Getting ready for next intake

As if last week wasn't busy enough, next week is transfer week and we'll have 30 new arrivals plus a new senior couple which puts the total over 250.  Missionaries going home leave Wednesday, and the new incoming missionaries arrive starting Tuesday night, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  And we don't have enough flats for all of them!

In anticipation of never seeing the sun next week we went on a drive to Mount Tamborine yesterday.  Up the mountain the tropical rainforest meets the more typical vegetation so there's quite a mixture of tropical and semi tropical flowers and trees.  We strolled through the botanical gardens, listened to the laughing kookaburras and took a few pictures, notably of the camilia tree blossoms since we have a daughter in law by the name of Camille.  We then drove to the Gold Coast which has Queensland's best surfing waters and because this is "Labour Day" weekend in Australia and the first holiday of summer, the Gold Coast was a big traffic jam with no vacancies galore.  It felt like Southern California.

Here in Brisbane the Jacaranda trees are in full bloom and the blossoms emit a wonderful scent.  They are scattered all over the city, with some right on the street where we live.  We took pictures of some in the neighborhood and also on the University of Queensland campus.  The saying at UQ is that if the Jacarandas are in blossom it's too late to redeem yourself for not studying up to this point in the semester because finals are near!  (See Matthew 24: 32-33)