A Few More Photos...…...

Here's a few photos that I took

at the rehearsal and also

at the wedding. I was so busy

that I wasn't able to take many,

but, as mother of the bride, I don't

suppose I'm meant to?? 

(Emilee and Dave had come straight from work

delivering freight so they looked cute in their

matching clothes walking up the 'aisle')

And these two of Emilee,

I took as the girls were getting beautified.

Awwww. 

Abbi and Lauren did an amazing job 

of the wedding cake, complete

with expertly piped roses by Abbi. 

And I'll finish up with adorable little 

Mimi, just because I can! 

She was such a well-behaved flower girl

despite the long walk up the aisle and the extreme heat. 

She almost stole the limelight! 

(I took these at the rehearsal)

Our Trip

Day Nineteen

Well, day eighteen ended with us

camped at the Tjukayirla Roadhouse

in very cold conditions.

As you can see in the above and below photos,

we finally got the ICE we had been hearing

about along the way!

It was FREEZING!!

But, we needed to make an early start,

so there was no time to linger in our beds. 

As, I climbed up on top of the cruiser

to fold up the roof top tent, the ice

 was flaking off and sending little snowflakes 

down onto the ground below. 

Cold. Cold. Cold. 

My feet were so cold, my toes were going numb. 

As per usual, when we started up 

our old girl, she blew her pretty blue smoke.

And as I believe in looking for an opportunity in 

every difficulty, I chose to take photos. 

I mean, if your cruiser blows smoke,

then, pull out the camera and take creative photos! 

We ate our breakfast of peanut butter 

and jam sandwiches (made the night before),

on the road as we left around 7am. Our friends 

taking the lead and leaving us in their dust. 

I had both my warm jackets on this morning

and was gonna need them for a while. 

After a couple of hours, we made

it to Warburton Roadhouse, where we

caught up with our friends once more. 

We managed to get a hot cup of pod machine

coffee made with UHT milk (yuck), but it was 

warm nonetheless and we treated ourselves to a burger,

which turned out not such a treat, but the local dogs

liked eating our leftovers. 

On leaving the roadhouse, 

just across the road, we saw a mob of camels. 

And then further down the road,

we saw another mob, which crossed

in front of us, one of which nearly collected Emilee's

ute as it darted across in front of her.

Of course, we had our share 

of corrugates once more. 

Beautiful scenery once again 

with amazing reds and browns

and mountains off in the distance 

looking like a mirage in the desert. 

Pretty soon, we came to Warakurna Roadhouse

where we bought some cold drinks. 

Coming up to the Northern Territory

Border sign, we pulled around in front 

of Emilee and she noticed that 

something was missing off the back of the cruiser.

Yes, somehow, on the rough corrugated road

we had totally lost one of our spare tyres,

complete with tyre rack, pin, post and all!

We hadn't seen it fly off, and thankfully

Emilee and the girls were not travelling behind

us, or they might have copped it! 

The Lord is good.

Well, because we had no idea where

in the last 100kms we had lost it, 

we carried on without going back to look 

for it. So, somewhere out there is a very

happy person, with one very large 33"

Mickey T on their outback 4WD! 

Around 4pm, we made it to 

our camp for the night. Docker River

Campground (no river in sight and just

a lot of burnt out country, but still pretty)

Our friends had continued on to Uluru,

as they needed to be back in Katherine before 

we did. 

Strangely enough, we found that 

we had phone reception! This of course made

Emilee very happy, being able to text Laine.

The girls even were able to play some games

on their phone. We actually received a random

phone call from a friend in Queensland!

Throughout the night, 

we heard dingoes calling,

but all was quiet from the other campers 

that were some distance away. 

Another day had passed, and we 

enjoyed a nice campfire and a sleep

in, in the morning. We were back on NT

time now, so our body clocks had to readjust once more. 

And as usual, as the sun slowly descended

over the far horizon, we were treated to 

the amazing oranges and reds and yellows

that only God knows how to create on His

master canvas. 

To be continued...……

(yes, we're not home yet, so there is more!)

A Few More...……..

Thankfully, Lauren was able to 

follow the bridal party around

and take photos for us, along with

the photographer, and, in my opinion,

did a better job of getting beautiful,

natural shots of the happy couple. 

She's getting to be quite the photographer. 

Here are some of my favourites. 

Thanks Lauren! 

This is Emilee and the girls with 

their Brumbys workmates. 

A Beautiful Day

 Yes, another daughter is married

and the nest is growing smaller.

But our family is getting bigger,

with another son-in-law added.

Despite the 36 degree heat

and an outdoor, garden wedding,

it was a beautiful day. 

With plenty of food and cold drinks

available and big shady trees,

 family and friends to spend the day 

with, we all had a nice time. 

More pictures to come, once

I catch my breath. 

Better Than I Deserve

When someone asks you how you're going, and things are going well, what is your default answer? Fine? Good? Okay? Great? I know that is often my reply.

I've been reading a book lately, on the subject of gratitude, and it's importance in our lives. True gratitude is something that we all have to work on. Given what God has done for us and the salvation He so freely offers, and the eternal security we can have, our lives should overflow with gratitude.

But all too often, we choose to whine and not worship.

Everything we have comes from God

James 1:17

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

The title of this post is actually an answer to my question at the start. How are you going? I read of a man, whose default answer to this question was,

“Better than I deserve”.

Gratitude is not just a reporter of details, but a revealer of the heart. If we got what we really deserved, we definitely wouldn't be 'fine'. But God, in is His great mercy, chooses to shower us with blessings, and so,

we get 'better than we deserve' every day.

God's grace is so abundant, that we often take things for granted. Little things, that if we were deprived of them, we'd be pretty miserable. There is so much to be thankful for, and yet, we neglect to give thanks to God.

There are so many passages of scripture related to giving thanks to God. The Psalms are full of praise to God. In 1 Chronicles, David instructs the Levites to stand every morning and evening to thank and praise the Lord. In the book of Daniel, we see him kneeling before God three times a day, giving thanks before God. The Bible is full of men and women worshipping and

 praising God and giving thanks.

I want my life to be a life of gratitude to God. A life of thankfulness. I have been convicted of my lack of thankfulness and my complaining spirit. When we sit down and seriously assess all the blessings in our lives, we find that there are so many and they are so numerous, that we are unable to write them all down, because our list would be never-ending. And not just physical blessings either. We have so many spiritual blessings as well. God's holiness. God's faithfulness. God's mercy. God's nearness. And the list goes on. And on. And on.

And so the challenge for us all, is to become more grateful. To worship and not whine. To make our default answer, “Better than I deserve”. God doesn't owe us anything, yet He chose to come down to earth and humble Himself and give His life so that we could experience life in Heaven with Him forever.

So, if we have salvation, we most definitely have better than we deserve. If we can think of nothing else to be thankful for, we have the greatest gift of all. Eternal security and a God who will never leave us or forsake us.

When thou hast thanked thy God

For every blessing sent,

What time will then remain

For murmurs or lament?

R.C.Trench

Our Trip

Day Eighteen

Day Eighteen found us in the little

town of Leonora. 

Leonora is a mining town in the Goldfields

region of Western Australia, 833 km northeast 

of Perth, with a population of around 550 people. 

When we awoke on Day 18, it was 

freezing, as it was the night before.

This was the first night in a long while

that we were unable to have a campfire

so we huddled around our camp table, 

shivering and drinking hot cuppas. 

There was a fire drum/pit quite close

by that you could BYO wood and stand 

around, but half the caravan park's permanent

residents were doing that, so we opted out. 

We all slept in a little longer than usual,

with the cold keeping us under the warmth of 

our blankets just that little bit longer.

Then Dave and I walked down to the local

Coles Express and did the morning coffee run. 

There was some interesting permanent sites

in that caravan park, as seen below. 

Well, as Dave and I needed tyres for our

cruiser, we headed out to look for somewhere that 

sold them and fitted them, or something anyway. 

We were able to find (after a LOT of looking around,

waiting, asking etc), a local fella who had tyres

in his 'everything' yard and who would sell us

a brand new set of tyres! They weren't going 

to be the chunky big things we had on previously,

but they would do the job, and his prices

were actually very reasonable. 

Once the others found us,

we left Dave, Emilee and the tyre fella 

busy changing the tyres. 

(One at a time, with a jack,

no hoist here, but he was a real

friendly, chatty fella).

Maddy and Chloe and I 

set off on foot to explore the little town

and grab a few groceries and supplies

to see us through the next couple of days. 

I fell in love with the little town.

Everyone me met was really friendly

and all of the shops had some sort of 

vintage feel to them (which of course was

just my cup of tea)

The buildings were beautiful

and had lasted the ages. 

There was actually an old ghost 

town, on the edge of town, that you 

could explore, for free, but we didn't have

time, unfortunately, so I just looked longingly 

at the turn off as we drove on by.

(our friends had gone on ahead to the next

town to wait for us)

All too soon, our Leonora adventure

was over and we had to be on our way.

Armed with freshly baked homemade

sausage rolls and another coffee,

we headed down the road, vowing to return

and explore some more another day. 

The next stop was Laverton, 

another little town in the Western Goldfields.

With a population of 340, this town

was to be where we turned off and headed inland

towards the Northern Territory border. 

Our first stop was the local information

centre, where we met up with our friends again,

 who were in the process of sorting out the 

permits we would need to cross into the Territory. 

This took over an hour, so we had time to 

look around the info centre

and plan out the rest of the day. 

We travelled on, with our friends 

taking the lead, to make it to 

Tjukayirla Roadhouse for the night before 

they closed at 5pm. 

The road surface changed constantly

from red to white and back again. 

It was a good road though

with no major dramas, and only 

some minor roadworks in operation. 

Of course, I loved photographing

all the trucks that passed by. 

With the sun setting rapidly,

we pushed on as fast as we could,

our friends now out of radio range,

to make it in time, but we arrived 15 minutes

after closing time, even though our friends

had made it in time and asked the owners to 

keep the park open a bit longer. 

So, we were obliged to pay an extra $20 

for  'after hours call out' fee

for them to open up again and take

 our site fee etc. 

Our friends had opted for a cabin,

the weather was freezing cold,

but they didn't have a cabin big enough

for us, so we set up in the dark

and used the camp kitchen 

as our dining room, minus our campfire again. Sigh. 

But we didn't complain as the showers

were huge and boiling hot, so the girls

and I made the most of our expensive

site fees, and had the longest showers

known to man! 

I made some nice hot custard,

which we ate with some bought biscuits

and a hot cup of tea for dessert,

then we climbed into our beds,

weary, but clean and well fed. 

I won't say warm, because it was the first

night of our whole trip that I just couldn't get

warm, no matter what I tried. 

It was FREEZING. 

We had done just over 400 km

that day, which was a big day for us 

after the Canning days. 

And so ended another day.

 To be continued...……..