While we were there we went to the Hillsong Conference's Opening night before returning to Melbourne the next morning. Here's Ella after a 9 hour drive....
Di's cousin from Tasmania, Robert (Rob) Parsell, made a short visit with us following Nanna. It was a nice time to catch up as we don't get to see Di's Tasmanian family much.
Nanna Hobbs made a weekend visit to see us here in Melbourne and we all had a really great time. Here's Nanna taking an opportunity to give Ella a bath. Ella loves being dunked with big buckets of water... here's a photo of it.
This weekend we went camping at the Kinglake National Park and it was awesome. Here's Di and Ella enjoying the campfire. It was such a great break.
We got Ella her first football... well for us to play with for now. So we went across to the park to kick it..
Here's the three of us having a great time and Ella and her Uncle Dave having a dance. It is the nicest park with great bbq's
that night we caught up with Lauren and Slava from Sydney... great to see you guys.
For Easter we went to Torquay, just 1.5 hrs south west of Melbourne, to be the guests at the Torquay Corps. As part of their weekend ministry they had a petting zoo, which Ella loved. Check out this cute clip of Ella enjoying the animals.
Tomorrow Ella will be 6 months old... who can believe she's already half a year old? Time is flying and our little baby is growing so fast. However today was a big one for Ella, because she had her first lot of solid food. Check out how well she did.
We thought we needed some photos of Di and I in our cadet uniforms, here they are.
Here is our Training Principle, Captain Stephen Court leading us on with OUR flag. 
We are loving college and this weekend is our official welcome at Waverly Corps. Full steam ahead with classes also this week, both Di and I can't wait.
Pete had the guitar, Scott had drums and I had the flag. We played some popular tunes, including "I still haven't found what I'm looking for", "I'm a believer", "Lean on me" and others. People listened and some tapped their feet. In amongst the songs we each got up and shared a quick gospel message. As people sat on the cafe chairs sipping their coffee, they uncomfortably pretended not to hear us too much. But we did have a response...
One guy from Bejing, who was not a Christian and on holidays, came up to us, and Cpt. Court gave him a bible and got his details, and he said he would read it all and email Cpt. Court later on. He was genuinly interested in the gospel message.
Here's our Training Principal showing us how it's done! What a legend and excellent teacher!
life to the fullest you need Jesus... Just believe in him today. War Crys were handed out and one guy said, 'Ahh yeah, I'll take it. We love the Sallies!' Even after going hard with the message of Jesus... Kind of weird, but I think that says a little about Australian culture. They have huge respect for TSA, and even when we've spent the last 30 minutes preaching the gospel, the reply is one of respect. We pray that people begin to connect with our message of Jesus, and for the community to realise, that they can become Salvos as well!
Bring back the Open Airs. Do them well. Be relevant. Preach the gospel. God can use it.
NB: The body of this text was used with the kind and gracious permission of the strong and courageous Cadet Pete Brookshaw, for more of his excellent work check out http://revolutionearth.blogspot.com/
Di, Ella and I have arrived in Melbourne for Training college, check out this tour of our apartment.
We start Training next Wednesday we can't wait. Missing everyone but really enjoying following the call and going to college.
Dad and I drove across to Perth in Dad's new Toyota Prado, here is a photo of Dad and I at the great Australian Bight.
Here is our precious angel with her first photo with Santa. What a stunner.
