We Love You Guys!!

This is a special message to our other cousins in America. I was just talking to Lisa and we decided it would be good to get our kids in touch. By the way Lisa, if you check further down you will see the kids e-mail addresses, if your guys are into writing!! So to all the American Masris', we miss you lots and love you even more.

John, Jessie, Wadih and Lindy.

We got mail

Yesterday I received a letter from Rural Solutions, the group we work with as part of our cropping group in Orroroo. I thought the letter would be advising us as to when our next meeting would be held; instead it said, Dear John, Congratulations-- You are one of the winners of a nights accommodation for two at Quality Hotel Tiffins on the Park.
We are to receive A romantic Spa Suite Accommodation including chocolates in the room, a two course a la carte dinner for two with a bottle of wine. What did I do to deserve such a gift?
I simply filled in an evaluation form early in the year. Must confess I had forgotten all about it.
So it looks like a trip to Adelaide sometime before the end of Sept. Looks like your mother will get some chocolates after all.

Debbie turns ???????????????????????????

As you already know we made a trip over to Whyalla with Grandma Jean to help Debbie celebrate her birthday. We all enjoyed the celebration and as the photo shows Debbie got stuck into the chocolate in a big way. The little drama at the shopping centre, the battery decided that it had had enough and refused to workThe RAA were very efficient and we were on our way home in less than half an hour. This is the second time thast we have had battery trouble in Whyalla. Must be something in the air. Grandma Jeanie although a little tired managed the trip very well and was glad that she went.

Jessies' Photos

Jessie was concerned that maybe you didn't know what our house looked like, so she decided to take some photos of the front of the flat and our beautiful sunsets. Here they are!

By the way Kezza, any news of Jakki and Agus??

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEBBIE!!!!!!

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Deeebbieeeeeeeeeeee, Happy Birthday tooooo Youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!
Just imagine that was melodious and tuneful okay :)
We hope you have a lovely, lovely day and that you are well looked after, loved and listened to! Take lots of hugs from people and imagine that a few of them are from us. We love you loads and lots and leaps and lumps and lots of other 'l' things!!
Wadih, Lindy, John and Jessie XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

P.S. I am currently working my way through a giant block of Cadburys in your honour, but I am also about to do a few rounds of Eyetoy Groove to work it off, so it's okay!!

Jessie in concert

Following in her parents footsteps, Jessie hit the stage this weekend in Beirut Childrens' Choir Festival. There were 8 schools involved and she was GREAT! One of the shots is an action shot, so sorry for the fuzzies. She enjoyed it and we were very proud!!

Goyder line article

We now have a family blog site that has been set up on the internet to help members of our family to keep in touch with each other on a daily basis. I must confess that I was not very excited about the idea when it first started, but now if I am able, the first thing I do in the morning is go on-line and check out what has been happening in their lives. The fact that it is easy to include photos makes it all the more pleasing because, as they say, one picture is worth a thousand words. With Lindy living in Lebanon to be able to communicate with her at least once a day, sometimes more, has been especially good as it helps her feel that she is at least in touch with what is happening in our lives on a more regular basis.

To put a new twist on an old saying I could say that “The family that communicates together, stays together.” So much pain and misunderstanding between families comes about so often because there has been a break down in communications somewhere along the way. So many hurtful incidents could be avoided if there was regular and frequent communication between family members. God also longs for us to keep in communication with him, and the more often we do it the more pleasing it is to Him and he has given to all of us the best tool possible to achieve this and that is the gift of prayer. The good thing about prayer is that you don’t have to be at a computer and go on-line, we are able to share with God in any situation at any time. I trust that you are enjoying good communications both with family and God, but if not, there is no better time to change it than right now.

No, your mother did not get these for mothers day. Last week was Volunteers Week and it was
a thank you gift from the State Ambulance service. I guess I will have to share them with the rest of the team.

You are syndicated now Dad!

Hi Dad, I hope you don't mind but I am including your article in this months copy of The Net!, our church newsletter that I produce. It just seems so relevant to so many at the moment, that I thought it was good to give people "A Glimpse of the Fathers' Heart". Your message has ripples and the circles are getting wider. Hope that is okay with you.

Lots of love to everyone!

Jeanie tucked in for the night

We brought Jeanie home before lunch and she settled in well. She had some visitors this afternoon and had both lunch and tea delivered. Enjoyed both. She is now tucked in for the night. We went to Jamestown this afternoon and bought her a new cordless phone which we will set up once the battery is charged. Also called in on Carmel to check on the estate and the power of attorney which she had received, Lindy. The NAB bank aren't sure how they can open
an account without the 100 personal points for you, but will look into it. Don't have any photos ready to send. Love Mum and Dad.

And then they were six!

Well our cat now has five, yes five babies. They were born yesterday and the kids missed it, much to Jessie's disgust. They were at school for Johns sports afternoon. (Photo to follow) We only have a place for one at the moment, but there is always the pet shops that are happy to take them off your hands.

Trust that Grandma Jeanie is now home safe and sound!! Lots of love to you Grandma.

That is about all the news for now. Love to you all.

Dolphin thearpy

I didnt go to bsf again today instead I went to the beach and walked along side a dolphin for about 1k! He/she spent most of the time only 2m away from the shaw line it was rather special,then I had sms from Jakki in Indo, saying she was thinking and praying for me and that was rather nice.:) Zac auditioned for a semi major roll in the next school musical and is waiting to find out how he went, and Annie wants to go shopping with friends to get a pressie for a boy party next saturday!! Our friend Jo made us very nice soup for tea and the kittens are settling in at last,thou they are still knocking things over and being major time wasters.:) love you all Kerryn. xx

Jeanie to come home tomorrow

The Dr has said that Grandma can come home tomorrow she is feeling comfortable with that saying that she is feeling lots better today
Trust everyone has had a good day.
Kerryn how long is you know who away for?

My M.A.D. kids!

As promised, here are the kids in their M.A.D. camp t-shirts, squinting in the sun and with tummies full of tea.

I just found out that John has an athletics day after school tomorrow, and yesterday I won 4 tickets to the premiere showing of RV, Robin Williams new movie, on the radio, also for tomorrow night. Fortunately Thursday is a holiday, 'Liberation of the South' day. This Saturday Jessie is singing in the Beirut Children's Choir Festival, so there should be lots more photos coming. Stu, thanks for the photo. I will try to get it printed.

Any news about Grandma?? Waiting to hear. Lots of love to all and sundry.

Printing Pictures

The pictures used on this page are probably going to be too small to print effectively. However, most of our pictures (including Debbie and her girls below) are also on www.flickr.com (and can be viewed by clicking on the little flickr badge below and to the right.)

JEANIE TO STAY IN HOSPITAL

The Locum doctor told Jeanie this morning that she could go home today but after he had left Megan Goehring, the Sister on duty said I have overriden his decesion and said she has to stay longer which made Jeanie very happy as she said "there was no way that I felt ready to go home."
They are hoping to do more tests when Dr Chhanibri sees her tomorrow. The hospital are arranging to have her assesed for a home care package so that she will be able to get daily help for showering and other things around the home.
As you can see jeanie isn't looking to bad.

What was Mad??

I realized that I was in a big rush this morning as I was putting up the blog about camp. I was getting ready for a couple of solo's at church and we had Maria stay over last night as well so things were a bit chaotic. I meant to explain that the M.A.D. was for Make A Difference. We even had a cool Hillsongs song Let Your Light Shine Whoa as one of our theme songs. The other one Mel wrote specially for camp. (She was the Brit in the photo of house group.) We made pieces for a cool camp banner which I will let you all see when I finish putting it all together. I also made t-shirts for all the kids. I will try to get a photo of the kids in theirs.

Okay, it is late and I need to sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep! Talk to you all tomorrow.

Thinking warm thoughts

Gee you've got to give it to those Finnish folk! Such tallent!(& latex)Lindy did you watch the Eurovision song contest? Its such a time warp. Well we stayed at the airport and watched you know who fly of to Sydney,so we will all take care of eachother this week, I hope. The two gard killer kittens should ern their keep! We wish Jeanie a quick recovery.Glad to hear you had a good service at Orr. We had John Field preach a very good and challenging message as well. Great turtle Calvin! Well its getting cooler here so I thought we would look at a summer photo of Zacs summer castle inspired by Lord of the rings. Feel that sun!Take care all of you. Love Kerryn.xx

Jeanie's little adventure

Yesterday we got a call from Kerryn saying that the Community Home had just rung to say that Jeanie had had a fall and that they were waiting for an Ambulance to come from Peterborough to take her up to the hospital. The Dr's were not able to come up with any positive cause for her blackout but it may have been the result of a mini stroke. She has had a good day today and hopes to be going home tomorrow. Memories of what happened are still a bit hazey and it is not known how long she was out to it but it looks like she may have been on the floor for about an hour before the staff responded to her vital call.
We came home early from our Emmaus training day in Adelaide and were home by 6.00pm.
This morning we had a really good service with the team from Rostrevor and had a Judge, Bob Lunn speaking. He was very good and easy to listen to.
This photo of the floods is the road from the crossing heading down to the shearing shed. It has had water like this three times this year. We would love to see it like this again as it has been very dry for the last few weeks and I don't think the crops will come through until we get another rain . Nothing forecast for this week.

We had a M.A.D. camp!!

Well we survived in all the correct number of pieces. As you can see, much fun was had by all. We were 22 all up and had one night away. We only got slightly rained on Saturday morning and still ended up with pink cheeks by the afternoon. For those of you who have been to Lebanon, if the terrain looks familiar, it is because we are only about 10 minutes past Theopolis and I must say it did bring back memories of being up there, with the dogs howling at night, John's allergy playing up and some good memories as well. Well got to run. We are going to do our camp song in church this morning. Love you all lots.

The End of a Good Day

Well, my birthday is almost over and I must say I feel very spoiled. From the morning the phone was ringing with friends and family both here in Lebanon and in Australia calling. I also had a gift delivered through the window while the kids were waiting for the bus, a gift that was delivered two days ago from a friend in Tyre, a bunch of flowers brought to my door, a gift delivered by the babysitter and a gift and cake at Worship Team house group tonight, all from friends from church. Oh yes, and a gift and a visit from another friend from church. They're everywhere!! All in all it has been a lovely day. Oh, and how could I forget, I was taken out by my sisters!!

We were only a few of the team at house group tonight but I will put our photo up anyway. I was looking at it and realized we are an Australian, a Swede, a Brit and an American. The other two Brits and the Canadian were missing, and the French American Lebanese who was also having a birthday today, (but he is 60!!). An interesting mix
Talk to you all tomorrow!