One of the first things Barb and Nonna did was to visit the sea, the Indian Ocean. That's definitely different for an eastern coaster.

Barb also had some days to herself and quickly worked out the Perth rail system to her advantage. This impressed Rolf and Nonna so much that they later took the train to give themselves a treat.

Backyard Treat

These past few days (and nights) are worth blogging about. Our three grandkids plus young Abigail slept over two nights. And how did they go? In a word... super. True, there were times when we disagreed as to what to do next, but it always worked out. On the first night we even had our supper after sunset in our back yard. The mosquitoes were not too problematic and the idea turned out to be a great success.

Playground Treat

This was a special time after a slow Saturday breakfast when we decided to walk up to the large park on the other side of our shopping centre. There the kids made use of both playgrounds, the second was one we did not know about. The games were a mix of doing the usual extreme things one does on play equipment and playing a complicated role play game involving the play equipment as props, like a place where the poor animals Rosy and Buttons were cruelly imprisoned.

We passed by the Redleap Lake and watched the waterfowl for a time. If we had some bread we would have had a very excited reception, but alas we came with none. Maybe next time...

Playground designers are producing more and more interesting setups in parks these days. This one was an adventure for Jethro and the perfect prison for Piper and Abigail. Jasper helped Peter guard the entrances.

Cafe Treat

Before their parents returned to pick them up, we took the four kids, to Azurea Cafe for a treat. We had just the space to do it. They enjoyed the food and the game we played... trying to trick them into saying the words "Yes, No, Black or White" to any question we asked them! By the end, they were pretty sharp and we could not trip them up. We are not counting Jethro in this. He is far too young for this game.

CFA Opening

Last Sunday the Whittlesea community came out in large numbers to witness the opening of its new Country Fire Authority building. It is situated on land that used to hold the Whittlesea railway station so Peter wonders if there will ever be a line again to the town. Because the Whittlesea Primary School Choir was present at the opening to sing the Australian Anthem, Peter made it a point to be present. He was glad he attended for a number of reasons. One reason was to support the school community by being present to hear the school choir sing.

Another reason was that somewhere along the track Peter wants to be more involved as an emergency chaplain, or at least a community chaplain. It is a natural progression in a country town situated in a bushfire risk area. He appreciated witnessing the spirit of the Whittlesea CFA team firsthand through the mouths of many who spoke. There were many awards on top of the actual opening.

A final reason was that Peter Ryan randomly came up to Peter to chat with him. It is not every day that Peter might speak to the Deputy Premier of the State of Victoria. Peter Ryan is also Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Minister for Bushfire Response, and Minister for Regional and Rural Development. The number of portfolios that Peter Ryan has is quite mind boggling. He obviously has to trust in the competence of his senior public servants and understand his place in the bigger picture. He can't be everywhere at once. He generously gave his time to come to Whittlesea to open the new CFA building and hand over a set of tanker keys. Here he is posing for the camera with the recently elected (northern metropolitan region) senator for the Victorian Upper House, Craig Ondarchie, in front of the new fire tanker that the state helped the community to purchase.

Chaplaincy Variety

There is definitely a varied collection of experiences each day at the school. Each day goes something like the above bug collection project. It used to be an old photographic slide organiser. Now with the help of cotton wool it has a new lease of life. When kids brings a bug to Peter, it goes in this box. This box was recently used by a year 2 boy for a personal show and tell to Preps. He did a great job, the preps loved his talk and the butterfly wings mostly survived the ordeal.

Not every school office has a blue tongue lizard living under it. This one poked its head out this far before ducking back when another boy carefully reached for it. This happened during a pastoral encounter.

This was another boy's show and tell for the day. He made it at home from instructions and brought it to class. He proudly showed Peter before he went home. Peter was so impressed he took the snap for the world to see.

This is an unfinished pastoral encounter. The scene is unfinished too. Peter is not sure where it will lead. The boy who set up the scene wants to continue with it. Other kids who have seen it think it is pretty cool. Peter asked what others thought the scene represented. Eureka Stockade was the answer.

And out of the blue most of us saw a baby wombat brought in my a woman who cares for orphaned native animals. She was wearing a baby's possum-pouch to carry it about. It was so cute!

This was all in a day. These are early days still and Peter is building relationships with the school community. All the time though he has to remain mindful that he has a serious role to perform and every interaction has the potential to be a pastoral one.