Sunday

Another great inspirational meeting!
Our Sacrament meeting was all about missionary work and how we can help. The third speaker was by far my favourite - he was gorgeous, well dressed, gave a great talk and had a killer smile...oh and I'm married to him!
Sam gave an excellent talk even though he only had 10 mins to give it. He managed to tell some great stories and to get across key messages that our ward needed to hear.
My favourite story he gave was from his mission in Hong Kong - He had only been out 3 weeks when he was talking to a man on the street and he said to him "I know that when you feel the spirit you can feel it in your heart" BUT what he really said was "I know that when you feel the spirit you can feel it in your shirt" haha no wonder the man was confused.
I really enjoyed sunday school. I love the Book of Mormon and we were talking about Lehi's dream...these were some thoughts I had

• I have to choose no matter my circumstances as to how I feel about the gospel and my testimony
• To Fall at the feet of the tree - it means that we truly recognise the meaning of the tree (Love of God/symbol of Jesus Christ)
• Power and Pride are not fulfilling and leave you empty
• We have to constantly keep our desires in check
• Some people clung to the iron rod and others held fast - there is a big difference - what are you doing right now? How committed are you?
• The darkness blinds us from the truth (tree) but also the consequences (Chasm and dirty waters)

I really liked how this explained it all

Link to Primary lesson on Tree of Life - easy to understand!

Then I went to YW and we had a great lesson on the Holy Ghost

• Where is the knowledge that we have lost in information?
• Walk by faith in a world governed by sight
• Our human reason is not enough - Elder Eyring
• Distinguishing truth from clever deception
• The Lord does things that we don't always understand but he always has a plan

Clean eating

Today is the first Monday that I have been in Melbourne since October.
October was a long time ago.
Sam and I signed up for gym memberships the weekend I left to go back to NZ but they deferred mine until this week. Since I left we have been talking about going to the gym together (Sam has been going while I was away) and today was D day or should I say G day (thats Gee Day not Gday just to clarify)....
I wake up at 5am. Its already hot. The alarm goes off at 6:30 and after a debate of it's too late to go and no it's not too late, we get out of bed, go to the gym and come home.
Not only did we decide this was the year to be looking great we also decided we are going to 'eat clean' which means we cut out all the bad.
We will be sugar free once school starts as well.
I thought I could share some of our lifestyle change with you - not that we are perfect or anything!

In the weekend we bought a Ninja (blender) so breakfast was a watermelon and pear juice (really simple). We have made a few smoothies so far and they have all been blended so nicely - the only downside is that the Ninja is SO loud!
I really need to work on clean eating snacks (meals we are pretty good at already) so I made both Sam and I a container of fruit and veggies chopped up. Even though I don't start work until the end of the month if I make it for me too I won't be tempted to eat badly!
I also sent Sam off with a container of crackers, chunks of cheese, half cherry tomatoes and relish.

Lunch was what we call a Kel Salad - Usually I don't put fruit in it but because we have so much of it at the moment I sliced up an orange (between Sam's and my salad) and threw in some raspberries. Sam is lucky he got any because raspberries are my all time favourite - they are far superior to chocolate, lollies and ice cream. I didn't have the salad ready before Sam went to work which was great because it meant we got to have a lunch date at his work.

Dinner will be chicken with roast veggies (we have a huge kumara to use yummmmm)

We have also made a meal planner (lunch & dinner) for the week with a shopping list too. This will hopefully keep us on track and make sure we are only buying what we are going to eat!

Summer holidays

As Sam and I were going to be in NZ for Christmas and a little holiday Dad had taken leave and we had planned a roadtrip around the North Island to show Sam around more of our amazing country....BUT then we added to our family...with this snuggly edition - Baxter

Instead we did day trips to...

Hot water Beach & Whangamata & Hamilton

Goat Island & Omaha

Waiheke Island

Orewa

Piha (for the sunset)

and around Auckland

Who are you?

I'm finally back in Melbourne with mixed feelings about being back. I loved being at home with my family and Little B but I missed my house and my husband.
2015 was an interesting year and I found it to be a rough one. I felt very isolated, lonely and unloved (not by Sam of course) and didn't really feel like I had a purpose.....then today came and I went to Young Womens and one of our Bishopric taught a lesson entitled
Who are you?
and
it
was
AMAZING!
He posed questions like what makes us who we are? Where are we from? How are you going to fulfil your destiny?
And then He followed up with:
You are humble, faithful, steadfast, confident, courageous walking in the foosteps of Jesus Christ.
You are the solution.
You are divine.
Ye are Gods - Psalm 82:6
You are foreordained.
You are a purpose.
Your decisions will allow you to achieve even greater things in the eternities.
Remember your true sense of worth.

This lesson was SO for me. Of course I already knew all of those things but it was a great reminder for the start of a new year in a ward where I don't feel at home.

Some other interesting things we talked about in the lesson were....
We need to long for our divine nature.
Heavenly Father could have chosen to make us not like Him but He knew He is perfect and gave us His attributes.
He didn't have to give us bodies.
He sent us here to have joy and the honour that comes with having a body.
We're left here to find our divine nature.
We are His work and His glory even though he is omnipotent, omnipresent and the most high.
Remember Whose you are.
You have a duty as children of God to support each other.

What an amazing spiritual lesson. I can't wait until we get taught by our bishopric again!

One year!

We have had THE most incredible year as Team Fulmizi! More for me than for you I decided to recap all the awesome and amazing things we have achieved in a year...(and maybe some less than awesome things too)...

1. We got married - First of all we survived a long distance relationship and even though we have only been married a year at the end of Jan we have been together for two and only one in the same country!
2. We moved into our place - I have always wanted a house (more than a husband...it's ok Sam knows, now I would take my hubby over any house) so it has been such fun having our own place.
3. I moved countries - not going to lie this could at times also go in the not so fun list of the last year
4. We travelled the world - Dubai, Switzerland, Germany, France, Italy, Croatia, Australia, NZ (and I went to USA)....I did 20 flights in one year and for someone who is not a fan of flying I survived! This year we will be spending a lot less time in airports and on planes. We saw some of the most incredible and beautiful parts and things in the world and gained so much from travelling.
5. We survived being apart for over 3 months - I left my poor hubby twice - once to go to America and once to go back to NZ to work.
6. We had lots of sickness - that was just me really but poor Sam had lots of sleepless nights, a crying wife and a wife who hated being in hospital but had to be there.

We have been on lots of adventures - Sir Benedict Humphries has been on a lot of them with us (except for when he got temporarily lost or we left him at home...) and we have had lots of laughs trying to find cool photo ops with him. We now know that blue tac on his feet is the best way to go so that he does not fall over in the tiniest of winds. (We were very worried that the pigeons in Venice were going to fly off with him though!)

So what did we do to celebrate one year?

1. I flew into Melbourne and met my sweetheart at the airport (he even came INSIDE the airport to meet me!) and he had flowers!!
   
2. We went shopping at the mall- Sam hates shopping so this was a real treat for me. We didn't buy that many things we we did buy a Jeanie-pot that we are excited to use! 
   
3. We had dumplings - like we do every month on the 9th to celebrate
   
4. PRESENTS! So the traditional first anniversary gift is paper (which Sam didn't know about until a few days before - he is really good at pulling things out of thin air!) Sam wants a typewriter and because we just don't have room for one at our place that is on hold - the reason I'm telling you this is because Sam wanted to be able to write letters on personalised letterhead - so I got letterhead designed for him and printed on cool paper. Plus on our weddingeve I gave Sam four little books that I had written in and put photos in and tied them together with a green ribbon so for our anniversary he got another little book tied with a green ribbon that I had written in and put photos in. Sam spoiled me and wrote me a really nice note which revealed that he bought us tickets to the Australian ballet!WOOP!

   

   Sam designed this!

5. To finish off the day we watched tv and had a mud mask - we were both pretty tired from a long day so it was the perfect way to relax
   

Heres to the next million anniversaries!

Operation Kel

This year is our first Christmas "together" - its our second one as a couple, our first being married and our first in person and not over skype!
I love Christmas it is my most favourite time of the year. I love decorating. I love making, buying, wrapping and giving gifts. I love spending time with family and eating my yearly intake of calories over a few days. I love making the house smell like "Christmas" and I love Christmas Carols.
It's also the best time of year because its summer and I'm on holiday!
Christmas for me starts December 1 and this year December 1 looked a little like this...

I ended up being admitted to hospital with pain from my Gallstones... After being in A&E on Sunday, this was me on Tuesday night after our junior school prizegiving...

Then on Wednesday...I was back in. This time it took 9 lots of morphine (took 2 lots 24 hours before) to even do anything to the pain. 

They told me that they would call the surgeon and see if I could get surgery except the doctor came back with the bad news that 16 people were more acute than me and there were 12 more like me AND I had to stay in hospital to get on the surgery list....kill me now...and it could be a week in hospital before I might get the surgery.

So I went home with a prescription for morphine and went back to work on Friday (Sam also arrived that morning) which probably wasn't the best idea because I was in a little bit of pain all day and the pain really came on in the afternoon and the morphine did nothing. Long story short the pain went away a couple of hours later right about the time I had packed my bag for the hospital.

All was fine until Saturday night and the pain struck again. Just to put it into perspective I had been having pain since May every 5/6 weeks for 14 hours and then after pain for about 4 days. This was now day 7- in a row.

So Sunday morning (day 8) I hobbled back into the ED with my bag packed and my hubby in tow. I was admitted and given stronger drugs this time AND I got referred to the surgical team! YAY!

They told me that I needed to stay in until I got the surgery and that they didn't know when that would be but it wouldn't be today. Great. I got moved to ADU and from there had the noisiest woman move in right next to me (texting with the key tones on an old phone, in her brown paper hospital bag, talking on the phone) while I'm thinking how am I going to ever sleep....then two angels in orderlies uniforms came in and said you are moving to the short stay ward and all I heard was SURGERY!! I was probably the most excited person in the hospital at that moment.

As I was wheeled into Short Stay the man in the room next to me had just had his surgery and he was saying to his wife "We need to get our stories straight" - no idea what that was about but it was hilarious.

On Monday I had my surgery with the nicest surgeons and doctors and came out minus a gallbladder, with 4 keyhole holes and the sorest shoulder!

I've never had surgery before so when they woke me up it was way too bright to be alive. I wore Sam's sunglasses until the nurse turned all the lights off around me which was brilliant. 

I went home the next day feeling like what I imagine it is like to be pregnant - not being able to bend or touch my toes for a few days and then I went back to work. 

It was really interesting after surgery I only needed paracetamol twice and that was at night time once I got home. Shows how bad the pain was!

Now a month later today the 3 little scars are healing really nicely and have never hurt. The big one (just above my belly button) is still sore on and off (mostly just irritated by clothes) and its healing well too.

Now that this medical adventure is over I plan to stay away from doctors for a long time (well for as long as my body will allow!)

Oh and if you are wondering (because I know you are) I kept my gallstone. I originally had 3 so must have passed two (probably what the intense pain was) and now I have one gallstone in a jar - the size of a marble! Ouch!

Christmas bells

 I LOVE CHRISTMAS! We had such a great time but after the last blog post of all writing I thought I would just do Christmas in pictures...

Loved our first Christmas cards we made in October - yes thats how excited I am about Christmas.... Then with surgery they ended up being late to all of our Australian family and friends - sorry they are on there way! 

Mum collects Santas and this is as we were taking them down so a few are already packed away....

This is Baxter, Mum and Dad's (and I like to think My) baby. This is on the last day of school. He is seriously the most delicious snuggly beast!

Samuel was here (meant to be here for a weekend and stayed for a week because I had my surgery - he is THE best!). This was my first time out of the house after my surgery and we went and had Movenpick icecream and this was a Christmas tree in Takapuna.

(I secretly love that we are matching and it wasn't even on purpose!)

Sam came back (as we were meant to for Christmas) and we went to the Franklin Road lights with my family. We took Baxter and he was even more popular than the lights! 

All of us minus Sam who was the photographer

We were asked to play Mary and Joseph for the ward Christmas party. It was really fun. Joseph was hilarious especially as he held out Mary's dress (before she gave birth) and took all the gifts from the wisemen. We may have had a slight incident involving baby Jesus BUT don't worry when we have our own baby I will not be dropping him!

(sorry it is blurry but it gives you a good idea of the whole nativity!)

 I bought my Mum and I matching PJs for Christmas. I wore mine Christmas Eve (Mum's were wrapped up) and luckily Mum really liked them so on Christmas Night we matched! Team Fulmizi were on making Christmas breakfast and we saw this cool idea online so we made Santa pancakes! They looked awesome and were delicious.