Scary Times...

The whole state of QLD where I live is in disaster. Yesterday, the streets of Toowoomba (4 hours from here) where my sister and several friends live, were hit with freak flash flooding which claimed 8 lives, 4 of whom are children - and 72 people are still missing. It was described as an inland tsunami. The death toll in that whole Lockyer Valley region is set to rise dramatically, and even Brisbane city is under high alert this morning as the Wivenhoe dam and Brisbane River get set to overflow and cause similar flash flooding throughout many suburbs. People are being evacuated this morning. At Sandy Creek, water levels rose 3 metres in just 10 minutes = disaster.

This will give you some idea.

The emergency services workers are being stretched to the limits - and it's STILL raining. Hundreds of people are trapped everywhere - in cars, on roofs.... in Grantham, they are currently evacuating the evacuation centre as more flash flooding is anticipated.

I don't know what else to say.

Please, just pray. For emergency workers to be plentiful, and kept safe. For those in danger to get out in time.

More on the Flood

The last 24 hours have been full of the flood for us. Yesterday I posted photographs we took while checking out the water levels in town. Last night we had heavy rain and continuous rumbling thunder and lightening all night long. None of us slept well and we were so tired this morning!

The rain has stopped here now, but continues to fall heavily on the city an hour south of us, right into the catchment of the Mary River. All the rain collecting there will flow downstream and therefore the water levels here will rise further over the next 48 hours.

Today we took another drive, and also went to the corner store to stock up in case our main road to town gets cut (unlikely, but I'd rather be safe than sorry!).

Looking down towards Woolworths on the right. As you can see, the water has nearly risen to the height of the street signs and lower traffic light!

Woolworths (grocery store) is that brick building behind the trees.

The little brick building here is our town's Toy Library! :(

The blue here is the sand banking the council workers are trying to erect to prevent the CBD from flooding.

And here we found about 30 mobile homes lined up along a street out of the water, all evacuated from the caravan park yesterday morning. The caravan park is now completely underwater.

Several readers have inquired as to whether we are still living in our home on land - yes, we are. We have had such a wet summer, I just don't think anyone has moving / buying real estate on their minds! We have had 1 inspection since we listed our home. At least we are high and dry here. We won't be affected by the floods. We'll see what happens once everything dries out again.

I'll keep you posted.

Our Town is Flooding...

Floods seem to occur on a cycle here about every 10 years. This is the first one we have experienced - and boy has it been sudden! Sure we've had lots and lots of rain over the past few weeks / months, but during last night the Mary River rose and rose and rose and this morning we all woke up to flooded streets, closed bridges, and hundreds of residents driving around and photographing some amazing sights. Including us. ;)

For your interest, and my own personal record of what could be the biggest flood we ever see in our town.

Approaching one of the bridges that has gone under, with dozens of other interested people

The bridge is under all that water somewhere. :) You can see little bits of the white side rail sticking up

We drove down a little side road until we reached water. You can just see the top of the street sign of one of our major roads here

This is another parkland. The white thing is the top of the Train Station for our historic steam train which runs through the park several times a month. The track is completely underwater

More of the watery train track

The Sailing Club and Theatre

(Theatre will be fine, Sailing Club... not so much)

Our beautiful main park, totally underwater

A major intersection outside Woolworths, our grocery store. On the left of the photo you can see the water flooding into the undercover carpark

The same intersection from the other side

The poor sailing club :(

The scariest part is that the river is sitting around 8m at the moment, but is set to rise even further in the next 24 hours due to continued rain on the catchment area. They're looking at a peak of 9 - 9.9 m by tomorrow morning. And the forecast for the next several days? Rain.

Thankfully we live out of town on a high hill, far above the flood zones. During some downpours yesterday 9 sections of road were covered in water between town and our place, but still low enough to drive through. Praying hard and hoping for some sunshine soon!

My Twin Readers

After performing in the Eisteddfod last year, Saraya received a copy of the book "Mary Poppins" as an encouragement from Nanna. She received a second copy for her birthday from a friend, which she decided to gift to Stuart for Christmas as she knew he had never read it. :) I thought it was such a sweet idea.

Today I walked into the living room to find this...

Twin readers! Stuart reading it for the first time and Saraya reading it for the third. ;)

And yes, Saraya did get her hair cut this week. All the way up to her shoulders. Her long golden curls are now short golden curls.

It's a fresh change for a new year.

Two Days of Wonder

Last May we redeemed some credit card awards points for Family 2-Day Passes to Dreamworld and White Water World on the Gold Coast. And last week, we went!!! :D We were all SO excited. I hadn't been in 13 years, and it's grown and changed so much. How wonderful to build up the suspense and wonder for 7 months!

Waterslides! Wave pool! Wiggly Bay!

Hooray!

Blues Clues Ride

Traditional Merry-Go-Round

William got rather wet on the Rapids Ride (sorry buddy)...

... and much preferred the Vintage Cars! I believe on Day 2 he and Stuart went around the track 6 times while I took the big two kids on the Log Ride. ;)

Wiggles World was great.

The beautiful tigers. I just loved this white one, sleeping in the shade.

This ball pit was AWESOME! 2 whole storeys, vacuums and machines and hundreds of coloured balls. Fun for the kids and for us!

We had the most wonderful time. This was a big holiday for us. We don't do holidays often, so they are very special times. It's nice to be home again this week, but we're all enjoying the great memories of our week away last week too. :)

Week With Family

Boxing Day we packed up and headed south (in the rain) to spend a week with family.

Did I mention it was raining? Wide expanses of our state have been affected by flooding this summer - parts of it devastatingly so. We've been blessed where we live, and are sitting high and dry. I'm so thankful.

A reader asked if there are any popular Australian traditions for Boxing Day. Well no, not really. There is the Boxing Day Cricket on TV, and eating the leftover food from Christmas Day. ;) And sitting under the fan as it's usually very very hot. There is a big yacht race from Sydney to Hobart which some people follow too. Other than that, we usually spend the day catching up with family.

We were all happy to be out on the big highway.

We arrived to this view - nice!!! Everything is SO green due to all the rain.

My aunt and uncle, cousins, brother and his fiance, and parents were all there! We shared gifts and ate (way too much) together and played board games and swam in the pool and used the paddle boats on the lake and learned our lines at night when the kids were asleep ..... and generally had a great, relaxing time.

Saraya getting stuck into a book (Boxcar Children series, from Mum) virtually the minute she opened it!

Ours (and Will's) bedroom

Saraya and Elijah's room. Here Saraya was so deep in a game she didn't even notice me taking the photo. :) Love that girl.

So that was Sunday - Wednesday. Lots of rain and lots of time with family. And sneaking out into the beautiful rural resort every time the teeming rain stopped.

What did we do on Thursday and Friday? Well that, my friends, is a post for tomorrow!

A Quiet Christmas Morn

We were home this year, just our little family for Christmas morn.

The children rose by 6am, and we opened stocking gifts, had breakfast, and shared more gifts together. The day was spent enjoying fellowship with one another, playing, and reading, and keeping cosy indoors out of the incessant rain!

Little stockings filled with love gifts

And Tractors for Will...

Books and Dollies for Saraya....

Knight miniatures, and a big boy bike for Elijah!

I missed my family terribly, as I always do when we spend Christmas Day at home. We live 3 hours from our extended family, and this year we chose to drive down to be with them on Boxing Day. So we had a quiet, reflective Christmas Day. It really was lovely.

Wonderful, Wonderful Books!

• The written word teaches, it takes us on great adventures, it inspires, blesses, encourages and challenges us. Throughout last year I read some wonderful books. I've been adding them to a list on my sidebar throughout the year, and before deleting it and starting a new one, I thought I'd post it to my blog. Let me know if there are any titles you're interested in, would like a review on, or would like to know more about! Oh, and Happy New Year everyone! Christmas and holiday posts / photos coming up!
• 
  
• The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo
• Simple Secrets to a Beautiful Home by Emilie Barnes
• Bookends by Liz Curtis Higgs
• The Shack by William P. Young
• Rose in Bloom by Louisa May Alcott
• Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott
• The Diary of Anne Frank
• Simplifying Parenting by Kim John Payne
• Atonement by Ian McEwan
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
• Embrace Grace by Liz Curtis Higgs
• Dancing With My Father by Sally Clarkson
• Teaching Montessori in the Home by Elizabeth G. Hainstock
• Here Burns My Candle by Liz Curtis Higgs
• Grace in Thine Eyes by Liz Curtis Higgs
• Outdoor Kids - A Practical Guide for Kids in the Garden by Jamie Durie
• More About Rebecca by Kate Douglas Wiggin
• Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin
• Kilmeny of the Orchard by L.M.Montgomery
• One Million Arrows by Julie Ferwerda
• Mitten Strings for God by Katrina Kenison
• The Secret History by Donna Tartt
• Beatrix Potter - A Life in Nature by Linda Lear
• Sharing Nature with Children by Joseph Cornell
• The Charlotte Mason Companion by Karen Andreola
• Lessons at Blackberry Inn by Karen Andreola
• Anne of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery
• The Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
• Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austin
• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

A Parcel, Christmas Countdown and an Unwell William

Sorry, this post will be a mish-mash of bits and pieces! It's Christmas Eve and although I wanted to blog today I don't want to spend too long on it. ;)

I entered a giveaway on the beautiful Lovely Little Cottage blog a few weeks back, and won! :D My beautiful parcel from Elizabeth arrived this morning. What wonderful timing, the day before Christmas.

Thank you so much Elizabeth. Everything was so beautifully packaged! And the children thoroughly enjoyed threading their candy canes and decorating their angels. Please thank your children for me too for sending them!

We've had an awesome time counting down for Christmas this year. We've had several means of doing this. Our Jesse Tree.

Our felt advent calendar.

We've also been having treasure hunts most nights for wrapped Christmas stories. The children have taken turns. Over the past months I have purchased some little Christmas stories, as well as borrowing some titles from the library. This has provided the children with plenty of Christmas reading material!!

William has really got to know the Christmas story through all this reading. It's been great. He knows tomorrow is Jesus' birthday, he knows what the star on top of our tree symbolises, etc. And we can pull out all these books again next year!

We also try to break up the presents for the children a little, so they're not bombarded on Christmas Day. I want their focus to be on Jesus' birth, not just presents! So we break up the gifts with prayers for those the gifts are from, some singing, meals, and readings. Our Christmas gifts are usually given over 3 days, to give us time to enjoy and appreciate each one.

Today we also cut Christmas Cake number 2. I took so much of our first cake to gatherings, etc. (and we've clearly eaten too much...) that I decided to bake a second one so we had some for today and tomorrow!

And last but not least, we have a sick little boy this week. :( William started coughing last week, and after days of reading all I could get my hands on, I decided we had to get him looked at. To me all his symptoms were very characteristic of whooping cough, which happens to be going around this year. The doctor who examined him declared it to be viral, though gave us a script for antibiotics "just in case". Well. I know my boy, and I have seen viruses in my kids enough times to know this is different. He has the characteristic "whoop", and is coughing to the point of blue face and vomiting. So I got that script filled pronto, and am also dosing him up on some immune boosting probiotics, and lots of cuddles and lots of prayer.

Today, cuddling on the couch with his new little knitted cowboy and tin drum. And towel handy on his lap just in case....

He is responding well. Most nights he is coping better, though still wants to sleep with me and get lots of cuddles. :) I'm watching the other children closely for symptoms, but my reading suggests older children rarely get it to the point of it being diagnosable, just very mild forms. And adults very rarely contract it at all. Praying we all return to good health soon.

Merry Christmas my dear readers, I may not see you until the new year, so I pray you all have a safe and joyful holiday! xxx