Back again

Hello! And I am back! Its been a while hasn't it! Since I last wrote we have been overseas for 6 weeks. I had planned to write whilst away but I didn't take my computer with me and decided it was too hard to write on my ipad (which I took with me specifically to write blog posts) so that was pretty slack of me but I am in truth rather unapologetic.

We had a brilliant time overseas. I outlined our travel plans in a previous blog post here and I can now tell you that our plans worked out perfectly and we had an absolute blast. We got to meet our Japanese host son's wife for the first time and also our beautiful granddaughter. 

Our barge boat cruise in the Czech Republic was so much fun. We made some good friends and really enjoyed the daily cycling. I managed all the rides without any problems.. well I did walk up a couple of hills but so did a lot of people. Mostly the ride was alongside the river and was pretty flat so easy riding. I did pike on 2 rides. One was on our rest day. 

There was an optional 50km ride (25km out and back) but I took the opportunity to explore the town of Litomerice that we were moored beside. Fixit Guy rode it. We had done a 10km ride in the morning, into and around a nearby town of Terezin, so I wasn't completely slack. The other ride I didn't do was the last ride back into Prague. It was raining and forcast to rain more. I chose to stay on the boat but Fixit Guy and one of our new friends braved it. They got thoroughly soaked so I felt justified in not riding.

We had a lovely time in Germany with our host daughter from 2006 and her family and then had a weekend in Amsterdam en route to Norway. 

The reason for our trip was to attend the wedding in Norway of our host son from 2005 and that was a wonderful experience. We spent a week with him and his family and fully immersed ourselves in the whole event which was just wonderful.

The final leg of our trip was 12 days in the UK, mostly spent exploring Scotland. We were able to catch up with some of FG's extended family ( An aunt and cousins on his dad's side). 

Whilst we were in Scotland we got the news that our Japanese grandson was born. I couldn't resist this treasure from the Edinburgh Castle gift shop

After almost 7 weeks of travelling we arrived back in Australia. Tired but thoroughly delighted by our wonderful time. I have lots more photos and experiences to share but for now.. this will have to do it.

Thursday Thoughts Part 1:- our travel plans

Did I tell you we are off overseas at the end of this month? Well we are... we leave here on Tuesday 25th and fly out of Australia on Thursday 27th. We have given ourselves a day extra in case something goes wrong on our drive to Brisbane. Its 900km and we regularly do it in a day and rarely have we had anything go wrong... but, since we are retired and have the time we have decided to have the extra day just in case. So... we leave in 12 days time.

We fly to Japan first off for a week to visit with Sho, our host son from 2004. He lived with us for a year and this will be our 3rd visit to see him. This time we get to meet his wife and baby daughter so its very special. We will also get to visit with his parents and perhaps see some of his siblings.

From Japan we fly to Frankfurt (via Dubai and a 5 hour lay over at 3 AM... blergh) and from there catch a train to Prague where we will be joining our week long Barge Bike tour. Then its back to Germany (by train) and 4 days with our host daughter from 2006 Lena and then train to Amsterdam for a long weekend. From there we will fly to Norway and have a week with our host son Joergen (from 2005) and will attend his wedding whilst we are there. Then we fly to Scotland, hire a car and have 12 days driving about UK (well Scotland and England) catching up with some of Fixit Guy's cousins and his aunty Joyce. We arrive back in Australia on the 12th September. 

We won't be coming straight home though. We have volunteered to help out at a conference in Brisbane - serving on the Handmade With Love stall for Our Rainbow House at the Australian Pricipals Association conference. Our group has been making lots of items out of the fabric from Zambia especially for the conference. 

The Brisbane Comic Con is only a week after that - the one that I am hoping to share a stall with my son's partner Earthyyu of Earthyyu Drawstuff  I say hoping to, as we have applied but have to be selected and we don't hear until the day we leave Emerald... so we are assuming we are in and I will take all the stuff down with me. Its too far to come home and then drive back down for the conference so we will stay down. (well I will anyway. Fixit Guy is still debating)

Then my daughter is going to be heading down to Sydney Comic Con the following week. She is going to be driving down for it and I have decided to go with her. It will give me a chance to see my mum again (she turns 95 the day we fly out of the UK) and also my sister who has been diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease. It will also give Fangirl company on the drive and I will be her off sider at the convention. 

So I won't be home till early October... and then we are planning a trip down to Melbourne in November to catch up with our son down there for his 30th birthday.....

Its all very exciting and hard to get my head around. 

Throwback Thursday - Sho's quilt

In 2003 our daughter Fangirl had gone to Malaysia as an exchange student with AFS and that began our association with that organisation, an association that was pretty intense for a number of years. We became active in the newly established chapter of the organisation, with me becoming the inaugural chapter chair. We resisted blandishments to host the year that Fangirl went overseas as our younger boys were looking forward to having their own bedrooms for the first time ever. The following year though we agreed to host and so our first exchange son entered our lives



Sho was from Japan. He had turned 16 shortly the month before coming to Australia. He was about 6 weeks younger than our oldest son (now known as Massage Man or MM) and so went into the same year as Gavin. He had been learning English for many years at school but his written language was better than his spoken language. He came from a Christian home and fitted into our household quite well. We all became very fond of him. He was in most of MM's classes and in retrospect this was not a good thing as MM felt a bit overwhelmed at times as Sho also was in the school band, drama activities and youth group with him.

Sho was with us for 11 months and we were very sad to say goodbye to him in December. I decided to make him a quilt to take home, using many aboriginal fabrics that I had bought when our entire family had visited the Northern Territory for a 4 week camping holiday in the middle of the year. Yup 7 of us in our Toyota Landcruiser and for 2 weeks we were also joined by my Mother-in-Law.

At the end of his year with us I made him a quilt to take home with him to remember us by. I used aboriginal prints that I had bought on our trip to the NT using the Square in a Square design. The centres of each block were fussy cut from the various aboriginal prints and many featured Australian animals.

We had a bar-b-que in our backyard to farewell Sho a week or two before he left and at that we invited the guests to write him messages on fabric that I then used as the quilts backing. 

The back

A much younger (but less fit) me with our dear host son Sho with his quilt.

We have been able to see him 3 times in the 9 years since he left us in Dec 2004. The following year  he returned for a visit with his family in August (and so got to meet our next exchange student). In 2006 we (Fixit Guy and our two younger sons) visited Japan for a week and stayed with his family. In 2010 I again visited Sho in Japan, this time with Massage Man. He has now completed his teaching degree and we keep in contact on Facebook

Linking in with Quiltin' Jenny's Throwback Thursdays