Most mammoth post ever.....

Dear friends,

Im not really sure where to begin...but as I have been essay writing of late I feel like I need to give a bit of an outline of what this crazy long entry is going to contain........but not neccessarily in this order...

- 6 months!
- burying the ashes
- relay for life
- views on the blog

Life rolls on strangely....but everyday Phil is still not here.... which is weird.  I'm not sure if I've said this on the blog before, but, when Phil first died it wasn't heaps weird that we wasn't at home, cause he had been in hospital or he had been asleep in the front room, not really able to be a part of normal family life.  But as the days have gone by the memories of Phil being an active, noisy part of our family have grown less dim.   I miss him so much.

Last Monday, the one before East Monday it was 6 months since Phil died....I can't believe that is it that long and that short.  Someone (who knows who they are), asked me some very difficult but good questions..."How does it feel?" (being sixth months), honestly, everyday it feels like Phil died yesterday, some days are worse than others.  Phil dying never seems to be in my distant memory, it's right there, all the time.

The other question, which produced many tears was.....What is your fondest memory with Phil?  There are so many.  Phil always held my hand when we were walking down the street, I think it was because I was the older sister who didn't live at home or Phil, Mel and I (maybe Jenny too) all curled in bed on our family holiday last year. Phil telling fat jokes about Melinda.  Phil texting me cause he was annoyed with Mum for not knowing what colour toothbrush he owned!  Mel and I peppering poor Phil with banana Jellyfish at the beach.....

On Sunday (Easter Sunday) we buried Phil's ashes in the front garden.  Easter Sunday is an encouraging day to do something like that...  Dad and another friend both said to me, that they appreciate Jesus rising from the dead and the hope that gives us so much more than they did before Phil died.

That's the ashes....

The girls each read a passage from the Bible about the hope that we have because of the resurrection.  I put the ashes in the hole and Ben covered it over.  Dad prayed...and included a fat joke about Melinda in his prayer....

In true Guilford style..we ate an amazing lunch...Phil's pork recipe, and then this delicious cake...(thought you fellow foodies out there needed to see a picture)...it was like a chocolate sponge with chocolate ganache and raspberry goodness....then mum put it in a big cake tin and poured raspberry mousse over it... so delicious!!!!!

Relay for Life!

So a few weeks ago now...us kids plus the adopted siblings of the family.... Johnson, Tim, Dolly and a few more ring-ins participated in Relay for Life.   It was lots of fun, we walked around and around and around the velodrome in Warragul.... we had to carry a baton, we reckoned we had the coolest one there...Phil's prosthetic leg....

We had a great tent provided by the Martin's.... when we first got there I was a bit jealous cause our tent was closed and everyone had these open pagola type of things....but as the weather got colder and the dew fell, we were dry and warm...and were able to sleep between walks...very cosy....(as the night wore on we walked in pairs half an hour at a time)....plus the tent was orange...so it was very cool.

I think we raised about $1600 dollars!  So thankyou everyone for supporting us.  We had a lot of fun and it was a good way for us to be able to remember Phil together.   

Something random....

So once the numbers on this blog started to climb I decided that I wanted to get a picture of the number clicking over 33 333...and I did.... so here is the picture.... I waited quite a while to get this....

Right now Mum and Dad and Jenny are on holidays in Pt. Lonsdale.  I think Jenny is enjoying some quality time that she probably missed out on a bit while Phil was sick for so many years.  Melinda is currently in the middle of her first shift ever on the ward nursing, and I'm house sitting in Warragul on holidays. I'm not sure about the others but I know that Lovy and Sherryn both have holidays from uni this week.   

Well not sure what else I have to say, other than sorry that it has been so long between posts, and if you have managed to persevere to the bottom of this one I salute you.  

Kristen x