Temple day

We had a district temple day this last weekend at the Sydney temple, which included a session for the kids to do baptisms for the dead.  This was Cody's first time being old enough to do baptisms and it would be an understatement to say he was just a little excited about going!

We left Parkes at 4:00 am to arrive at the temple by 9:00. Once we arrived at the temple the kids had to change their clothes in the car!

 Cody is bored to death waiting for us girls to finish  getting ready. Savannah is using the back window to put her mascara on! I'd say she is pretty creative!

 The finish product! Not to bad for driving 4 hours in the early morning!

 I liked this shot cause it shows you the back of the temple. It's not very big at all, in fact our stake center in Utah I would say is bigger!

Taken right before we walked in!

 

Poor Jess and Luke had to wait a few hours for us to finish in the car. Thankfully, there was a small mall right across the street that they were able to walk about and entertain themself in!

Arriving in Parkes

Clay had these pictures of Jessica and I arriving in Parkes.  Please remember we had just flown from Salt Lake City, Utah to Australia. It's about a 18 hour trip all together and we had three plane changes along the way. This plane is the last one we take from Sydney to Parkes.

I wish my eyes weren't closed in this pictures, but it was the only close one he got of the two of us! I can tell you we were so happy to finally be home!

So, the first weekend home we had Cody's grand final rugby game.  I woke up early to make a big breakfast for Cody and the rest of the family. Clay told me that while I was gone they basically were slowly starving to death cause the girls didn't cooked very much!  Before I could even get breakfast in the oven the power went out. Clay called the power company and they informed us that this was a scheduled power out and that we should of been notified by mail about it. Well, we were not notified about it and the power wasn't scheduled to come back on for another 6 hours! So Clay took off for McDonald's to get us all breakfast and I had to find a unique way to dry and style my hair for the day!

Yep, that is me sitting in front of the fire. It took me a 1/2 hour of sitting there for my hair to dry, but it actually worked and my hair turned out great! 

The city fair

One big event that took place while I was gone was our cities fair. This is so big in our little town that everything shuts down for this fair, including schools and work establishments! The kids only had to go to school for half a day and Clay was sent home after only working a half a day as well. By lunch time it was time to hit the fair grounds! 

 Savannah was still in her school uniform because he music class preformed at one of the events during the fair.

What would a fair be without some great farm animals!

Luke standing in front of the number one animal around these parts! Sheep!

I had to include this picture of Cody. He had come home from one of his rugby practices and his allergies were so bad his face got swollen, it was like he had been beaten! When he left for practice he was just fine, this happened in just an hours time. Poor kid, his allergies have been so bad this spring!

August

Last weekend we took the kids to the Sydney Temple. While we were there, Clay took some pictures on his blackberry.  I asked him to down load them onto the computer and to my surprise I found a bounty of picture taken in August while I was in Utah with Jess.  So I'm going to go back in time and catch up on some things Clay and the kids did while I was gone.  I'll post about our Sydney trip later.

Clay found this great condo the first time we went to Sydney to visit. It's in Manly, a town about 15 minutes from Sydney harbor.  It's right on the beach and it's close by the harbor, which means you can just jump on one of the ferries that runs about every 1/2 hour and you get to Sydney harbor with out having to deal with the traffic or the pain of trying to find parking.  Clay took the kids back to the condo for a quick weekend getaway. 

 This is daring harbor.  It's one of the stops the ferry makes on it's way to Sydney Harbor.

 One of the other things Clay and the kids did was some spring cleaning around the house. 

The pool was in need of some special attention.  After all winter with no cover on it there were some interesting treasures we had to clean up in and around the pool area. Thankfully, the kids are dying to start using it so they are more than happy to help us get it ready for the summer months!

Luke is missing our 4 wheeler a lot! But the riding lawn mower has helped fill the void pretty well. This has been the only time the boys actually fight over who gets to mow the lawn every week!

The price of living in Australia!

Clay and I are very frustrated because it seems like we don't seem to have any more money here in Australia, even though he got a raise when he got his promotion to CFO.  Here is just a few examples of why we have so little money now!

 Just to break it all down for you, a Kilo is just about 2 1/2 pounds. So it cost me $11.00 to buy 2 1/2 pounds of bananas here in Australia!

 Grapes are almost $13.00 for 2 1/2 pounds!



 For a 24 pack of diet Coke it cost almost $24.00!

These are just a few reasons why we don't seem to have any extra money.  A few other examples for you.... Mabeline foundation is $31.00, in America $6.00.

It cost me $2500.00 to buy my kids their winter uniforms for school, that doesn't include the cost of going to that school! Oh, I have to buy their summer uniforms next week!

Dinner out for Clay and I cost us $60.00 for two dinners, no drinks or dessert!

It's amazing to me that the Australian people can afford anything! They are taxed 46% of their income, interest rates run almost 20% for a car loan, I don't even know what home loans run!

It will be so nice when we get back to America and can actually enjoy Clay's income again!

Just a funny side note, it's fun going around places to find some things that just make no sense to us at all! Today at McDonald's Jessica and I saw this. We still don't understand who would eat something like this at all!

Bubblegum Squash McFlurry??? Who would ever order this??

Nicholas Mason

Most of you know by now the reason why I went out to Utah for the month of August.  It's because Jessica was due to have a baby on August 20th.  Nicolas Mason thankfully decided to come a day earlier, mostly thanks to the things we made Jessica do to induce labor. In the end the Castro oil did the trick!  This was a long and difficult pregnancy for Jess.  When she found out she was pregnant (around Christmas last year) of course adoption came into her thoughts.  From the start, Clay and I told Jess that this was her decision.  The last thing we wanted to happen was for Jess to come to us years later and say that she felt like she had to have the baby or opposite, she had to keep the baby. We made it clear to her that if she was to keep this baby, we would be there to support her 100%! But, if she wanted to place the baby we would give her our equal support.  Early on, she choose adoption and we started seeing a social worker at  LDS Family Services.  Stephanie Sparks was her assigned social worker for her case and little did we know what a big part she would play in this whole process! After a few months Jess started questioning her decision to place the baby, so she stopped seeing Stephanie and took the time she needed to decide what was the best option for her was. It took Jess most of the summer to finally decide what was going to be the best thing for both her and the baby was.  She explained it too me this way. When she started thinking about keeping the baby she actually got more stressed out and that is when she started not being able to sleep.  When she considered placing the baby is when she felt most at peace. I'm so thankful during this entire process Jessica was able to listen and feel the spirit and in the end that is what helped her in making this most hard decision! After making the decision final in her mind came another hard decision for her, who to place her child with.  She was given so many choices through LDS Services and through friends and family.  I came to understand just how heartbreaking it is on both sides of adoption.  There are so many amazing and worthy families that are desperate to adopt a child right now. It really was sad for me to see the profiles and know that only one family would be picked, the rest would have to wait for another birth mother to hopefully pick them.  Jessica narrowed it down to two families in the end, but felt really strongly about one in particular.  She finally met with Nick and Erin for the first time only 5 weeks before Mason was born.  Instantly, Jessica knew that the baby she was carrying was met for them!  After another week she sent them a email telling them that she had chosen them to be her baby's parents.  That is when I arrived in Utah.  After only being in Utah a few days I was able to meet this incredible couple for myself.  Just like Jess did, I knew after only a few minutes with them that they were the perfect couple for Jess's baby! We were able to see them again a few nights later at dinner and had a great night sharing stories of our lives and getting to know each other better. Jess told Nick and Erin that she would like them to choose the name of the baby and they choose Nicholas Mason (he is called Mason).  He is named after Nick's best friend who passed away a few years ago.

 Mason came into this world on August 19th 2011 at 4:55 pm. Weighing 6 pounds 14 oz and was 19 inches long. 

After his birth I was able to bring him down to the nursery where I met Nick and Erin and they were able to see him get his first bath.  What a bittersweet experience that was for me.  I have to admit my heart was breaking for what I knew Jessica must be feeling at that moment and what she would feel in the days to come, but also I was so happy for Nick and Erin. You could see how happy they were to be watching their first son get his first bath.  Very bittersweet! 

Jessica never seemed to amaze me during her hospital stay.  This was her time with Mason and she took every minute she had with him.  I was struggling with the whole thing and Jess was the one to reassuring me that what she was doing was the right choice. I knew it was the right choice, my heart was just breaking thinking about it.  The day of the placement came and I can only say that it was the most beautiful and spiritual experience I have been a part of.  I'm so thankful for my testimony in my savior. It's because of Him I know that we will be a part of Mason's life for eternity.  We couldn't of gotten through this whole thing with out His sweet spirit to comfort us when our hearts were broken and hurting.  I can't tell you how grateful I am for our Church and that they set up the LDS family services! It's truely amazing! I'm so grateful to all the amazing mothers out there that made this painful decision to place their babies and grateful to the families that open up their hearts and are willing to take them!

The day after the placement Jess and I were able to go and visit Mason with his parents.  Because Nick is a professional photographer Jess was able to get these sweet pictures of her with Mason taken before we headed back to Australia.

This was sent to Jessica just yesterday. Mason is almost a month old now and you can see from these pictures he is getting chunky and if possible even more cutter than he was before!

We love you Mason!

Cody's Grand Final Game

Cody's rugby team made it to the grand final game!  Cody was so excited, it was all he could do to not act like he was a kid with ADD! He couldn't sleep the night before, in fact I had to give him some Melatonin to see if that would help him relax enough to fall asleep! The next morning Cody left for his game with the biggest smile on his face. He has really developed a love for this game, which completely surprised me cause he is addicted to football! But I guess his heart was big enough to allow rugby a spot in it too!

Cody's team has played this team 4 times during their season and never lost to them so we thought this was a for sure win. So it was a total surprise to us that by the end of the first half we were loosing 18-4

Cody taking down the boy running the ball!

The boys came back the second half and were determined to win this game and that is exactly what they did! They pulled together and led the game 30-24.  It was the other teams ball in the final minutes so we were all biting our nails hoping they would be able to hold them off.  Cody came through for the team with 5 tackles in a row holding the team off himself for the last 20 seconds insuring their win! Cody is number 17 in these pictures.

Yes, it was freezing the day of the game, which explains my winter attire!

The teams mascot is a spaceman.  Are town is know for a telescope we have that helped out during the USA's walk on the moon. Pretty low budget, but what do you expect in the bush?

Cody was so proud of his trophy! After the game they held an award ceremony where each boy got to go up and receive his trophy.

Cody with some of his team mates! Cody's face pretty much tells it all!

This was Cody's proudest moment from the game. He came off the field and had blood on his shirt, and not his blood but some else's blood! He insisted I take a picture so I could show everyone that he made someone bleed and he couldn't be more proud of it! In fact he came home and found blood on his knee, again not his own and he refused to wash it off! I insisted he did!

Volleyball girls

While in Utah, Brittany and Savannah tried out for their schools volleyball team.  I'm happy to say that they both made the team! I'm so proud of my girls for getting out in a new school and trying to find ways to fit in and make new friends.  I was so relieved when I found out that they both made the team. I could only imagine if only one of them had made the team, how the other one would of felt left out.  Plus, since the move Brittany and Savannah have become very close.  Being torn away from all of their friends, this move force them to be best friends with each other, and that is exactly what has happened.

For their first game all the kids and I drove down to Forbes, the town their school is in (about 1/2 hour away from our home) to watch them play.  We arrive at their school, find the auditorium and walk in only to have Savannah run up to us and say with a horror look on her face "families don't come to watch the games!" I looked around to see that that was the truth. The other kids were looking at us like we must of been lost.  So we turned around and headed back to the car, to sit and wait for their game to finish up.  Brittany and Savannah came outside once to practice with their team so I snapped these pictures as quickly as I could, without them seeing me do it too! I had already embarrassed them once today, I knew if I went over to take some pictures that would be the most horrific thing I could do to them!

We entertained ourselves in the car by watching the kookaburra birds.  It's the only place we have been able to see them here.  It became a game with the boys to see how close they could get to them. Cody snapped this picture after getting right under the goal post to take it. Luke wasn't as patient with them and would just run over to see if he could be quick enough to catch them!

Some funny school stories that happened this week were,  at Brittany and Savannah's school one of the fathers died.  This made the girls really uncomfortable because he had been at the school for a long time and everyone knew and loved him, except Brittany and Savannah. So lunch time would be the kids talking about him and crying while the girls sat and said nothing and didn't cry! At his funeral, that was held at the school during school hours, they served the sacrament. Brittany being at the front of her line was pushed up first and didn't want to offend anyone, so what does she do...she takes the sacrament! She came home from school and told us about it, after laughing about her predicament, we explained what she could do if she finds herself in that situation again.

Now only a few days after Brittany's sacrament experience, Cody was taken to mass during school and was lined up to be given the sacrament with his class. Cody said all the kids would go up to the priest and hold out their hands, so when it was his turn he just crossed him arms up to his chest.  I asked him what the priest did when he saw him do this and he replied "he just blessed me." I asked him what gave him the idea to cross his arms and he said, he wanted to the opposite of what the other kids were doing!  So that week Brittany took the catholic sacrament and Cody was blessed by a catholic priest. It's just  all a part of the catholic school experience I guess!

Cody's high jump finals

Once again this was before I left for Utah!

After only being in Australia for week, Cody competed in his schools sports day and made it into the final three for high jump! Now it was time to see what he was made of! He was sent to compete with three other schools, the top three being sent the next time to Sydney to compete with all the other kids who made the top times and scores. One of the exciting things for the kids to do here is to eat from the canteen, not school packed lunches!  Cody wanted a hot dog and here is what they gave him.....



 Upon closer evaluation, I would not call this red sausage a hot dog. Non the less, Cody ate it and said that it wasn't that bad!

Cody unfortunately didn't make the top jump, and that was the end of his high jumping for this year!

But, in other exciting news, Cody's rugby team make it to the finals.  This pictures shows Cody's strongest contribution to his team....his hitting!

Cody is number 5

Happy birthday to Luke

I feel terrible because I'm so far behind on my posts! I went to Utah for a month and let everything get so far behind! So I'm going to be playing catch up for a while, I'm sorry, just hang in there and enjoy my older posts!

We celebrated Luke's 9th birthday as best as we could in this small bush town of ours by going to dinner at Pizza Hut! Yep, that is what he wanted and we were just so excited he didn't ask for McDonald's of Mackers as they call it here in Oz. After a dinner that wasn't to all that bad we headed home for some presents and cake.  Now, just so you don't feel bad for Luke not getting a big party, you have to know that we threw him one earlier in Utah, before we moved, with a trillion friends and bouncy house!

Luke scored this birthday with some new Lego's, k'nex and a bike!  Don't ask me why I'm already in my pj's in those pictures. I guess after dinner I felt inclined to change out of my regular clothing, not realizing that there would be pictures later on!
Happy Birthday to my youngest little guy! I love you and hope you will remember your first birthday in Australia and love it!