Oli's Baptism!

Oli was baptised on the Sunday just gone... the vicar (or pastor as he's called here) is a bare-footed, surfing, skateboarding preacher who baptised Oli in the swimming pool adjacent to the church: dunked him right under!! All the 200+ congregation around the edge whooping and cheering... fabulous ♥

Job!!

I've only gone and got a bloomin' job... really pleased actually.  When we first arrived in Australia, I was taking some supply/relief teaching work through an agency but it turned out to be very sparse indeed. I was becoming really bored at home so took a 12 week job at the local tennis club which I LOVED although I missed being in the class room with the kids. So, I decided around 3 weeks ago to make a real concerted effort to get back in to teaching.  
I contacted schools individually and met with principals all over the Sunshine Coast 'selling my wares'.  This brought up much more supply work than through the agency and it's good when you've been at a school a couple of times as they begin to get to know you (both the staff and the students).  I then had a call on Monday from a school 15 mins drive from here (that's soooooooo close here in Australia!) offering me a 3-day a week contract between now and Christmas initially, looking to extend after that. I started yesterday and I am teaching English to low-ability students. Met them all yesterday and know we're going to have fun... 'Lively' is a word that springs to mind, although all of the year 10s thanked me for teaching them and asked me to 'promise' that I would stay until Christmas as they were fed up with teachers leaving all the time. 
Really pleased.  
We will have been in Australia a year next month and we're finally 'getting it together'. It's been tough, we've missed our friends and I know we'll have other 'hurdles', but at the moment, life is very good indeed! :)

Kids are Funny

Yesterday, I spent the day teaching in the Special Education Department of a local school. Great fun and very funny.  We did some number work, made pizzas for lunch, painted some goods to sell at the Eumundi Markets and finished the day with some board games.  One of the students was very keen to play SCRABBLE (one of my faves!), so we duly hauled it out, set ourselves up with 7 tiles each and then got down to trying to spell some good 'uns.  The young lady who had suggested playing the game suddenly exclaimed that she had a 7-letter word.  We watched in awe as she placed the word down on the board: D R G A A C K... I then explained that 'DRGAACK' wasn't a word that I had ever heard of.  She became quite huffy telling me, 'You and your silly British rules; we've never had to put real words down before!'.

Voting in Queensland

We are Australian residents.  When we have been living in Australia for 4 years, we will be eligible to become Australian Citizens which will then enable us to vote. Voting is compulsory!  We have just received a 'Failure to Vote Notice' for a previous tenant of the property we're presently renting who appears to have forgotten to advise the Electoral Commission of his whereabouts and  who failed to vote in the Queensland State General Election in March this year.  If he is unable to come up with a valid reason for not voting: he faces a fine of $100!