Sad Days & School Days

FIRST THE SAD NEWS

Early on the morning of 28th January this year I got the call we had all been dreading. My Mum was calling me from the Gold Coast to let me know that my beloved Uncle, Peter, had passed away at 4am that morning. He was 57 years old. He had had prostate cancer for some years but the positive attitude of both himself and his amazing wife, the beautiful Janny, meant since his prognosis he enjoyed nearly 5 years of good quality life despite numerous bouts of chemo and other treatments. In fact, even though he was not too well, he had flown down to Melbourne and spent some time over the New Year period with family including my Dad and Mum, Auntie Pat and Uncle Ron, his cousin Karen, niece Di, Nephew Darren and his daughter Paula.

On returning to Queensland he spent some quiet time with Jan before going into hospital. Right up until the last days he thought he would be home again soon but he deteriorated rapidly and it was a blessing for him and his family that he didn't linger at the end. He got to say goodbye to all his friends and family and I am certain he had no regrets. We can all only hope to have the kind of wonderful life, to be so loving and so loved, and to keep humour, joy and dignity til the end like Peter. He will be so missed, the world already seems a little less bright, it is so hard to believe he is really gone.

The service at Robina Woods chapel overlooking the golf course (which he would have loved, being a crazy golfer) was wonderful, poignant, humourous and sad, a true tribute to him. Even Mother Nature herself cried a tear or two with a short shower before we began. Afterwards it was terrific to catch up with family I hadn't seen for so long, including my own parents, and especially Jan, who I love dearly and as my Mum would say "is one of the Beautiful People". It's a sad thing that it takes something like this to get us all together, scattered as we are from the south to the far north and all the way in between.

So let's all raise our glasses (Rum if you have it, PC was quite partial LOL!) to a life well lived, a man loved and respected. Bye Unk.


BACK TO SCHOOL!

On the 6th of Feb Tay had her first day back at School. She is in Year 4 this year, actually a Year 4/5 composite class. The school is holding students for a new school opening next year so it is literally bursting at the seams! This means that Tay will be in a demountable classroom once her principal finishes her wheeling and dealing with the department to get brand new ones, probably towards the end of term. In the meantime she has a cool classroom in the community room of the Library! And I mean COOL, as it is airconditioned! The rest of the classrooms have state-of-the-art climate control including fans and computerised windows and such. No special friends in Tay's class but she is OK with that and in fact has found she can concentrate better on her work without distractions from her mates. She also loves the new canteen menu which is all healthy food, no soft drinks (except some diet ones), all the sandwhiches and hot foods are made with low-fat and healthy options. As it is also a high school the meals are more substantial with hot food such as pasta, asian stir fries with rice, nachos, baked potatoes with toppings, lite hot dogs and pies/sausage rolls and lots of gourmet sandwiches and wraps. No chips (except vegetable ones), lots of fruit, carrot sticks etc. and only small portions of fat-free lollies and home made cakes. I was really impressed, a big improvement!

She also started back at Dancing this week. Her dance school has a new name, remodeled studio and lots of other changes, all for the better I think! Will keep you in touch with what she's up to there but no trip to Albury this year, only Canberra based Eisteddfods and possibly a trip to the Gold Coast in January 08. She is doing tap, ballet and jazz, and performance troupe which encompasses song and dance, lyrical, streetfunk, broadway jazz, jazz and tap. Oh, and a new jazz solo coming up soon!

Ronin has started school too - well PRE-preschool (or pre-pre-pre-pre-school as he calls it!), a privately run 3 year old preschool run locally, which he attends for 3 and half hours twice a week. He likes it so far so that's a good thing! We're also enrolling him for PeeWee soccer with Gungahlin United Football Club this year and he is soooo excited! It's just fun but I'm sure he will love it, I can't wait!

AND A BIT OF SCRAPPING TOO


The Scrap Heap is running a Daily Challenge competition this year based on the Designing With....2007 Calendar, which is just gorgeous and full of lots of inspirational ideas to get you scrapping! Each day on the Aussielayouts Yahoo Group and the Scrap Heap forum a challenge is posted taken from the calendar, although sometimes altered for more general scrappers, and an additional challenge added in for Sundays, which isn't included on the calendar. Prizes are there to be won, so pop in and have a go! Here are a couple I've done so far, the first one is the 01 January "collage" challenge, and the other one was to use something "transparent".

I also hope all the girls attending SWIG this weekend are having a ball, the rest of us are enjoying a Virtual Crop on the Aussie group, but it's not the same as being there so I'm planning for the May SWIG already!

I'm enjoying my new scrap room, finding it gives my creativity a boost! I've updated my Slide Show here with some recent layouts!

Will catch you all again soon! Happy Valentines Day next week! Go the Aussies in the Cricket! Congrats to Sue and her family on the birth of Son #7 the gorgeous Isaac! Good luck for first day of school to Braelynn & Analee, first day of Pre-school for Maddison, Grace and Saxxon and all the rest of you gorgeous little things! And to the big kids starting High School this year like Chrissy's beautiful Em! Happy Birthday to Jade for last Wednesday! Happy birthday Bec for next week (look after that little niece/nephew you have growing in there!) and see you all again soon!

Trace xxx