The Springs

Welcome to Vaughn and Nell's website, updating you on our lives! Thanks for visiting and we hope you enjoy catching up on what we're up to!

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Location: Cairns, Queensland, Australia

I’m proudly a full-time Mummy, looking after our beautiful daughter (nicknamed “Little Spring” in my blog) and a full time wife to a wonderful Lutheran pastor (“nicknamed “Big Spring” in my blog). I was born and have lived in Australia my whole life, but I also have a US passport and a passion for all things American… especially food and my family!

Saturday, February 03, 2007

USA Trip and Move Update

Housing:
Well, we made the big move to Adelaide and have settled in well. Living here on the Seminary Campus is wonderful. We are living in one of the two story terrace housing (the smallest of all – a 2-bedroom, which is perfect for us). The community here is amazing… we’d been here for literally only 30 minutes and had met a few of our neighbours and had been lent crockery, cutlery and even a TV as our stuff had been delayed in transit. We’ve now met every one living in the family housing and they are all lovely. The house we are in has a kitchen and meals/family area (huge) and a front lounge room. The laundry is quite spacious (has room for our drier, which is great) and we have ample storage space under the stairs.

Work:
I just finished my first full week at the Adelaide Diocese. I’ve enjoyed it very much so far. The people there are lovely and have been very welcoming and helpful. It has certainly helped settling in having worked at the Melbourne Diocese.

We finally sold the business before moving to Adelaide, all the paperwork being finalised in late December/early January.

Study:
Vaughn has just finished ‘O’ week at the sem. He’s really enjoyed the week – getting to know the campus and students better. He will commence studying this coming week.

Church:

We haven’t been to church since moving to Adelaide. We will be going tomorrow night, to a commencement service for the Sem year, but we don’t know where we will be attending regularly. We plan to attend different churches/congregations each weekend and find out which best suits us.

Family news:

Not really anything to update you on here. The only news is that Ben (younger brother) has gotten a job working for a computer programming company. He’s really excited about the job and there are possibilities of him travelling overseas (in particular, USA), so his duel citizenship will come in handy!

Other news:

My trip to the States was FANTASTIC! It was so wonderful catching up with Aunty Ellen, Tammy (my cousin) and her husband Bryan. With a couple hours lay over in Hawaii, I arrived in Seattle to begin my adventure! My first night was alone, but I met the others at the airport the next morning. We spend some time visiting Seattle’s sights, including the Space Needle. We then took a drive up to Canada, where we spent two nights in Vancouver, again checking out the tourist sights via a hop-on-hop-off tour. One of the stops was Science World, which caught our attention with the exhibition there – Body Worlds. To best explain what it is, I’ve taken an extract from their website: “The BODY WORLDS exhibitions are first-of-their-kind exhibitions through which visitors learn about anatomy, physiology, and health by viewing real human bodies, using an extraordinary process called Plastination a groundbreaking method for specimen preservation invented by Dr. von Hagens in 1977.” I don’t know if it’s ever coming to Australia, but would recommend it if it does. After Canada, we drove down to Portland, Oregon – picked Mum up along the way (she was staying with a host family through the school programme that brought her to the States) – and visited Uncle Virgil (Mum’s uncle).


We spent the night there, dropped Mum off again the next day and stayed another night in Seattle. The next day my family travelled back to their home towns and I travelled down to San Francisco, to stay with the school group. I spent two nights in San Francisco seeing the sights with the kids and leaders. The main places were Alcatraz (“The Rock”), Fisherman’s Wharf and the Golden Gate bridge walk. San Francisco is a beautiful city and I’d love to go back there to see more.

After San Francisco, it was time to fly back to Australia, via Sydney. Once back in Melbourne, Vaughn picked Mum and me up from the airport and we drove to Hamilton. We stayed the night there and the next day drove to Adelaide to begin our news lives in SA… certainly not left feeling idle, that’s for sure!

Prayer Points:

PRAISE: We’ve settled in well to Adelaide life and work
PRAISE: Safe travel to and from the States
PRAISE: That the business was sold successfully
PRAYER: That Vaughn commences studies well, without too much pressure
PRAYER: That we would continue to build strong friendships with the community around us (living/studying and working)


We are certainly missing many people we left behind in Melbourne and we look forward to visits in Adelaide (hint hint!).

As always, may God bless you now and always and I pray that this letter finds you well and in God’s peace. With love to you all.

Janelle and Vaughn