3 weeks to go...

Or to be more exact 26 days to go.

Work is starting to wind down at school, which sounds quite nice, but in the teaching world it means it gets busier and busier. Reports to write, units to complete, next years classes to make, cleaning to happen, find teaching partners, out to dinner, BBQ's, end of year break ups (numerous) and all that jazz!

Luckily, we have a long weekend this week. My crazy sleeping pattern continued today. Eyes opened at 6:45am, after laying in bed tossing for 1/2 an hour, I gave up and got on the computer. I have been told abut this Chinese site that sells things online really cheap... only problem... its all in Chinese. So set with my instrutions of, 'push the button under the arrow and then the top button in the middle, you will find what your looking for', sounds easy eh? So anyway I tried it and guess what? I found what I was looking for. Now I have to find a Chinese person who can help me order online. That will be Tuesday's job while at school.

I went over to the 'Finish Taylor' today. You will notice that I spelt the word Finish as completed, becasue that is just how it is. It doesn't mean Finnish as in the country. I am saying this as I have always thought it the later description, but trust me, this couple do not look Finnish - Very confusing to me!

Kane has gone out exploring today with some friends in an old Chinese street. I just missed going with him by 20mins, as I was at the 'Finish Taylor'! (It cracks me up!)

Oh - Mama - I have a friend going to the Pearl Market tomorrow and she is going to get you some earings made the same as the necklace you want. They'll probably be about $15.

That's about it for us.

Bye

K&K

Four weeks to go... and counting!

I can't believe that I deleted the photos of Dawn and Gary from our camera. How stooopid was that? I specifically remember copying them from my camera to a CD for them to take back to Bendigo with them, and now I have no copy myself? Really?



So sorry, I can't show you some photos of our latest guests, which is a really pity. I had a great one of Kane skipping through a flower lined lane.



We have fallen dead on our feet lately. Kane's blisters are healing, (thank-god), but we still had a really busy weekend. It was international day at school on Saturday and they had all kinds of games, stalls and sooo much yummy food from all over the world. I bought a gorgeous jewellery case to house my 'specials', and won a green bag from Marriott Hotel group. The bag sounds exciting, but it's not. It's just like a safeway green bag, but bigger!


My Jewellery box below:

It has 2 shelves that come out. Many, many little compartments and a ring cushion. I love it and the colours are awesome.



We went out to tea with an American couple and headed home pretty early. I was glad to be in bed as I was a weeee bit tired. Only to be rudely awoken at 6.30am by my stupid body clock. I don't get it. I'm exhausted during the week and struggle like hell to get out of bed at 6.30am. I feel like sh*t for hours afterwards. But come the weekend, as much as I want to sleep and really need to sleep. I can't. *POP* eyes open - hello world! Is anyone else like that?



Sunday was spent with exercise. Kane ran for 1.5 hours with another 2 Americans and I gymed it. Later on in the afternoon Kane played soccer and I went for a pedicure and to a baby shower.



I've heard a rumour tonight that they are going to start means testing the baby bonus. Is it true? How damn rude. I was hoping that thing would still be around when I finally get there in a few years time.

Cheers everyone,

KK

Pearl Market - For Sale

I went to the Pearl Market today and bought 16 necklaces to sell while back home in Oz during July and August. I don't get paid during July/August and so need to generate some funds to survive! I am posting them now so that you can leave me a message if you like any of them. All the pearls featured are fresh water pearls.

The one above has some small pearls on it.

This one has dark pearl shells, pearl and clear beads.

This one is a small dark pearl and black bead necklace.

This is pearl necklace that I designed. It is made of pearls deformed into shells and put to size, it is one piece and made on a silver metal string necklace. I have 2 of these, I liked them so much.

This is purple and green pearl, with clear beads and clear string.

These are tiny pearls with white string.

This is high quality dark blue/purple necklace. This is gorgeous and of double length.

This is a three string necklace with shell formed pearls of varying size.

This necklace has no pearls and is grey, black and clear beads.

This is a single high quality pearl on a silver necklace of my own design. Very elegant.

This is a high quality necklace of dark plum/almost brown tinge.

This is a blue/green high quality pearl necklace.

This is a high quality light purple/dark pink pearl necklace.

This is a simple pearl and clear bead necklace.

This is a velvet strap with blue beads.

If you like any of them, email me at kellyrippon@hotmail.com for prices

We have more visitors!

We have had a busy week. Time flies

It's amazing how the week starts and then voo....o..om..... The weekend is here :)

We have had some injuries this week. Kane played rugby on Wednesday night and ended up with huge blisters. So he has been a walking mess. Dawn (Kane's Mum) attacked them with scissors, much to Kane's disgust, and cut all the dead skin off. He still wanted to play soccer last night though.

I went and saw my magic healer again and he did acupuncture on my sore bits from swimming. I love this guy.

Dawn and Gary have come to visit for a week. I have had heaps of advice about the wedding, and done heaps catching up. I've heard heaps about how wonderful the Maldive sound too, sounds Divine.

We are going to Downtown Suzhou today for a look and I have organised a tour for both of them to visit some famous places with a car and a English speaking tour guide.

Howdee

G'day everyone,

It's almost hump day and in 2 days Kane's Mum and Step Dad will be here. We are almost prepared for the visit. I am making Kane's Grandma's Carrot Cake for the couple tomorrow night. It is a favourite and it is one of the cakes I actually know how to make from scratch!

I went to a new Western Food Market yesterday afternoon. Oh - Did I have fun! I bought timtams for a friend, beef mince (so hard to find here), tomato pizza sauce, (for tonight's dinner), tomato paste, English muffins, pita bread, philli cream cheese, butter, edam cheese, ham and few other things. It cost a bit, but there is a great variety. The shop is found in one of the up-market compounds and so many people shop solely there. It must cost them a lot of money (Chinese Standard).

S0... We had pita pizzas for dinner tonight, yummy - Don't it look good? I made 5 of them, I had 2 and Kane had 3.

And for dessert, we get banana pancakes. A really simple recipe from my Low-fat Cookbook.

1 Cup Wholemeal Flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 2 mashed very ripe bananas, 1 tbls male syrup, 1 cup milk, 2 tsp Cinnamon, 1 pinch nutmeg. Mix together and sit for 1 hour and cook in a fry pan. YUMMY

A friend of ours, Bruce who recently got married had his birthday yesterday and didn't want his flowers. So he gave them to me - How lucky! Biggest bunch I've ever received from a boy. I think there are 2 dozen pink roses there. Watch out Kane ;)

Zaijian!

(Mean's goodbye in Chinese)

Kelly

xxx

Our Funky Table

Evening ladies and gentlemen,

Kane and I went shopping yesterday. We have been wanting to buy a table and chair setting for our highly used balcony, and we made the big purchase yesterday afternoon. It's a funky orange plastic contraption, but it's kinda cool. Exactly what we needed for such a small space. It was sooooo cheap, 199RMB, so around $30AU. We've had breakfast, lunch and dinner on it today.

And check this out... I found feta cheese at a western food shop yesterday and so for lunch and dinner today, we've had Greek salad - Yum. Here are some piccies:

The table and chairs on the balcony

Lunch is served - How divine does it look? Greek salad, stir-fired chicken breast with seeded mustard sauce and grapes to snack on.

The chief eater and the proud chef :)

I have spoken to my gorgeous friend Narelle on the phone today, she is only 5 weeks away from giving birth to her and husband Cam's first child. Good luck Narelle, and I'll see you in August :)


We are off to the dentist tomorrow afternoon, we are going to get a clean and polish and find out if we need to have any fillings, hopefully not, but I'm not counting on it.

We have mostly finished our reports today. I was amazed at how fast I could do them. Mind you, they're not all unique!


Hope you're have a great weekend

KK

End of another week

How fast the end of the school year is approaching. It felt like only yesterday that it had snowed heavily and we were escaping to Vietnam/Cambodia. Now it's rush to get reports done, rush to exercise, find time to relax, the days fly and they turn into weeks, and soon months and by the time we have time to breathe we will be home visiting all that we love and miss...



We are buying a table and chair set for the balcony this weekend in preparation to Kane's mother coming with her husband Gary. The weather has been divine lately and it would be a pity to waste the wonderful balcony we have just for drying our washing.



Everything (as much as possible) has returned to normal after my family came, rush, rush, rush.



Have a great weekend everyone. We think of you all often, keep sharing your new with us as we love hearing it.



Kelly