Rest and Rejunvination

Thank you for all the comments on the blog. I read them all and it is very encouraging to know you have been enjoying it!

We are slowly unwinding here in Karratha.  We had a slow day, catching up on some phone calls and doing some schoolwork in the morning.  Then a bit of a swim and a chat with the neighbors.  

There is a young couple from Victoria next to us.  They have been on the road for seven months with their three children, Finley 7, Dakota 5, and Indigo 2. They sold their house and Lauren and her husband have been working their way through the centre and around the top, stopping at much the same places we have been, while he works as an in store marketer for Woolworths.  I have a feeling I saw him in Port Hedland while I was there grocery shopping the other day.

Lauren is very organized and has a very tidy van, I can't seem to escape from my feelings of inferiority when it comes to housekeeping and child raising!    I certainly am always watching people who seem to have it all together to work out how they do it.  Proverbs had a good verse for me the other day...Proverbs 12:24 The diligent find freedom in their work; the lazy are oppressed by work.  

Lauren said they returned home after a few months to see her sister who had just had a baby, and cleared out the van of all the extra stuff she'd brought that she'd thought they couldn't do without.  I feel a bit the same.  Might have to post some things home.

By this afternoon her children and ours were having a good time together.  Nadine particularly enjoyed playing with someone who liked gobblet (a board game a bit like noughts and crosses.)  We might stay a few more days and enjoy the company.

Grant got stuck into the van and the car today, greasing the leaf spring bushes on the van, and replacing the rear springs in the car.  Looked like hard work and he broke his caravan jack on the car, but Praise the Lord it all went pretty easily, with no accidents.  There is a man across from us working on a huge power boat - he had one of the two outboards apart today repairing it- and he lent Grant a jack and some other things to help.

Dominic is certainly in the wars.  He and Jo were playing boy-style tiggy in the playground next door, and Dominic managed to run straight into one of the poles holding up the shade cover.  Donged himself on the knee and the head.  When Joseph called out to me, Dom was lying on the ground groaning!  He has quite an egg and complains that his knee is very sore.  Wish I had brought some arnica!  But we used a hot compress tonight and will see how it's going in the morning.

After dinner, Grant, Dominic, Joseph and I played a card game called rage.  For this game you have to predict how many 'tricks' you will win for each round, and then your score is determined on whether you get what you said or not.

Well, we had a good time playing.  Dominic concentrated early on and his score kept climbing.  Grant concentrated and slowed the whole game to a halt. Joseph  was busy reading us about three toed sloths and other weird animals, and towards the end was trailing by a fair way.  For the last hand that he played, he told me that if he said one trick, he really meant zero, because that's what kept happening to him.  So he predicted one trick, and I wasn't sure what to write, so I checked..."what do you want me to write, Jo?"
"One," he said, "hear that cards, one!!!!"
So we played the hand, and Joseph didn't win any.  He was very excited, "yay, I got none!"
"But Joseph," I said, "I've got you down as one"
There was a very involved discussion after that, including Grant trying to illustrate to Joseph the problems involved with telling the McDonald's employee that if you order ten burgers you really mean one....

He never really got it.  But then again, neither did we.

On his way to bed he was still muttering "I want my ten points."

-----
Vicki