Nowra

This blog is dedicated to Grandma H in Michigan who wanted to know what Nate's been up to in Australia. (Sorry for neglecting that side of things Grandma!)

For the month of July Nate was blessed with some work on a friend's farm. For 3 days per week we'd drive 1 hour south down a beautiful country road (ocean on one side and green pastured hills on the other) to Nowra. Nate did a whole range of things from 5am - 5 pm... fixed fences, slashed paddocks in a tractor, milked 400 cows, fed calves, and moved furniture. He loved the work but I think his favourite part of each day was his farmer's breakfast from 8-9am - espresso coffee, bacon, sausages, freshly laid eggs and baked beans. I didn't get any photos of Nate hard at work but I did get some photos of the house we stayed at (where I spent my days while Nate worked) ....

It was such a wonderful, peaceful time and we're so thankful for God's provision. Over the year Nate has applied for heaps of jobs but nothing opened up. However, people from church have been so generous in giving Nate odd jobs like painting, yard work and gardening. Nate would say that he's the jack of all trades, master of none, so he has been able to exercise random skills and has loved every moment. Now that the job on the farm is finished we're back in Wollongong full time. Nate just finished a seminary Greek course by correspondence. He loved it! He now tutors 1 student per week in Maths. He'd love a few more students but we'll take anything we can get. The time is really ending where he could get a job, seeing as we'll be returning to the States in about 3.5 months! Until then, he is always keeping himself busy with a range of endeavours like gardening here at Tim and Wooz's (he has a beautiful row of sugar snap peas ready to flourish). Right at this moment he's building an easel out of Tim's scrap wood in order to try his skill at water colour painting. I'm looking forward to the results... I've seen Nate's paint experiments and it seems he'll be a master of the water colour trade!

Disclaimer

My sister tells me that in the last blog I sounded a bit fed up and tired. It seems I haven't mastered the skill of conveying the correct mood in my writing. Maybe I should use more :)'s. I was actually trying to sound jovial so if you were worried about me, try reading the below blog picturing me with a smile on my face.

:):):):):):):):):)

I am really loving being pregnant and I get a lot of satisfaction from the new challenges that come with it. For example, it's hard work tying my shoe laces right now, but all of the puffing it causes results in some nice attention and sympathy from my affectionate husband. (Maybe I play it up a bit too).

ps - It was also such a wonderful time catching up with my girlfriends that I would definately brave the wee hours of the morning again to be with them.

Sydney

Nate and I headed to Sydney for a night to visit some of my highschool friends. We had just enough time to see two of the famous Sydney icons. See how warm winter is in Australia!!!!

Below: The Opera House

The Harbour Bridge

27 weeks

Some of my best friends from school. I've known all of these girls since I was 6 yrs old. Lill, Jo and Bianca. We stayed up talking until the wee hours of the morning. As much as I love them, I don't know if I could do it again. I'm still recovering!

The third trimester has hit me with a bang! My energy levels have dropped by half, I've startd feeling the heat that you do when you're pregnant and man have I had to work on controlling my emotions! I can now sympathise with anyone who has cried over spilt milk!

2 years

Last week, on June 2nd, Nate and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary. It's always great to have an excuse to go out for our favourite meal of the day - breakfast. After a hearty meal of meat and eggs galore we decided to climb one of my favourite mountains, Mt Kiera, despite the pelting rain.


By the time we started out the rain had slowed to a drizzle and then the sky cleared for the rest of our trip except for 1 nice shower on the way down. The weather on our many adventures always reminds Nate and me that we are like little children who are constantly getting good gifts from our Heavenly Father, who can calm or stir a storm.

Above is a statue at the start of the climb with the clearing sky behind.

What I love about Mt Kiera is that it is only about a 2 hour round trip (although now it's a bit longer for a pregnant lady) and involves climbing a "waterfall" (never more than a trickle), scrambling up steep, loose hills with hands and feet, scaling a few large boulders, getting dirty and finding the odd leech. Nate always beats me in the amount of leeches we pick up on wet walks. This time Nate won hands down 5 -0. He even had one on his belly!

We are making it a tradition to sum up our marriage for the year in one word. Last year we easily came up with "revealing". This year it took about all of Mt Kiera to come to an agreement. We decided to sum up our 2nd year with the word "adventure". Since June 02, 2008 we've been blessed to visit Puerto Rico, Europe and Australia (and to have a 2 night stay in Asia if that counts) not to mention plenty of wonderful adventures in good old Kentucky. Each place holds a new story and lesson for us. Most of all, our marriage has been full of adventure and excitement metophorically. Learning more about God and each other has been the best part. And I can tell you, be it on our futon, a camping mat or in a foreign land, there is nothing much more exciting for me than the joy of waking up next to Nate each morning

A tribute to Sarah

This is a tribute to my sister's best friend, Sarah. For Wooz's 30th birthday party Sarah arranged for Wooz's back yard to be transformed into a garden party setting. She baked her heart out and had others bring plates of food. She also organised people to put money in to purchase a huge range of Wooz's choice of plants. Then, at the party, the guests planted all of the plants and transformed Wooz's garden in an hour! It was a wonderful day and I just wanted to give Sarah a very big thanks for the mammoth effort that she, her family and her friends put in.

Sarah and Wooz

Cup cakes hand made by Sarah and her husband.

Here are some of Wooz's friends hard at work...

The great coastal walk

Nate and I just did the great coastal walk. It's a 28km bush walk (hike) just north of Wollongong. We journeyed through lush green rain forest, over isolated golden beaches, between unique Aussie scrub and along rough and windy cliff edges.

It rained and we got soaked in the 1st half hour on day 1 but God was very kind to dry us off with a nice breeze. We managed to set our tent up just before the afternoon rain which then lasted all night. In the morning the rain stopped and made way to perfect bush walking weather. Glorious!

The Aussie side of our family

Here are the Aussie relatives of the Schoens - Mum and Dad Larter...



My oldest brother and his wife, Jt and Jen...

Tim, my sister Belinda (Wooz) and their 3 sons Jason, Wesley and AJ...

Here is Uncle Nate spending some QT with his nephews...

And here are Scon, Baz and their 2 rascals again...