onward and upward

We had a bit of a quiet week last week with a snow day and both Hannah and Janine needing extra days off school with illness. This has been a little tricky to balance as Chris has a demanding schedule with his CPE course.
My course in Christchurch went very well and I hope to be able to include some of the tools in my work this year.
Zak had his last game of soccer on Saturday, which he is sad about. However, he has already dragged Chris outside for some cricket practise in preparation for the season. The girls will also have their last game of netball this week, which will make the after school stuff more manageable for us.
There was a decent frost again this morning but we have been enjoying some very mild weather and plenty of sun, daffodils are out and the days are growing much longer again.

Milestones for Zachary

Zach lost his first tooth this morning, it just popped out. He is pretty excited, as he was beginning to wonder if it would ever happen!
The children are all home today as we have a "snow" day; all the primary and intermediate schools are closed, although everything else seems to be running. I would have had Hannah and Janine home today anyway; there is a nasty sore throat going around and Janine in particular is miserable today.
So we are keeping warm inside, Katarina has done some baking and I am making soup and trying to write Sunday's sermon...

What's up this week

Katarina has come back from a weekend ski-ing with the youth group, she is very tired. Janine went to school for half a day but came home before lunch, not well at all. Hannah also had today off school and was quite unwell in the weekend. So we are trying to juggle sick kids as well as everything else.
I spend two days this week on a course in Christchurch, which will be good but hard work. The upside is being able to spend two nights with my sister in Christchurch.

Happy Birthday Chris

We celebrated Chris' birthday on Saturday night with a few friends and plenty of dessert. I made him a cake in the shape of a church; we will try and load the photo later today.
Zak is home sick today with croup, so I am working from home today. We are competing for computer time as he has a new game that will only play on the laptop.
Most of the last week was dominated by the production at Student Soul, Tonight we learn to dance. The family fed cast and crew at their dress rehearsals, and we managed to get the whole family there to see it, albeit three different performances! I even sold tickets one night! Katherine Grant and Jo Ryan, former youth group members of ours were both involved.
We are also busy planning travels, with several trips to Christchurch this month and General Assembly in Auckland fast approaching.

Catching up with Knox people

We had the pleasure of seeing John and Leslie Grant in the weekend, down to visit Katherine. They seemed to pack in a lot in the short time they were here.

We managed a very succesful youth service on Sunday, Katarina played drums and did really well. It has been pretty hectic with extra practises and so on but it was wonderful to see the young people sharing their talents, some of them taking some big risks for the first time.

We are starting to settle into our new routines. This week the distance students are down for a course on worship, so we enjoyed seeing Sue Fenton this morning. Chris and I both went to Student Soul last night, as Chris is going to be doing some pastoral work with students for some of his CPE course.

We are trying to juggle our commitments so we can get to Christchurch to meet with a church; this is not an easy process as there is a lot on in the next few weeks. In fact, we are struggling to even manage quiet time together to co-ordinate schedules. Hopefully this will settle down as we each get a feel for our respective situations.
And the weather has packed up; as I write, the rain is pouring down and the forecast is for snow...