Sharlene's Reunion

This is the final installment to catch up on all that happened last month. 

Sharlene took the boys with her when she went to Mackay to attend her high school's 10 year reunion. I followed a day later on Friday. Sabbath was a lovely day, Steve Kane preached at Central and Zemiel became a tourist attraction. From what we heard that sabbath, next year's North Australia Conference Big Camp should be a blast. Some of the names dropped was Darren Pratt, Herb Larson, and John Hammond. I'm already looking forward to it. 

Sabbath afternoon, I took Joshua and Zemiel to the local park and spent an easy hour watching them have a fantastic time on the climbing, sliding, swinging and spinning equipment.

That evening we headed off to the reunion. There wasn't a whole lot organised for the evening. One game, some raffle prizes and a few awards given out. The balcony was well used by the smokers and the tab at the bar was well received and exploited. We met Debbie who now manages a lingerie shop, and Kylie who's had a very rough few years. We stayed until the awards were given out and Sharlene won an award! It was the Oprah Winfrey Award - for Service to the Community. (For teaching sign language to deaf children and giving Bible studies). Sharlene looked a bit bashful when she received the award but secretly I think she is pretty proud of it. We left not long afterwards.

Sunday evening, Brian and Patti had their house-warming. Quite a few people ended up being there, and some we hadn't seen for a long time. Some had grown so much they were hard to recognise. Once again, Zemiel turned on the charm and begged food and drink until he was compelled to go to bed about 9 o'clock. Azariah slept through most of the night but he did make some short appearances. Brian and Patti's famous, large, black-light pictures were a hit and we all ate barbeque and pavlova beyond what we thought prudent. The locals thought it a cool night, though us southerners felt pretty good.

Also, while we were there, Patti bought some strawberries. "So what?" You say. Well lets just say that the punnet was FILLED by 4 of them. One of them in particular was especially impressive. Even though there were some that would have liked to eat it....

(Sorry Patti, I couldn't resist.)

...we saved it up for Zem.

On Monday I took Zem down to the park again before packing and being taken to the airport. I reached home just after 8 at night. Just in time to go to sleep and work the next day, feeling like I needed a holiday to get over the weekend.