How to become a caravan park celebrity and give strangers a story to tell at dinner.

Yesterday I came home from a holiday. It was one of the best holidays I have had.

My friend Samantha and I left last Monday, the plan was to take a swag each and drive through country New South Wales, camping (at official caravan parks/ camp grounds to please the parents) along the way. Little did we know the stir we would cause... Well maybe we did guess there would be some interest in the idea of two young girls camping in cold weather...

Our first night we arrived at Tenterfield, a very little very cute town not much south of the border. It was about four o'clock and starting to get cold, so we pulled into a small but nice looking caravan park. As we asked for a site to place our swags she stared in disbelief and proceeded to try to dissuade us. She told us we were crazy (in the nicest possible way), that it would be -8 degrees that night, that cabins are only $35, etc. We insisted and she gave us our site, on the condition that we come and get her at any hour of the night if we became too cold. We thanked her and set up our camp...

It rained that night...

We woke sleepy eyed in the morning to the admiration of the grey nomads who greeted us as they left their caravans and asked if we survived, and told us we were brave.

The next day saw us travelling to Tamworth via Glen Innes and Armidale seeing great sights such as The Australian Standing Stones and Thunderbolt's cave...

We arrived in Tamworth and went to the rather fancy caravan park (Big 4) where the reception ladies again told us we were brave and directed us to our site... we set up camp and went for a look around the large and bustling town that is Tamworth, OK just the town that is Tamworth...

(isn't that a cute camp!)

That night the two most gorgeous men pulled up beside us ( not gorgeous in the I want to marry them sense, they were a father and son, the father had obviously had a stroke once and the son, probably a grandfather in his own right, was obviously going on a trip with his father so the father didn't go alone). Again they were thoroughly impressed, and again they thought we were a bit crazy.

We woke in the morning and zipped open our swags and chatted to our neighbours in that caravan park sort of chummy way that you do. All while lying comfortably in bed. Which, now that I think of it is rather strange.

That afternoon saw us setting up our swags in Dubbo (yes, we did go to the zoo). Word must have spread because multiple men with their beers in hand came up to chat with us, asking us about our camping experience and how we find the swags in the cold weather.

As we stayed in Dubbo for a few nights we had new neighbours almost every night, grey nomads exclaimed over us every night and the reception ladies knew us as those two girls who are camping in swags. However my favourite reaction came from a gorgeous french family who pulled up in their RV on our last night and their children whose faces lit with amazement when they saw our camp...

So we became caravan park celebrities and at the same time gave all those who met us a story to tell of two crazy girls who traveled with swags...

But the night I will tell about at dinner is the night where we camped at the Warrumbungles and it rained all night, and we ate in the rain, and slept in the rain, and packed up in this rain:

(But secretly that made me feel awesome too).

I want to be Captain!

Firstly, I would like to state that I know absolutely nothing about soccer and will not be following the world cup this month with any degree of interest. In fact the only soccer game I have watched was one Socceroos game which all the seminary class arrived at the chapel before seminary to watch. I googled this picture and thus discovered what the captain of the Socceroos looks like. Now we have established my lack of knowledge, please read on.


I work one day a week as a teachers aid at my old primary school. The class I assist is the youngest group with kids aged roughly from prep to year two. This means there is always an hilarious moment.

My favourite recently involved one of my youngest prep kids - Jaspa came to school with a new soccer ball made in china even! And so lunch time saw a handful of little boys, a smattering of wonderfully mature and helpful middle kids and me, playing soccer on the oval. Jaspa came out to the oval with his usual excitement that seemed almost uncontainable, practically yelling the rules - there weren't many but any rules are a new concept for soccer at Pine. However the foremost rule was that Jaspa was the Captain, he exclaimed "I am THE CAPTAIN! I am the captain of this team, I am the captain of that team, I am the captain of rules [and then my personal favourite] I am the captain of cheating..."

I loved that he turned something which is seen as so outside of the rules (cheating, that is) into a legitimate factor of the game. I also loved that he could be multiple captains at once.

I wonder, what do I wish had a captain?

A captain of warm socks! (it is sooo cold right now)

A captain of anti YSA ball propaganda?

A captain of that delicious potato, goat's cheese, garlic and prosciutto tart! (yes - there was none at Jocylens today someone should definitely get onto that!)

A captain for laughter! (cliche I know!)

What would you be captain of?

I would be captain of the 'Petie's new cream shoes are Jesse's new love' club (they're amazing ;) )


P.S: do you like my picture? I googled 'Socceroes captain'... clever  I know...

Heavenly Father doesn't care about that.

When Max was quite little we had the 'obedience' talk. Actually we had this talk often - with each of the kids. But this time it had a twist.

The talk went like this:

Me: Why do you think it is important to be obedient?

Max: I don't want to be obedient.

Me: Yes but why do you think obedience matters?

Max: So I do what you say.

Me: That's only part of the reason. When you are older you will have to make all your own decisions and the only person you will have to ask is Heavenly Father. What are some of the decisions you will have to make?

Max: What job to have, where to live. (Like I said - we had this discussion more than once.)

Me: (This is the long part of the talk.) Now, while you are young you have parents who Heavenly Father gave to you to look after you and to help you learn to make decisions and to be obedient. If you learn to be obedient to your parents you will learn to be obedient to Heavenly Father then you when you are not much older you will make all your own decisions and you will only have to be obedient to Heavenly Father. There are only a few things that Heavenly Father wants you to do - most things you can choose for yourself. But while you are young you need to practice being obedient so it is easy to be obedient to Heavenly Father.

Max: When I am a grown up I am so going rock climbing - Heavenly Father doesn't care about that.

Since then we have often said 'Heavenly Father doesn't care about that.' Or 'This is something we need to do because Heavenly Father wants us to do it - and we can go rock climbing too.'

Because being obedient to Heavenly Father leaves us plenty of time to do other things but being obedient to the any clamouring voices of the world leaves us very little free time.

Beware of Pookie Moments

Joan and I were having a lovely day with all my kids until we irretrievably ruined another person’s day.

It was a few years ago, summer, perfect – a whole day spent on the Noosa foreshore running back and forth from the beach, napping under the trees and eating now extinct $1 hamburgers.

Then a cute little girl walked towards us – she had tufts of pigtails, a hot pink and purple all-in-one swimsuit, a matching hat and a 1 or 2 year old toddle. I whispered to Joan to look. And she did. And we both grinned and pointed! Then my kids grinned and pointed!

The father glared and the mother said pointedly ‘Come on Pookie, lets go’, picked up Pookie and stalked off.

That’s when I noticed that Pookie had no arms.

I could hardly breathe. There are no words at that stage – I couldn’t very well say ‘Oh sorry, we thought she was cute before we saw that she had no arms!’

Pookie’s parents – who really had quite enough to deal with already – now thought that people were pointing at their little girl. And we were – but for all the right reasons.

Although I’d take back that day in a heartbeat, we talk about it all the time. Now we try to remember Pookie’s parents – who could have had a great day if they’d only given us the benefit of the doubt and assumed that we were pointing because Pookie was just so darn cute. And we try to give each other the benefit of the doubt– and the rest of the world too.