Slack slack blogger, this I am

Well, seeing as one week of February has already whizzed by and I haven't updated the blog for 3 weeks it's about time! What have we been up to??? Well....
Nae and Brad were with us for a while visiting and we went and stayed in Wellington for the night before they flew out Monday lunchtime! We had a great time hanging out with them and the kids are really missing them. Imogen currently spends at least an hour every day pouring over photo albums (currently 6 months behind in photo printing - not helpful!) and talking about all her family that she loves and misses, and looking at all the pictures of fun things we have done in the last 2 years - especially trips to the beach and holidays with our family and friends!
We are back into the swing of regular ministry and life so Owen is back at Preschool very happily, although our favourite teacher Mrs Janice has gone back to the Primary school - he will just have to wait a year and a half more til he can hang out with her again! He does have a session with "Miss Laura", a lovely young teacher whom he loves and had missed at the end of last year as she wasn't rostered on his days at preschool. He is back into painting, running running running and the sand pit. He runs so much that at mat time (2pm) he falls asleep at rest time (2.20pm) until I pick him up at 3pm - or at least he did on Tuesday and Wednesday this week - hopefully not always as the term goes on, but if he needs it I guess its good - just makes bed time a bit harder for him! Not tired enough to go to sleep easily!
We have resumed a regular visit to Carols on a Thursday, although Mummy slept on Carol's couch for an hour or so this week (coming down with a sinus infection that antibiotics are now fixing - hopefully for the last time or I will be off for some surgery me thinks!) so no crafty projects on the go yet. I have some BIG ideas for Bella's birthday in April so I will need to get busy soon!! The kids took some photos of the digger across the road at Carols that I will post for you. Owen is quite the photographer these days. Loves capturing things randomly!
Youth ministry is back on (Friday nights) and the kids weren't too keen on Mummy popping out for that this week - a routine to return to! Regardless Daddy did get some Wii time, working closer towards his goal of conquering Donkey Kong Country Returns!
Lee and I are trying to embrace exercise - it is not very comfy as we are very unfit. It is what I would call a HOT PRICKLY, but the extra Christmas weight MUST come off and so hopefully 2011 will be a healthier year!
We have been enjoying eating and sharing cucumbers and zucchinis from the garden, corn and strawberries, lettuce and cucumbers. It feels great to grow our own food and cut down the grocery bill! I want to plant broccoli, spinach and beetroots, maybe some carrots too... I'm not so good with the brassicas and winter crops, but silverbeet grows year round here so YAY!
Lee is busy as always: Parish and National Church Life is full on but fulfilling. We have had our National Round of Child Safe training and we will be doing follow up training in the future - I am currently one of the trainers for ChildSafe in NZ. Lee organised all the training for NZ with Judi Sykes from the SA/NT District and we had her for dinner for a couple of nights while she was in Palmy which was lovely. She is a treasured friend. Lee has church workers conference at Palmy in February, a wedding on the last weekend and the Scandinavian Festival (the NZ Lutheran Church was mostly planted by the Scandis so he is involved with the Sunday service at Dannivirke). As usual, he is visiting and hoping no one dies and trying to get ahead to be prepared for Easter and when we are away in Australia. We are organising the National Youth Camp (late July) and a national Leadership development weekend in May in Wellington which is keeping us on our toes too... no rest for the wicked. Which is untrue. Yesterday we had a lovely restful day, visiting book shops and a cafe and the ducks. A truly relaxing day. I even did a spot of gardening until the pollens flared up my sinus issues which are still trying to resolve themselves!
I am busily trying to get the first edition of the Olive Tree together with my handy publishing man, Tony, and writing a Life Skills program for our youth group to run next term. Not to overdo it, but I also booked myself in for a subject a semester at Carey Baptist College and Youthtrain to study a diploma of Youth Ministry and am going to re-write some material for the Kogodus retreat this year in September. A good use (finally!!) for my Certificate in Workplace Assessment and Training! Haha!
Also, the most exciting part of my week was starting the 40 days of Purpose programme with my youth cell group. We have invited some more women to join us for the 6 weeks of the program, and so many people responded that I had to go to Manna Christian Bookshop and buy another copy of the book so we had enough for everyone! We have 4 high school age girls, me, and potentially 5 older women (youthful at heart!) with us this week - and some of the high school age girls were thinking of inviting friends! If they respond we'll need more books again!! What a blessing. And I am remembering why I liked the book so much the first 2 or 3 times: it still has a message for me again. I really hope it touches the other women's lives as much as it will mine.
I'll post some photos when the Internet speed is decent - hahaha, as if that ever happens!