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| Jon in his St John uniform |
Our weeks are pretty much the same consisting of…
Teaching – Jon has 4 days
as a Music teacher, I have 2 permanent days at a couple of schools, but tend to
pick up at least another day each week.
Youth groups – We have one for 11-12yrs on
Wednesday afternoons & one for 13yrs onwards on Friday nights.
Church – Jon leads the
singing & I teach Sunday school every 2nd month.
Lessons – I am still
learning drums – slowly but getting there.
Jon is continuing with his part-time Bible College & enjoying
that.
Tutoring – I have a few
students who I help after-school in their homework or other subjects they are
struggling in. Jon teaches music lessons
to a few people.
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| A really old Kauri tree & our nephews |
Volunteer work – Jon has
completed all the courses to become a St John ambulance officer & I am a
Girl Guides leader which is every Tuesday afternoon.
Sport -- during the
winter this has consisted of us watching our nephews play soccer most
Saturdays. Now the weather has started
to warm we are playing touch every Sunday afternoon & hope to put a youth
team into the local tournament next term.
Camps – we had a great
camp in April (see www.lonsdalechildren.blogspot.com
for the report) and are in the middle of planning one for these coming holidays
in October. These are definitely what we
enjoy doing although a lot of hard work!
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| Jon's mate Joey |
School Holidays -- Last holidays we
enjoyed a NZ bush walk with our nephews & saw some mighty Kauri trees. We also flew to Australia for a week or
so. It was good to catch up with Jono in
Sydney & Gaven in Tasmania & see where they live etc.
Family -- Jon’s parents live
just across the road & his sister 10 mins down the road on a diary farm, so
we see each other often. It is really
nice to be a tangible part of our nephews growing up & developing a good
relationship with them. Our oldest
nephew has just left home & joined the army so we miss him. Every Sunday afternoon I help milk the cows
on the farm which I really enjoy.
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| Nickolas with our lamb |
Recreation -- We have watched
a few good movies lately (& some dumb ones!) enjoying some good books, (esp.
the cookbooks!) keeping the vege garden going, watching the rugby, fishing
(&surfing) has been on the back burner since the water went cold, but we
should be looking to get the kayak back into the water very soon & some
more snapper in our freezer!
Pets – Talking about
the freezer…we have bought a pet lamb which we are feeding on the bottle. The idea is to fatten her up J
The chickens, cat & dog are yet to come…
IN OTHER NEWS:
We are in the process of purchasing a house in Kaitaia (we are currently
living 30 mins north of Kaitaia) which we intend to shift into in about 3 weeks
time. It does require quite a lot of
work, but will be a great project for us.
It is a huge house with potentially 4 bedrooms, so lots of room for you to
come & stay & paint a section while you are here! You can see more
house pics here.
Future plans?
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| Driving Gaven's tractor in Tasmania |
Jon has been offered a permanent job starting next year at the school he
has been working in which we have accepted.
IVF starts next March, so we wait & see…
