I'll start with YWAM (Youth With A Mission) - we discovered last week that the YWAM school starting this week didn't have anywhere to do their lectures as the unit they are renting isn't fully available until the week after next. This meant that they also didn't have enough space to house their students...we really love what YWAM does in our community and in general and we're good friends with the base Director here in Airlie so we volunteered our home for whatever they needed (thinking it would just be a place to stay for some of the students)...turns out our house was the best option for their lectures and meals as well - so - we're totally YWAM'ing it this week. We've got 2 lovely girls staying with us at night, one from the Wisconsin, and the other from Sydney and about 20 students and staff at our house during the day...it's pretty chaotic, but really quite fun. Selah seems to be doing okay although her sleeping has been a bit interrupted....it's tough to maintain a peaceful sleeping environment with so many people in and out all day. She is of course getting showered with the praises of 12 young girls all day long...how could she NOT be loving it? The hard part will be when we get back to reality and it's just plain old me!
It's been great having them all here, the students are all lovely and we've enjoyed getting to know them.
We went sailing with Peter on Tuesday, which was amazing. It was a short trip as he had to get the boat back for cleaning early, but we all enjoyed it so much. It was such a beautiful day for it...perfect water - only thing missing was a whale spotting! I'm sure it was what Brett hopes to be the first of many, many sailing adventures :)
Peter our beloved captain:
Family Photo (Selah is in the sling)
Selah in her sailing dress :)
From the front of the boat:
Daddy and his little sailor!
Later in the week, probably due to the total chaos of her schedule at the moment Selah had her first in store melt-down at Centro...talk about stressfull! I just sat down on a bench in the middle of the centre and fed her until she was happy...nothing like a forced 30 minute break in the middle of the day! After that she was all smiles though and she still slept well that night so all is well :) I'm sure it won't be the last one!!!!
We headed to Cairns on Friday night for the holiday weekend (Queen's Birthday). It's an 8 or 9 hour drive so we stopped in Townsville on Friday night to break it up. Selah did awesome, slept the whole way there and didn't even wake up when we transferred her in the room. She slept straight through till 6am the next morning!
Saturday morning we woke up and had breakfast and then headed to Cairns, another 5 hours. Selah did great once again, managing to sleep nearly the entire trip. She didn't wake up until we were entering Cairns and then was pretty good for another 40 minutes while we found a place to eat. She's such a good traveler.
We met our friends Tim and Emily there and had dinner that night at a wonderful Chuscurro (sp?), which is a rare treat for us...
A Sword with meat on it....a man's dream come true:
Emily and her 'deconstructed Lamington':
The next day, Brett and I drove up to a tiny mountain town near Cairns and checked out some morning markets and a waterfall. It was here that Brett came into contact with the "worlds hottest chilli" - they offered samples and of course Brett had to accept...it was by far the funniest thing I've seen in a long, long time. I laughed at him for hours....not b/c of his reaction necessarily, but b/c of his attempt NOT to have a reaction in front of the sales lady. It's hard to disguise a sweating brow and an increasingly swollen tongue/throat. I know Brett loves chilli, and can handle a fair bit of it, so this must have been pretty bad. 30-minutes after he had tasted this sauce, he said his tongue felt swollen and like someone had "cut it with razor blades and poured acid on it"...I will totally take his word for it :)
Brett didn't buy the hottest sauce there, he bought something else just so he could get away gracefully and get something to drink ;)
This was the lovely walk to a waterfall lookout - it was really nicely done, built through a rainforest:
The following day, brett went golfing in the morning and then we went to the beach for the afternoon. Selah got to try on her swimsuit and took her very first dip in the ocean! It was such a beautiful day and I really think she liked it! She didn't get scared, although, dad did a pretty good job of keeping her out of the rough surf:
And after the swim, we changed and hung out on the beach for a while - a great day for all :) This is the new thing Selah is doing with her tongue...courtesy of Brett who has been working diligently to train her to stick her tongue out at him. Figures, its' something we're going to have to teach her later she can't do - Brett unfortunately, doesn't have this type of foresight :(
Selah and Emily hanging out together...
And finally - Selah took her first bottle this week. I've been wanting to do this for a week or so now, but have been nervous about her not wanting to breastfeed anymore. After she had a total meltdown in the car on the way home from Cairns (we had to stop for 30 minutes on the side of the road to feed her), I decided it was time to get this going. I gave her a bottle on Wednesday when we had to drive to bowen for lunch. I fed her in the car and she took it like a champ! It was a very exciting day :) I breastfed her later that day and she did fine then as well so I'm felling pretty good that it's all going to be okay (thanks mom for bringing the bottles! They seem to be doing the job!).
Brett gave her his first feed tonight and I think it was really special. She stared at him the whole time, probably terribly confused by the fact that she was being fed by someone other than me. It was a sad and happy experience for me all at once. Great to know that I can detach a little, tiny bit and that Brett can share in that very special time...sad to know that I'm no longer the only one who can provide that care for her. She seemed to love the time with Brett so I'm really going to try and make sure he can feed her one meal a day or at least every other day.
It's been a busy couple of weeks for sure! Things are settling back into our regular routine lately, which as been harder for Selah to accept than me :) She woke me up last night at 1:30 for the first time in a month :( I definitely felt it this morning and am extra thankful that we have such a well mannered baby.
Lovely blog post. Thanks for sharing. We love the
ReplyDeleteChilli Factory too -we always get the Devil's delirium (the world's hottest chilli is a new one I'm sure V will insist on getting now that he knows of it!)and the mango and hot sweet chili one -funnelweb and morning afterburn I think they're called, lol.
PS. Believe it or not, the sticking the tongue out is a good thing for when they start putting things in their mouth. We say "show me" and they can show you on their tongue what they've picked up and you can reach it easier!