Our New Friends *Written July 5*

Our little family was invited over to a family’s house for supper on Sunday, and were asked to bring a dessert. We knew that another family was going to be there and so we wanted to bring something special from home. Unfortunately, we couldn’t think of anything Canadian that they didn’t have here in Australia. We finally decided on trying our hand at Nanaimo bars and stayed up late Saturday night trying to recreate the dessert. Sunday morning I tried a bite, but the ratio was off and the bottom layer made up 75% of the square so we ended up making a delicious Anne Ridgedale cake instead.

Interesting side note, 10 min. before we were supposed to leave for church, Marlene asks us why we’re all dressed up. I guess she had completely forgotten that it was Sunday and was already in her gardening clothes, she’s crazy.

We got to dinner and were so excited that there were 3 young families there as well as ourselves. The Oldfields owned the house and have two daughters aged 3 and 18 months with another daughter due in a week. His sister, husband and 3 and half children live with them (she’s due soon), and they are the Best family (that’s their surname). The third family were the Williams family and they have a 16 month old son and she’s just over 3 months pregnant. I felt a little out of place being the only non-pregnant one there.

Dinner was delicious as we had lasagna two ways as well as a huge garden salad with thick chocolate cake for dessert. After supper, the kids got bathed and ready for bed while most of the adults did the dishes and cleaned up a chaotic mess after all those people eating. Once the kids were in bed we stayed up talking and laughing until almost 10 o’clock.

A lot of crazy stories were told, but one thing we’ve been warned about is when the magpies start nesting in the spring. I guess they get very territorial and start swooping down on you if you get close. They aren’t afraid of humans and will actually draw blood by pecking your head as they swoop past. Some of the girls told me that in school they had to draw eyes on their school caps or wear ice cream buckets on their heads with faces on them because the birds won’t swoop you if you’re facing them. They even told us the story of a lady who was riding her bike past a tree and the bird was swooping at her. As she was waving her arm trying to wave the bird away, she swerved into traffic and was killed. Interestingly though, they all think that Canada is a scarier place to live because of bears.
Spencer met up with Ben Williams and some other guys today to play Australian Rules Footy, but he’ll have to write about that because I stayed home and washed walls while Rosy slept. Hopefully we’ll have our own place soon. Love to all.