Home again!

Hello everyone! we are now back in Australia after a wonderful Long Service Leave all over the place. We found it very difficult to access a computer in the last 4 weeks of our leave. Most people travelling in the USA have a laptop and everything is wired for that - trains, planes, cafes, hotels etc. We used our mobiles to text to the family and left it at that. Next time we will take a laptop! We especially loved New York - except for a burst of a flu type thing for me. I saw a doctor for 5 minutes and was presented with a huge bill! It makes you appreciate our health services in Australia. We enjoyed the Museum of Natural History immensely - it has a whole floor of dinosaur exhibits! I especially loved the Houston International Quilt fair. I attended 2 classes (one with Judith Baker Montano who is a silk ribbon embroidery teacher and another with a Japanese Sashiko teacher), and two lectures/ demonstrations. There were hundreds of booths selling everything you might need for all manner of handwork and other crafts. The booths I loved the best were - Plum Creek Collectibles and A Quilter's Dream. Plum Creek Collectibles sells great Advent Calender patterns. Check out their website at www.plumcreekcollectibles.com

The emphasis in the quilt show now is moving away from the traditional quilt exclusively - now art quilts with painting, embellishments etc. are in the Show. I think that there is always room for new types of quilting and sewing. The quilt that won was an art quilt and it was magnificent! There were many booths selling computer programmes and quilting machines too.

We went to a number of interesting churches and in Houston we even went to church with George Bush Snr. (as well as many security men!) at St. Mark's Episcopal Church. We loved being part of the congregation at Redeemer Church in New York hearing Tim Keller in the flesh, and the Baptist Church on Capitol Hill in Washington was great - Phillip Jensen was preaching there that Sunday! I thought of Megan Engel driving into Washington a few years ago (very brave).

Another great part of our time away was spent with Anna, Matt and Sophie in Hong Kong and then 9 days in Honolulu with Rachel and Andrew. While we were away, Meg and Steve bought a house in Camperdown.