We have been crazy over here with tons of Americans coming to visit. Randi Shamis came and stayed with us and after she left, Rebecca Morris got here with David. Oh yeah, and then Thomas and Rob. It's been so much fun getting to catch up with friends from Clemson and getting to show them a little bit of what life here is like. We took them to some of our favorite restaurants, had family dinner nights, played multiple games of ninja warrior, and stayed up way too late talking and laughing about life.
Last week we had the Rooney family and the Carman family over for dinner as a way to say "thank you" for all of the things they have done for us. If you don't remember, the Rooney's have had our entire clan over for dinner twice and the Carman's lent us their car for the first 3 months that we were here. We loaded up on veggie crates and decided to whip up something mean for these amazing people. Just so you know, this was no little feat. The Rooney's have five kids and the Carman's have four. Four boys, that is. So I'm sure you can understand the level of hype surrounding this feast for 26. It was a loaded day...Devin started in the kitchen at 1:00 PM and as soon as I got off work, I came home to join. Several hours later, the chicken and sauteed veggie skewers, pasta salad, homemade guacamole and salsa, bread, and tomato/cucumber/feta/red wine vinegar salad were done. It was interesting trying to squeeze so many people into our dining area but we managed. After dinner and some of the Sally and Clare Rooney's pavlova (a-ma-zing!) we played Signs and Psychologist. I can't even begin to explain how much we loves games, as I'm sure you may have figured out. Yeah....we love them.
We also managed a day trip to Sydney last week. A few of the group headed to Circular Quay to welcome back Jessica Watson from her 7 month sailing trip. If you didn't hear about it, it was a massive celebration because this 16 year old girl travelled all by herself for that entire time and she was just getting back. They had a highly publicized welcome back party thing that a bunch of our group attended. I didn't actually go. I spent my day wandering around Sydney by myself, which was actually really fun. It was my first time in a big city all by my lonesome getting to do whatever on earth I wanted. I treated myself to some of the best coffee I've ever had and tried really hard not to get lost. It was hard since I had forgotten my map. But news for everyone: I think **fingers crossed** that I know my way around Sydney. It's a big claim, I know. But really...I'm feeling pretty proud of myself right now. :)
In other big news, I just did my last speech for communications! And...drumroll, please...it was a success! God has been doing amazing things in my life and I can't help but share with the world how great He is. I can't imagine that I would have learned all of the difficult, wonderful, miraculous, important life lessons that I have learned if I would not have come halfway across the world. Not that He couldn't have taught me all these things over there. It's just that I think I needed to be moved so that I could pay better attention. So anyways....score one more for the Lord and I just thought I'd give you another reason to praise Him. :)
Lindsey is going to kill me for writing this...but she's pretty good at dancing. You should probably ask her to shadow dance for you sometime. Just throwing that out there...
The weather is definitely cooling off to where we have to wear jeans and jackets pretty much everyday. My window is stuck open in my room, so I spend a lot of time shivering at night. So one day, Lindsey and I got the brilliant idea to do a little rearranging. We moved my bed into Cameron and Caitlin's room, and then hers. So now we have our own little Madeleine room. Four little beds, all in a row. And Elyse (Miss Clavelle) comes and tucks us in at night. Just kidding. Devin sneaks in there with us sometimes and we all just share. Oh, and then we threw Reba in there too. 6 girls in 4 twin beds? Oh yes, the giggling goes on all night.
So I'm sure I'm missing about a million things that are worth hearing about but I'm just a little too scatterbrained right now to cover it all. We are leaving for Melbourne on Friday for the weekend. I'm sure we will actually blog about it and you will hear about all of the grand adventures of the girls of 62 Church Street, plus Patrick. Oh yeah, Lindsey's brother is visiting right now. So yep, Devin, Lindsey, Cameron, Caitlin, Elyse, me, and Patrick. He's a lucky guy haha....
Talk to you later!
No comments:
Post a Comment