The first day of the convention has arrived! It was so emotional (SORRY - you will be hearing alot of that). There was more than 51,000 in attendance at the Soccer Stadium - it was soooo great! Everyone travelled on the Subway, so it was really cool!

Interesting thing happened on the way home - I was giving out tacky Koalas to the delegates and I gave one to a lady who I thought was a witness - turns out she wasnt. But, she was so moved by it, she gave us a baguette she had in her bag. Then, we tried in our version of Korean (also known as speaking English slowly and loudly) and tried to invite her to the convention on the weekend. A brother standing nearby helped us and explained the whole convenion ........ Then, she handed Kylie her phone and spoke a friend of hers that was a witness already. We are having many experiences like this due to our wearing our lapel cards.

Went to Bethel yesterday and also to the Gyeonbokgung Palace (its big in Korea's history.) We also went to a traditional Korean show (dance and sing) last night which was AMAZING! Our friend Emmanuel was pulled up onto the stage and did a great job. We loved the show so much, we got the DVD.

Tried garlic wine tonight ..... hmmmm ...... at least we can say we tried it.

So, I hope the convention in Melbourne goes well. Sorry we cant be there, but Korea was calling us.

Can you believe it? We arrived! We are so excited!

We left Sydney on Monday morning and arrived in our hotel room before midnight that night. It was a LOOOONNNNG day! When we arrived, there were about a hundred local witnesses there at the airport welcoming us with banners and flowers and dressed in traditional Korean clothes. It was all very moving and very beautiful!

Today was a "free" day. By free, I mean that our itinerary for today was blank. But, we left the hotel about 10 and got back about 8:30. My feet are about to fall off. We had a wonderful day on the subway and saw some other sites around Korea. We finished the night with a cruise along the _______ river (not sure of the name). As if that wasnt exciting enough, some local Korean witnesses recognized the lapel card that all of the international delegates to the convention were wearing so it was great to meet up with them. What was EVEN more amazing was that in their group, there were 2 sisters from .... China! It was very moving to meet them.

I tried to upload some photos, but this is not possible from this machine. Maybe the next hotel we are in.

Anyway, its late and I must go to bed......

Before we left, I was going to email the itinerary around to family so that they know where we are. But here is a better idea - you can look at it yourself!

Are you excited? Can you understand why I am excited?

We will be FLYING on our way to Seoul, Korea!

I hope to keep you all updated on our travels. We are SOOOOO excited! Can you tell????

Man, this is a cool entrance to the wedding! What do you think?

As many of you know, we are going to the Seoul, Korea International Convention in August this year. But, we werent sure how many of the talks were going to be in English (we have since found out that the entire program will be interpreted into English). So, to make sure we got the convention, we decided to go to Bendigo. After a short 1.75hour drive, we arrived at our lodging. I wont say hotel, because it wasnt. I wont say motel because it was somewhere in between. It was nice.

Anyway, what can I tell you about the convention? It was really good! Really, really good! Alot different from other conventions we have been to in the past. And, Im really happy that we get to have the convention again!

So, below we have a new release being held by Kylie, Jessie and Angela - I have blanked out the cover so its a suprise for you! And, let me tell you, even though I had heard about it before, it was still a suprise!

We caught up with many people at the convention, including Dan and Bec Botros. As you can see from the photos below, Bec is heavily pregnant (i think I remember her saying there was eight weeks to go still - or was it eight days....) She already has a son (Noah) and he is ___years old (I dont know how old.) He is CUTE!

Now, the drama. Very Moving - thats all I will say. You will really enjoy it! I can reveal that it is a modern day drama based on the Prodigal Son account. I can reveal that because it has already been printed on the back of the Watchtower magazine advertising the upcoming convention. We knew quite a few from the drama including our friends Grant and Wanda (Grant is gesturing in this shot on the right of the image and Wanda is being obscured.)

And, here is a shot of us on the last day, after we realised that we dont have a photo of ourselves.

It was such a great weekend - the convention was GREAT, it wasnt as stressful as it is going into the city. The peak attendance was 3,094. On the Saturday, we were parked in an area known by the parking attendants as "the swamp." Why, you may ask? Because it is A SWAMP! It was a grassy, muddy area when we parked in the morning and it rained ALL DAY! So, you can imagine when we got back to the car, it was dark, and we trawled through mud and water to get into the car. It was still bucketing down with rain and I was soaked through. I worried about getting bogged but that didnt happen. The word on the street was that only one person got bogged and they had left 15 minutes before the end of the session .......... hmmmm!

I am seriously LOVING Master Chef at the moment. I was so inspired by last nights Pannacotta that I went on the website to get the recipe. I didnt end up getting the recipe, but I found this one that I am going to try. It looks BEAUTIFUL! It is a Sage Gnocchi.

I couldnt find the clip before, so this is half way through the recipe. If you want the full recipe, it is found here.

In other news, Carolina went to the food show and met some Master Chefs. Click here to see who she met.

Sorry its been so long for the updates. I wanted to give you part 2 to the hair story.

My mum said to my sister who had dyed her hair (see last blog post) "You should use conditioner in your hair - look at mine!"

"Mum, I have had a treatment - what do you think a treatment is? Its a CONDITIONER!" came the response.

My mum replied (and, as you read her reply, keep in mind what you learned about my mum in the last blog post) "No, not that kind of conditioner." Oh, dear! What on earth could she mean? She continued "I use Huggy in my hair - feel how soft it is!" Yes, its true. My mother uses fabric softner in her hair. Last night though, we told Kylie's hairdresser about it. And, she said that she had heard of people using it. This shocked us! Until she concluded the sentance by saying ".....ON WIGS!" So, there you have it!

Another exciting event on the night out was dessert. It was Nutella Pizza (see photos)

How does one make Nutella Pizza? You make Pizza Dough, Spread it with Nutella and then wrap over and then cook, cut and serve. And, yes, it was GREAT! Probably a little to sweet for me though! As you can see, the kids loved it!



The last thing I would like to tell you about was something that my dad showed me when we got back to his place after dinner (we travelled in the same car to the restaurant). See the pictures below.

Every year, my dad makes sausages. He buys the meat pre-cut (I wouldnt call it minced, the pieces are bigger than mince) but he mixes the herbs and spices and fills them. It used to be a big family affair on the weekends, but now that he doesnt work, he does it at his leisure.

The meat is pork and is one of the only occasions that I eat pork. And, the photo on the right shows a rare ocurrence - my dad smiling!


Until next time.....

Hi Guys! You have probably seen this already, but in case you havent .... here it is! It makes me SOOOO excited about our upcoming trip to Korea for the convention. Enjoy!

You might have heard me talk about my efforts to simplify......

Check out what I have for sale on ebay - you might just want to avail yourself of some of these items.