To read of and glimpse the first part of the day read this post. For the second part, all you have to do is continue on. 

I have set mine eyes upon snow twice in my life. Just a week ago the second time came around. At the beginning of the day we were rather in doubt as to whether the weather would be horrid or not. The predictions spoke of rain, and we did not even know if there would be any snow left, from all the falls on the weekend when everything on Barrington Tops had got covered in a heavy shroud of snow. We set off despite all dire predictions, as we had planed... well rather spontaneously the night before.

The book shop is the best shop in town.... and one of the most dangerous places for me to go, whether I have any money to spend or not. We are friends with the shop owner and I just enjoy being in there, with all the books! I may have walked out without a book once.... maybe... I took some photos last time we went, to go with a silly rhyme I made up. So come with me and take a tour of our local bookstore. Or at least many of the more interesting shelves.

I just finished listening to the audio book of Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson

I really would not recommend reading the synopsis from Goodreads, it gives away way too much, here is the one I read. 

"An author whose previous, wildly successful novels have earned him a reputation as fantasy's master of magic, Brandon Sanderson continues to dazzle audiences with this tale of princesses and gods. In this extraordinary world, those who attain glory return as gods. And those who can master the essence known as breath can perform the most wondrous miracles - or unleash the most devastating havoc."

I gave this book 5 stars on Goodreads, but I possibly should have given it four.... there are no half stars though. Rating books is really hard.

Warning: there are a few minor spoilers in this review.

The juices in my mouth stopped squishing in sweet flavoursome bursts at every chew and no longer slipped smoothly down my throat to fill my stomach in a satisfactory way. The soft pulpy fruit turned hard after a few mouthfuls and the liquid that ran from it, down my arm, began to feel sticky and dirty. 
I chewed harder; my teeth grating together, with a gulp, another mouthful of the fruit scratched its way to fill the pit of my stomach, sharp edges catching at my throat. Yet I cannot stop. My jaws keep working and again I swallow... I swallow what feels like rocks picked up from beside a path, gravel. 

11th October 1943 A British spy plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France. Its pilot and passenger are best friends. One of the girls has a shot at survival. The other has lost the game before it's barely begun.

Our church had a ladies dessert night last night. Bel Thompson gave her testimony and sang some of her beautiful songs. She reminded everyone of how special each of us are and how much God loves us. Which of course is true and I enjoyed it very much. 

I did think this though;

It is not just about love.

Love is only one of the first baby steps.

Our journey with God is so much more

our life, in EVERY way should be dedicated

devoted to God

ALL we do, say, think, should be for

the GLORY of God

I scribbled this onto a serviette while I was listening to one of her songs. 
Feel free to use the wallpaper if you wish, but for personal use only.

It is here, the cover of The Tournament at Gorlan! And it is supposed to be released on October the 6th 2015. I had a lot more ravings about it in a previous post. I also linked to a place where you can read an exert, the first few pages of  The Tournament at Gorlan. Mostly it is Halt at his worst, or gloomiest.... typical Halt.

When winter was forgotten

Autumn spun straight to spring

The drying leaves had not yet dropped

Yet out, burst a flowery thing

Rosy leaves remain on branches

On trees to which leaves should not cling

Not in the winter season anyway but

Already to them have come, the blossoms of spring

I have been meaning to take photos of my parents rings for a while and as today is their wedding anniversary I figured that would be just right. So I took the rings out for a photo shoot. I didn't even drop them once. Although as my mum said I did put them a lot of places... But here are my favourite photos.

Most mornings and many afternoons this month and the end of last, a flock of screeching birds fly over our house and land in one of the tall gum trees next to it. I counted over twenty birds most days. Bright colours flashing they settle into the branches of a gum and almost disappear, except that they screech to one another continually and when they move there is a flash of vibrant colour before they meld back in to the green leaves and blue sky. Then there is the click, click, click of their beaks as they snip at the pink or pale yellow gum blossoms. 

We went wandering in the paddock next door again as we often do whenever we have a visitor. Looking out over the river and low lands at the bottom of the cliff is beautiful. I took photos of all the flowers I saw while walking. I quite like these fluffy yellow ones, even the plants are an unusual colour. They are almost blue rather than green. You can see the size of the actual plant in the photo below.

Photo from here

If you did not know already I will enlighten you on a fact: I really like John Flanagan's writing and have read all his Rangers Apprentice and Brotherband series... He is the only author our family buys new books from as soon as they come out... or before.... If you have not read any of them, well you should.

I have been watching goodreads and other places for months. Finally we got the synopsis for the next Ranger's Apprentice book, a Prequel to the others! Here is said synopsis;

"When Halt and Crowley discover that the ambitious Morgarath has been infiltrating the Rangers in order to corrupt the corps, the young Rangers travel north to Gorlan, seeking a royal warrant to stop Morgarath before it is too late. By weakening the Rangers, the most powerful force in support of the king, Morgarath plans to steal the throne. Yet when Halt and Crowley arrive in Gorlan, they discover just how close Morgarath's scheme is to taking root. Prince Duncan has already been taken prisoner and an imposter installed in his place. All the while, Morgarath has been earning trust and admiration from the Council of Barons while he secretly assembles a powerful force of his own. If the young Rangers are to prevent the coup from succeeding, they will need to prove their mettle in battles the like of which neither has ever faced."

It just occurred to me that I still had not posted some general photos I took while on holidays. Though I am a month late, I shall still post them. So enjoy some of my favorites that I took while on holidays in May.

Our God is an awesome God! Look at the power of the ocean! He made it.

Here is a small fact to think on:

~ You are going to live forEVER ~

Or to put it another way

~ Your soul is IMMORTAL ~

After you leave your body

you will continue to live....

but where?

there are only two options

and this is not an either or fallacy

it is fact

now is the time to chose where you will spend eternity

The day before we planned to do the photo shoot we checked out the beach, it was beautiful.... the sand was clean and shiny.... that day, little did we know of the scum that would be allover the beach the next day, but then how could we know?

 Samuel modeled for me that day. The next day we all got dressed into our denim and white clothes and drove to the selected beach. I took photographs in the sand dunes first. I had all these plans of setting up the tripod on the beach to get more photos of the whole family, but the tide came too high and there was nowhere to set up the tripod so with the help of my dad and sister "Walking Tripods" I got photos with me in them, but not any more of the whole family.