Celebrations and surprises!

Hi again from tropical life, where our days are merry and productive and our nights are starry with beautiful moons rising and dolphins splashing, and unicorns prancing...not!

This week we celebrated Noah’s 5^th birthday!!!!! FIVE!!!!!!!! I didn’t know if I should cry for the days of him being my gorgeous little baby, which are long gone, or be merry for him growing into such a stunning little character, such a BOY!!!

Our celebrations consisted of us counting sleeps until the big day for about 2 weeks, then me staying up late the night before to make his birthday cake, using improvised techniques of zip-lock bags as my icing equipment, and some bits and pieces I brought when we came and saved for the special day. I must say I am very proud of the result, and look forward to working on another birthday cake- Saulei’s, the day after we return to Sydney. Poor Carl will be missing out on cake this year, as we have no more flour, or eggs, or sugar, and neither do any of the shops on the island...

                                      

                                                                            Cool hey?

And on the morning of his birthday we woke him with a song, and a little crown with a big 5 on it, and some chocolates and balloons which I had saved for 3 months, coz I knew there wont be much else I’ll be able to give him here. And at preschool they got him to stand up in front of the class and the kids all sang him Happy birthday in broken English, and he got given this awesome hand crafted wooden boat by one of the preschool teachers (who bribed her son with $10 for him to give it to her so she could give it to Noah...)and we came home and went for a little swim to float the boat and he LOVED it, and we had a little party for him in the afternoon with his little girlfriends Ali and Briseis and the family, and we all guzzled birthday cake, popcorn and deep fried donuts Aggy made, and he and we were all very happy!

                                    

                                                    Birthday boy and beautiful girlfriends

                                Guzzling birthday cake and donuts or “as Saulei calls them “Gonuts”

                                         

                                           Noah and his handcrafted wooden Outrigger Canoe

                                                            

Since my last entry, just as the building of the house was about to commence, Carl developed a massive volcanic boil/sore/monster on his leg, which put him down for over a week. He couldn’t walk and was in alot of pain and ended up going to the hospital and got given some antibiotics (which they hand out like free lollies for any and every ailment). He was in bed the whole time and lost over a week in building time, but once he finally got better, they started the work with gusto,  and within a couple of days got the bearers and joists set up, so we have a floor!!!!!! FINALLY- A FLOOR!!! After years of planning, and over a year of being here and back, preparations, trials and errors, WE HAVE A FLOOR!!! Carl is seeming very confident with what he is doing, and with the help of his uncle Varo and some random helping hands that pop in at different times of the day they are doing a perfect job, with the beautiful strong timber he has cut and collected, and it is finally starting to be a reality! WE’RE GONNA HAVE A HOUSE!!!

                                The progress of the house, in order

                                   The posts-up! (craned in by human power, about 4-6 of them!)

                                            

                   The floor down- Joists and Bearers (am just showing off my new building vocab...)

 

Next week they’re gonna start cutting the Mahogany slabs into floor boards, to prepare them for being laid at the end. Carl has written a week by week plan of what to do until we leave in 7 weeks! So with any luck, and hopefully no fuck-ups, all will go well and the main part of the house will be done. We’re waiting for the next boat to come to Rotuma which will hopefully bring the rest of the building materials we need , Roofing iron being one of them. Unfortunately we cant go ahead with the original plan of thatching the roof, as apparently the type of palm leaves used for thatching here is very scarce at the moment and hard to get. It also requires allot of maintenance, which for us, not living here full time, would be a problem. So like anything in life, we’ve just got to flow with what we have, knowing that everything will be perfect at the end.

We finally received the 2 big boxes sent to us from Noah’s preschool in Bondi, which we had been waiting for for weeks. I had approached the parents at his preschool and asked them to gather all their old toys and art and craft stuff, books, dress ups and anything they don’t use anymore and send it over here as a donation to our preschool. The response was fantastic, the manager of the preschool as well as some parents even donated some money to pay for the freight over, and we received 2 boxes full of awesome goodies that the kids here will absolutely LOVE.

I feel so touched and grateful for the effort everyone made to help this happen, and the preschool teachers were all delighted!!!! One parent even donated an old Laptop, which everyone is super excited about!!! So thanks so much to Ocean Street Preschool staff and parents, as well as Em and Selina who helped get it over here!! I cant wait to see all the gorgeous little brown kids dressed up as fairies and lady-bugs, pirates and police men... we’re planning a fund raising concert for the end of July, and will incorporate the dress-ups into the concert, as well as all the songs and rhymes (English, Rotuman, Fijian and even Hebrew...).

     The Shloffing Chef, Saulei dressed up in one of the items sent for preschool

      My first Bindi (Okra) crop...

The advantages of being married to a newly born lumberjack! Beautiful chopping boards! (The one in the front is Mahogany...)

So that’s it for now, it feels like we are starting a bit of a countdown until we leave on July 29^th. We get back to Sydney on July 30^th, I will be there until mid August and am then heading to Israel to be with my dearest sister Pam as she births her first child. Carl and the boys will be joining us later in September, and we will all stay in Israel until then end of January 2012 when we will be celebrating my dads 70^th!!! I am really excited and looking forward to spending a nice chunk of time with my family in Israel, its been way too long!!!!!

So with butterflies in my heart and a very hot sun shining thru my bedroom window with a nice monkey’s wedding showering my vegie garden, I shall sign out, and write again soon xxx

P.S thanks for your comments, which I really look forward to, always!