We are here

Okay, okay. I can take a hint. I realize it has been a while since I posted anything but to be honest, I was enjoying the chance to catch my breath. The team is safely back in the US. Saturday was a wonderfully lazy day. I managed to stay in bed with a book until about 11:30. Aaah bliss. Yesterday was a wonderful service at church, one of our informal ones and because all the kids and youth stay in for this one, we had about 120-130 people. It was great. Jessie took some fuzzy pictures of our worship band of which I will choose one to post, as well as a cute cat in the laundry basket. Today was back to work, and the kids are getting lots of practice at staying at home on their own, they prefer it to hanging about the office with me. I finished to day with another cracking headache. I've been getting a few too many of these lately. Not nice. Ah well, what can you do??

So there is life at the Masri's for now. Love to all.

PS I decided the fuzzy band wasn't worth putting up so I added Jessie with her monster creation that she made at some friends last week.!!

Invite to new members!

Howdy all.

Debbie and I have noticed that some of you seem to have better things to do than sit on the internet, and aren't telling us about all of the boring things that you have been up to. We thought your children might be better at that than you are, so we've invited them all to join the blog! Hope that's okay. It is monitored and moderated, so if any of them were to publish anything a bit silly, it wouldn't be up for very long. Hope that's okay. We just really enjoy seeing what is happening in your lives.

We've also sent another invitation to Mum Hogben and Mum Masri, so you can see what we've written. (It'll also work for the kids, if one of them loses the invitation.)

Carn the Socceroos!

Australian Idol here we come

Video Hosting - Upload Video - Video Sharing

We are home again

It was nice to walk in and find that we still had power and lights and no soggy floors.
Jeanie enjoyed being pushed around Marion in a wheelchair by Kerryn and managed to buy a couple of warm track suits and some photo frames. We went to see Everetts house and drove past just as Lizzie was getting out of her car so we had lunch at Lizzie's house. We will not know the full results of the biopsy til next week. Looking forward to some warmer weather. Sadly no rain promised which will be good for the shearing next week but not good for the crops and feed.

Jeanie's biopsy results

Jeanie has come through her visit to the hospital very well. Early tests show no sign of any tumor. The Dr. will have a better idea in a few days when the detailed report comes back. At this stage he is saying it could be old tissue, (Don't really know what this could mean) He will send the results to Orroroo so hoopefully there will be no more trips to Flinders Medical. The plan is to spend the night with Aunty Kaye and spend a bit of time at Marion before heading home tomorrow afternoon

Life goes on and on and on

Just to let you know that Ian & I did survive 3 days with 52 women on the Emmaus walk It was a most blessed time for both of us and we felt privilaged to share in the lives of so many lovely women.
We are up at 5.15am tomorrow to pick up Jeanie for her tests at Flinders medical. Hopefully we will be able to bring an update tomorrow night. Debbie thought it was cold in Whyalla but the coldest it got in Orroroo last week was -8 with most days around -5 , -6. Will give you more details later Lindy but we came home to a burst hot water pipe in the roof flooding the laundry toilet and passage. Fortunately it tripped off the circuit breakers cutting off the power but I think we had lost between 1000 & 2000 gallons of water before that happened so we need rain, not only for the crops but to top up our rainwater tanks.

We're still alive!

Just a quick note to let you all know that we are still around, just really busy. (For a change!!) We have the team here from the US. They are a really nice bunch but with them, work at the orphanage, kids at home on holidays and stuff for church there have not been many spare minutes to sit at the computer to write. They will leave this Friday and then I just have a few weeks before the kids start summer school. Hooray!

Hope Mum and Dad are having a good Emmaeus week and that the rest of you are all well and good.

I was completely surrounded by Brazil fans on Sunday, with my little Aussie flag. When they scored we had fireworks, shooting in the air and lots of people driving around, hanging out the window with their enormous flags, tooting and carrying on like they actually deserved their win. I'm sorry but we played a heck of a game and deserved more than what we got. Oh well, what can you do.

Hang loose everyone. Love ya-all. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The Kittens.

Thought the kids might like to see our kittens now they are 4 weeks old. We are all doing okay. Two days of school left then John and Jessie have THREE months of holidays!!!! Unless their mean mummy manages to put them into summer school :)

Lots of love to everyone.

Back to work

Well the long weekend is over and now back to normal stuff. Here is a photo of the girls after they went quiet sat night! We called them the smiling Goths but Michael says theres no such thing and Isaac said that would be a good name for a band!

What a game!!

I hope you managed to put AFL aside for today and were all watching the World Cup. Did you see what an exciting finish to the game? I had to abandon my children and go around to friends to watch as our satelite is not working at the moment. After sitting and getting more and more depressed as the game progressed it was such a corker of a finish with 3 goals in the last 8 minutes. I am still very hyper about this. First time ever for an Australian team to even score in a World Cup final!! This is history here folks. So I hope you were watching. It has completely made my day. I can face all the Brits tomorrow with my head held high and look in sympathy on the Americans ;) (They lost 3-0) Party on Australia.

Right! Photos.

Okay, three times yesterday it told me the photos had sucessfully downloaded, but they were never there. I will try again!!

Alright. It seems I have to do them one at a time. Heeeeeeeeeere's Jessie!!

Whew!!

Wow, finally I have time to sit and tell you about ..... life! It has been a busy, busy weekend but a very pleasant one. Let me think, how far back do I go? Friday will do. The morning was spent manically cleaning my house. With camps and being sick it had been quite a while since it had been done properly and I had got to the point where I decided I needed to pay someone to come for a couple of hours to help me out. This didn't work out but it did motivate me to move all the furniture, take up the carpets and pull all the stuff out from under the kids beds. (The fact that the team was coming had nothing to do with this cleaning spree! Honest!!) Then we had bible study, very good. Friday afternoon was Jessie's gymnastics presentation at school, (I will add some photos) which was lovely. She did a great job.
Friday night was a BBQ for all the Sunday School and youth Group leaders. Because Wadih decided at the last minute to go off to work I got a ride with one of the other leaders and took the kids off to spend the night with the girl who teaches John Arabic, and her little brothers and sister. We got home from the BBQ about 2am. At 6:30am I got a phone call from Jessie saying "Please come and get me, I've been throwing up all night!" She had managed to pick up the bug that John and I had had earlier in the week. The up side was I had a valid reason to cancel the 3 hours of tutoring that I was supposed to do Saturday morning and we spent the morning at home, yaay! Saturday afternoon was the wedding of a couple at church and our band was playing some of the music so the kids were once again dropped off with friends, Nigel and Annette this time, (Jessie had stopped thowing up by now), and as usual Wadih was at work. I must say, I haven't enjoyed a wedding in Lebanon as much as I enjoyed this one. The reception was at a very nice hotel and we danced like I haven't danced for a couple of years. My knees are still complaining. Then this morning after playing in church and leading youth group, the team arrived from the States. Very nice group of people and they are all settled in now, but the guy who was supposed to get them dinner suddenly didn't know anything about that so it was a quick dash down to the supermarket to whip up supper for 11 of us. And that brings us to now. Again, Wadih has gone off to put up lights somewhere, the kids are in bed asleep and I managed to get to the computer! Welcome to my life. I do enjoy it really and I am getting better at saying "NO" when I feel I have to. (I just did it tonight to more tutoring this week! Aren't you proud of me!) I am looking forward to seeing the first Australia game tomorrow against Japan.

Wow, this is getting long. I had better add the photos and stop!! Love you all lots. It was nice to talk to you today Mum. Glad you had a good day.

Birthday celebrations in Orroroo

Your mum continues to enjoy her birthday. After enjoying church which was led by the women of purpose, Grandma Jean joined us at Maggie's for lunch. We then went for a drive down to Black Rock to check the sheep and dogs and went to pekina to check out the sealed road from Pekina to Orroroo. Tomorrow we will be packing ready to head off to Adelaide on tuesday for a week.
You mum was hoping to enjoy a banana smoothie to celebrate her birthday, but because of the shortage of bananas in Orroroo she had to settle for a cappacino

Hoggies long weekend

Well it's sat morn of the long weekend and we were woken earlyish by some sort of anoying chainsaw thing over the road.Last night we had a family night at the church which involved sharing tea and watching a dvd called the sand lot kids. Then to make the Cleeks feel at home we played indoor baseball for a while. fun! Annie slept over with the Richos and Caleb came to our house last minute. We plan to make pasties and samosas to eat with the McGregor Days while watching the footy tonight and tomorrow for tea we are having a currie night at Freemans. so lots of nice foody things to look forward to. Annie just sent me a sms telling me what time they went to bed and how much fun they are having.cute! Did we tell you about Isaacs goal. He got one!:)Hope the queen and Mum enjoy their birthday weekend. See you soon. love the Hoggies. xx

Johns' version of camp

Dear Cozens',
Camp was like heaven. We had so much fun, swimming, cleaning up the river, looking at the amazing environment. We had sports competitions and the Court of Injustice. I played in the Ping Pong Tournament, and lost. Shame. But anyway I had fun playing chess with my friends with better luck. In the Court of Injustice, we judged kids because of their bad behaviour in camp and my mum was the Judge! Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh! Mr Richard even got thrown into the swimming pool as his sentence.
Saturday night was a Night at the Movies and we watched Zathura! There was a swimming competition and Moussa won.
That's it and I had a great time. Amen, I mean the end.
John B Masri

Jeanie's Adelaide trip

We have just returned from Adelaide having been to Flinders private Clinic. Dr Bowden was very nice and understanding. Unfortunately he was not able to get a sample of fluid from the lung and so we will be going back to flinders on the 21st. of June for a biopsy sample which is done under CT supervision. This will mean staying in the hospital for 4 hours to make sure there are no complications. The dr will be able to give a diagnosis of what the growth really is and then we will have a better understanding of how to care for Jeanie. She travelled very well. Next time we will stay at Aunty Kaye's overnight so that it will not be such a big day for everyone.
One hour of seeding to go in the morning to finish for the year. 1750 acres all up. All we need now is continuing rains.

Back from ANOTHER camp!!

Hello all, well John and I have returned from the Grade 5 Environment Camp and we are both shattered. Well actually, John is shattered and sick so we are both having a day off today. Still, it was great fun, the kids were wonderful, not too much moaning on the 31/2 hour hike Friday and not too many injured for the camp nurse!! (That was me!) If you can imagine 64 10 and 11 year olds, lots of whom have been severly mollycoddled their whole lives, you can imagine how the weekend went. Maybe John could post some comments when he is up and about. I really enjoyed seeing all the kids again. One of the classes was a class that I taught when they were in Grade 2! Jessie spent the weekend with her friend from church and it sounds like they had just as much fun as us, going to see the ballet, swimming and two movies!!

Our other news was the cat getting hit by a car Thursday night. This was even slightly more traumatic because we were not going to be around on the weekend, and the vet I know was not available when I found her by the front door early Friday morning. Wadih did a good job of checking on her and making sure she had food and water. (Especially as he doesn't overly like the cat.) The good news is she survived, the swelling on her face has gone down, (I think she was hit just on the head), and apart from the remnants of oil on her she appears to be okay. The kittens are doing well and getting big. They have their eyes open and we have homes for two more I hope!

Okay, that is it for now. Lots of love to everybody. Byee.

Oh I forgot to mention ...

We bought Singstar 80's on Thursday and today I hired Singstar Rocks and singstar pop - lots of fun. Natalie enjoyed singing Robbie William's "kids" with me. She said that she would know the other songs when she was a grown up like us.
It was almost looking like I might have to have another boring night tonight, but Dave saved us and agreed to come around and sing without shame with us. I am pleased to say that I consistantly beat Stuart and Dave, so I am feeling mostly good about my ablility to sing with good pitch :)
We'll have to bring it down with us in the holidays Hoggies (if you would be interested?). I'm sure we can hire the other discs to give us some song choice. The pop one is really good.

[Check out Captain Calvin on the Kitto Blog]

Deb.

Token news

Hello all,just a little token news, the condo will be finished tonight,the cats say "Hurray!!" Isaac got the part of 'first slave'! for the musical.Annie is skipping her netball to go to a 14th party (for a boy!) sat arvo.I had a free hearing test done and have better than average hearing for my age :) so I figure I can still turn up the music when I'm on my own in the car :)Debbie I hope you get your parcel soon.Keep smiling! love you all! Kezza. xx

Jeanie update

Yesterday we had a lady come across from Port Pirie to do the paper work so that Jeanie can get a home care package. This will enable getting someone in morning her help her shower and dress, and hopefully at night to check that she is OK. They will also be able to do her washing and any cleaning that is required and any other little jobs that she may require from time to time. It also sets up that paper work to enable her to move into the home when there is a vacancy or go to the hosptal for restpite care.
On Monday Jeanie is going to Adelaide to see a specalist at Flinders Private just to talk but hopefully he will be able to answer a few questions. kerryn we may be looking for some lunch Monday if you are going to be around..
Trying to rain, only 4 mls so far hopefully more showers this afternoon.