ANZAC Day

One of my eyes looks bloodshot and I swear I'm not stoned! So I better get to sleep really soon!

Happy (or sad...or...oh I don't know) ANZAC Day to all for yesterday! I originally was going to sleep in to make up for the many previous sleep-deprived nights when my mum kept trying to wake up me up, pushing me to come with her and Aonghas to the ANZAC service in Te Atatu Peninsula. Aonghas and his school's prefects group were to march with the others to represent his school there.

While my mum and I were standing along the side of the road waiting for the parade to start, this man came up to us and asked me if I could help him out with his camera because it wasn't working. He had just bought these new batteries too. I told him it was probably because he hadn't charged the batteries after buying them and he was pretty gutted as his son put him in charge of taking photos of his grandson who was taking part as a cadet in the parade! We offered to take some photos for him as our camera was working. That wasn't for long though, as the battery Aonghas supplied us with was almost flat!

The service went without many hiccups. At the beginning this guy did collapse and had to be helped out of the hall by some firefighters (which got me wondering if police and fire service personnel were invited to be represented, why not St Johns? Or maybe they are but I didn't see them? Or are they so short on staff they were all probably busy?). We sang a few hymns, had a prayer, a speech was given by a young servicewoman. What was a slightly odd about her speech though was she started talking about all the different places servicepeople were currently stationed around the world and how they were serving the people and so on. There was a little bit more, and then she started talking repeating what she said earlier! Nonetheless it was a good speech.

The Last Post was played, and after a few more short speeches the service was over. It did make me think about the risk these people took to defend and fight for their country. I am 1000x grateful to all past and current service people!

Later in the day we went to church for a slightly extended youth group meeting. We played some activities like hockey with newspaper, and I must say that's the most exercise I've done in ages!!!! My thighs are still sore after that! We also planned what we wanted for this display board about our youth group in the foyer. If Aonghas has his way it'll be a mock of the High School Musical poster!

Later in the evening we prepared heaps of dumplings for the dinner with our parents later on. Some of the guys got a little too creative, filling one or two of the dumplings with flour!

The dinner was not too bad and I filled myself up! To round off the night we played a few games together which was really funny when some of the parents started laughing crazily at some of the weirdest things!