Sydney's COOL birthday party

On the 5th of May, my best friend Sydney invited me to a very cool party to celebrate her 12th birthday! She also invited our friend Cayenne. The day made me feel like a teenager! And it felt great! First, we went to the pacific fair (a massive bunch of shops....) and looked through the pet store. I adored the moment, being an animal lover, but I was a little surprised to find pigs also in there.......
We felt a little touched by the wonderful aromas in the sweet shop! It was just so good!
Then we had a delicious Subway lunch. Next was time to go get our nails painted! (as you can see in the 2nd picture). Then we went to Iceland! (an ice skating arena) it was Cayenne and my first time, so we were really excited! But got the hang of it in about 1:00. Soon enough, she was literally tap dancing on the ice! Wile I got pretty good at it, but yet I slipped about 10 times....... So when we had to go, I realized how wet my jeans were! I had to change into Sydney's short skirt!(When ever you fall, this guy skates SO fast to help you up....scary.....)
when I got home, I found a massive browse on my right knee, and a really sore blister. But overall, it was an awesome day!

Written by Brooke Nelson.

James, Elle and Ollie moved into their own house

> Recently James, Elle and Ollie moved into their own house in Cleveland. It's a nice little 3 bedroom cottage-like place. Dad, Jamie, Barry and James are in the process of putting on a new roof.
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Brooke Nelson Celebrates 12th Birthday with 12 Friends

Even though the forecast was for rain the weather stayed fine for Brookes' 12th birthday party held at the family home in Thornlands. The 12 party goers were Sydney, Blaire, Emma, Sunnie, Ulani, Fiona, Brooklyn, Lily, Myra, Anika, Jaimee and Sharrae.

Nelson Family Attends Brisbane Riverfire Celebrations

On Saturday my Dad, Mum, Jordan and I went to the Riverfire firework show at kangaroo point and also saw the airforce jet (F18 hornet) fly past a few times. It was so loud. There was also two Blackhawk helicopters that fly overhead. The fireworks were really good and lasted about 20 minutes.  There were so many people watching that they blocked the road off. We also took some photos at the Temple sunken garden.

by Brooke Nelson

Jordan, Lorraine and Brooke at Brisbane Temple 

Jordan, Lorraine and Brooke

Marty, Brooke and Jordan at Temple sunken garden

Magnificent Arrival

I woke up at 6:00 in the morning today. I knew it was a very special day!...it's the day I get my mini pony's so my Dad Marty and my Brother Blair and I headed to the pick them up from the Leneham's property at Eight Mile Plains. We met my Uncle Doug there with a horse float. Dad loaded into the ute some other items suchas portable fencing, jumps, horse books and feed. The Leneham's said their goodbyes and we loaded the horses Ebony and Ally into the float. It was easy to get Ebony on the float but Ally was hard! but at least they traveled well.

When we got home we put the halter and lead on the horses and Blair led Ally to our paddock and I took Ebony. Ally started to run towards the lush green grass. We let them settle in and explore their new home.

Dad spent the morning finishing off the gate and so the area is now secure. We gave them some carrots which they loved. Ebony is a little feisty at times, especially with James, Blair (pictured in the blue singlet) and Jordan (Pictured in the red t-shirt). They love eating the grass and I'm sure soon I will be scooping up the manure.

A few times today I lead both of the horses area the paddock and gave them a little run. they kept up with me!

(Written by Brooke Sariah Nelson).

It's A Boy!

Today we found out that James and Elle are having a boy. We're all excited about it, his name shall be Oliver James Nelson. Elle had the scan taken at Victoria Point medical centre, Lorraine and Shay had gone with them. Everyone was excited to find out, especially Elle, she had to know what gender it was, she doesn't do well with surprises. The whole family is happy for them, there both very happy! James is glad to have a boy first up.

And James and Elle can't wait until Oli's arrival.

Brooke Turns 11

Brooke had a lovely birthday and she hopes it won't be long before she gets a couple of horses. She is being very patient as the grass is yet to be laid and fencing still to be erected.

Marty and Blair help out at National YSA Convention

The first national YSA convention in the last 25 years was held from the 31 Dec 2009 to 4 Jan 2010 in Brisbane at the UQ centre, University of Queensland. Marty and Blair were asked to help with audio/visual support throughout the event as well as DJ for the new years eve dance and back up the band for the night of the Ball.

The program was as follows ....

Thursday 31 December 2009 1300 : Registration 1300 : Mission Possible 1800 : Dinner 2000 : NYE Gone Mega Friday 1st January 2010 0730 : Breakfast 0900 : Assembly - Special Guest speaker 0930 : Wake Up and Do Something More 1230 : Lunch 1400 : Do it - Don't dream it - swimming-dancing-fitness etc 1600 : Great Court Race (Chariots of Fire) 1800 : Dinner 2000 : Ball Saturday 2nd January 2010 0730 : Breakfast 0900 : Assembly - Special Guest speaker 1000 : Summer Festival Big Day Out 1200 : Lunch 1300 : Big Day Out continued 1800 : Dinner 2000 : Hey Hey It's Saturday - Talent Show

Sunday 3rd January 2010 1000 : Church Meetings 1400 : Zions Workshops 1700 : Dinner 1900 : Fireside with Visiting Authority Monday 4th January 2010 0730 : Breakfast 0900 : Assembly - Special Guest speaker 1000 : Closing Ceremony 1200 : Lunch 1330 : It Was Worth It - Testimony Meeting

It was a great experience to be involved and to see 2000 YSA come together from around Australia was fantastic. Highlights for me were the Ball and Talent show.

Below are liks to video of the NYE dance

Introduction video


Below are liks to video of the Ball


Below are acts from the talent night

Introducing the MC Michael Buble dance routine Convention Song
Glee Club Hip Hop dancers Stand Up Comedian Original Song
Hannah Montana Dancers

Jordan Breaks Both Arms On Boxing Day

Jordan had a very eventful Boxing day! At 5pm just after putting a new tyre on his bike he started out to go for a ride to test it and at a slow speed he turned awkwardly and went over the handle bars and landed hands first (back of hands) on the road. Marty happened to go out the front door only seconds after it happened to see Jordan lying on the road with his bike on top of him calling out for help. Upon inspection only slight grazes on each wrist and what we thought ware dislocated wrists.

Marty drove Jordan to Redlands hospital and they took him right away for x-rays. The result is broken Radius and Ulna bones in each forearm and both at the same location in each arm.

The doctors gave Jordan powerful anaesthetics Propofol (this is the drug that Michael Jackson OD'ed on) and Ketamine which put him to sleep and relaxed the muscles. The doctors manipulated the bones back into place and placed a half cast on each forearm and wrapped them up in a bandage. One of the side effects of Ketamine is vivid dreams as the patient awakens so it was interesting listing to Jordan as he came around and started saying strang things. It was as though he was spaced out on drugs (which he was!)

It is a shame that this had to happen on school holidays, especially as Jordan received a pass to attend the theme parks for Christmas. He will probably be in plaster to the end of January. The next visit to the hospital they will take the half casts off and put on the fibreglass casts.

Jordan was very brave through the whole event and is adapting to doing things a differently with his casts on. He is very happy that he can still play on his computer, Wii, Xbox and PSP,

Nelson Family Christmas Letter 2009

Dear Family and Friends,

Well another year gone by, they truly are going faster each year. I LOVE CHRISTMAS, but you all know that, it is such a special time of the year. To remember the true meaning of Christmas, the Saviour and his gift to all of us.

We have been in Qld for three years now and the summer heat still knocks me hard. We are at home for Christmas this year as Marty and Blair will be busy preparing for the National Y.S.A Convention. They are DJ’ing the New Years Eve dance, Backing up the Band at the Ball and providing Audio/visual gear and expertise for other events.

Christmas day will be at our home with my Mum, Dad and my little brother Doug, my eldest sister Heather and her three daughters for lunch and then the Missionaries joining us for dinner. My two other sisters Glenys and Ally and their families will be together up in Mackay. Every year I normally do our traditional big roast lunch with the works, but this year I am stepping out of the roasting kitchen where I swelter ever year and out to the BBQ were the men love to cook their steak. Yeh!!! So that will be nice.

February next year Marty and I will celebrate our 21st wedding anniversary. So I can't pass for a thirty year old anymore. Especially when James turns 20 in May. I recently received a new calling as the Relief Society activities person as we are not using homemaking or enrichment anymore. Anyway I enjoy that, we just had our R.S Christmas dinner where my assignment was to decorate the hall to Christmas heaven. I think I succeeded, everyone loved it, so it was a nice night enjoyed by all. We had 65 ladies come which was amazing. Our ward is huge.

Mid year we had a family photo at Wellington Point with a professional photographer. I'm really happy with the photos, normally we go to a studio and have a indoor photo in our best clothes but this time we went outdoor in our jeans and white shirts. We will send a copy of the photo with this letter.

Marty keeps very busy with work as a Facility Manager for the Church. Also this past year he has expanded the DJ business with help from Blair. He is serving on the High Council and has the responsibility for Stake activities. So far he has organised our stake ball and last week he ran the Stake Carols by Candlelight.

James is 19 yrs and is working a couple of casual jobs at the moment whilst trying to find an apprenticeship. He still enjoys keeping fit by playing basketball and going to the gym. He also loves spending time with his girlfriend Elle.

Blair is 17 and finished his senior schooling this year which he is happy about. He plans to go to uni next year to study business/finance. He had his formal last month and that was really nice and at a lovely place. He is still doing his D.J work on the weekends and he continues to help Marty with all the church dances. I'm sure he will get more D.J. work with all the after convention parties that continue like last year. Blair also enjoys playing basketball, playing his guitar and learning new D.J skills.

Jordan is 13yrs old and is still mad about Star Wars. He will be in year nine next year and also starting early morning seminary. He is Deacons president and has proven to be a great leader. Jordan enjoys playing basketball, xbox 360 and the wii. He loves to watch movies and I'm sure we will go see the latest flicks over the school holidays.

My baby girl Brooke will be 10yrs old in January. She is happy to be on school holidays. She loves horses and every birthday she asks for a real horse but we do not have enough land for a horse. For her last birthday we held the party at Mini Mates which is a horse farm. She loved it! I do not know what I am going to do for her birthday next year. She has lots of pony toys to keep her happy for now.

Have a great Christmas and a happy new year.
Love from Lorraine and all of the Nelson family

Marty gets IRLP Amatuer Radio node up and running

Marty, VK4DOG has an IRLP node up and running to service the Bayside area. This provides an alternative to the VK4RBS node which may be helpful if the repeater is busy. The node (number 6647) is on 145.400 MHz simplex.

Here are some comments from Marty regarding the setup and testing of the IRLP node.

"When I visited my friend Reg, VK4XH about a year ago he showed me his IRLP node and I was fascinated at how far ham radio technology had come. I had not been an active operator for many years and I had missed the introduction of Echolink and IRLP. I knew that when I was ready to get back into the hobby that setting up a IRLP node was one goal I wanted to achieve."

"February 2008 I decided to get back into the hobby and formulated my plan of getting the IRLP node up and running. I had a spare computer, a Dell GX150 pentium III and a Icom IC-228A two metre 25w transceiver. All I needed then was the IRLP interface board. These boards are manufactured by Dave Cameron in Canada. I filled out the electronic order form available at IRLP.net and paid the US$188 by PayPal. About a week later the IRLP interface board and Linux CD-rom arrived. It was a Monday that it arrived and when I got home from work I could wait to get started. I downloaded all of the instructions from IRLP.net and loaded the supplied CentOS distribution of Linux on the Dell. I commenced making all of the interface cables that needed to go between the computer, IRLP board and the transceiver. One thing that IRLP requires is for the transceiver to have a Carrier on Squelch (COS) line output. This output gives 5 volts when the squelch is triggered. I downloaded the circuit diagram for the Icom and found the point in which I could pull off this signal. I opened up the transceiver, identified the track and soldered an insulated wire from that track which runs out the rear of the Icom. I got to bed at 1am very pleased with my efforts.

"The next day again I was excited to be home from work to commence more work on the node. It was mainly software configuration that was needed as all the hardware was now connected ready to go. After a few hours of configuration and adjustment of audio levels I was ready to give it a test. It worked straight up which I was very happy with as going back to trouble shoot is a pain!"

" I did a test with Victor VK4WST the next day and reports from his end were positive. That night I received a call from Bill VK4XZ who is the QTAC person for the WIA and he told me that he knew that I had a IRLP node up and running and asked if I would change the simplex frequency from 146.425 to one of the recommended frequencies for IRLP simplex use as outlined in the Nov 2007 band plan. This was news to me as the copy of the band plan that I had was dated 2004. I was happy to comply and changed frequency to 145.400. At this stage I only had a dual band mobile whip on top of a 6 metre pole as the antenna connected to the Icom. The following Saturday I replaced this whip with a Diamond x-510 2M/70cm base station antenna which is 5.2 metres in length and has about 8db gain on 2 metres. I used the Avair AV-601 metre to test for SWR with a result of 1:1. The tip of the antenna is 22.5 metres above sea level which gives a line of sight coverage of 20 km (this range increases the higher the other station is above sea level)"

"The next day I did some field tests with Roy, VK4IRW. From Underwood (17.6 km back to node) I connected to VK4RBS repeater via my node and Roy who was monitoring RBS reported a good clear signal with some minor noise. Likewise his signal back to me was strong and clear. About an hour later we did another test from Manly (15 km back to node) with similar results."

Marty welcomes BDARS club members to make good use to the node. It will also come in very handy as a second node for JOTA use.

Interested in checking out where IRLP nodes are located around the world? At www.irlp.net you can download the IRLP node overly for Google earth. Just make sure you have the latest version of Google Earth installed. The Echolink overlay can be found at www.echolink.org/googleInfo.htm

Jordan hits the news

Jordan joined his family at Kangaroo Point to participate in Earth Hour. Marty Nelson was invited by the Brisbane Earth Hour Committee along with President David Williams, 2nd cslr in the Temple Presidency to switch off the lights at the Brisbane Temple and KP chapel. Whilst Marty was mingling with the dignitaries a freelance photographer asked if he could take a picture of my children. Jordan and Brooke posed for pictures but Brooke was bitten by a green ant and became upset so it ended up being this picture of Jordan that was selected to go into the Brisbane Times news which is a internet based news service.

The news story can be found here

Nelson's go to Movie World

It had been some time since we had been to Movie World and a friend told be that for the next few months tickets were half price so we decided it was time to return. We picked a good day as the park was not crowded so we did not have to wait to long to get on rides. The superman escape was really good. Eugene Ditherry and his family was at the park as well and we crossed paths a few times throughout the day. After a fantastic day we returned to our Ford Falcon wagon and it would not start. Marty called the RACQ and they diagnosed that the problem was a faulty coil. They did not have one and shops were closed so we got a taxi home. Marty when to a auto shop the next morning and purchased a new coil. Lorraine and James dropped Marty of at Movie World carpark and Marty fitted the new coil and drove the Falcom home. Lorraine and James went on to shop at Harbourtown factory outlets.

Brooke Gets Baptised

Brooke's 8th Birthday

Test

Cleveland Ward Youth attend Wet N' Wild

Test

South Strabroke Island Day Trip

The Green Family invited us to go out with them in their 21 foot Bayliner power boat. The Robisons also came in their boat along with Dave and Kath who live two houses up the street from us. We set off from Redland Bay at 9am and headed out between Macleay and Karragarra Islands and then turned south between Russell and Nth Strabroke Islands along the Canaopa Passage. Towards the south end of Nth Strabroke we stopped at Slipping Sands where we ran up and down the steep sand hill. Here are 3 photos and a video clip of the action.

We then headed further south going between Squire and Crusoe Islands and ending up at the top of South Strabroke where we sand anckerd the boats and and had a picnic lunch on the beach. The children had fun playing on the clean white sand beach while the adults relaxed and talked. He is a picture after we had finished lunch and are walking back out to the boats.

One the way back to Redland Bay we found a sheltered spot to do some knee boarding. James and Marty were first to give it a go. Jordan also tried it for the first time.

Great Christmas Video off Youtube

Nelson's Christmas News 2007

Well we have been living in Brisbane for the last 16 months. In May 2007 we purchased a home at Thornlands which is one suburb south of Cleveland. The house is about 18 months old and is in a new estate a few hundred metres from the water (Moreton Bay). The images on Google earth are a few years old but if you go to 27°33'19.90"S, 153°16'38.70"E you will see the concrete house slab. We have settled in and enjoy being only 5 minutes from Cleveland Chapel.

Marty turned the big four zero in October. Does he feel any different, of course he does, now he can say that all aches and pains are related to being in his 40's. He has been looking after about 25 church buildings in Queensland for the last 18 months and loves the work. His territory changed recently and now travels as far north as Mackay. Marty continues to do quite a lot of DJ work at Church dances and events. Earlier this past year he was asked by the Area Presidency to chair a music committee to select appropriate music that can be played at church dances throughout Australia. This is an ongoing assignment that takes quite a lot of his time as he has to review lyrics and video clips. The list is published on the Australia LDS website every second month. Marty is a seminary teacher for Cleveland Ward. He started up a basketball team this last year and has been playing with James, Blair and some other men from church. Marty is on Skype, MSN and Facebook and enjoys talking with old friends that he doesn't get to see often.

Lorraine. Well, yes we have moved again. but we have keep the kids at the same schools as their only about 10mins away. We are in a new Ward though, we are now in Cleveland Ward. I am the Young Womens President, and I really enjoy it, we have nineteen girls. There is always plenty to do. I love this time of the year, and seeing the little ones get excited about Christmas. We will be having Christmas at home with just our own family this year. Because the family has caught the chicken pox we are house bound until we are spotless.

James our 17 year old is Mr Social. He has his drivers licence and loves spending time with his friends. He goes to the gym twice a week and the others days he works out at home. He is very fit and Plays in 3 basketball teams. He also played Aussie rules football and basketball for his School. James is a little taller than Marty now and can quite easily dunk a basketball. He graduated from seminary in 2007 and will complete his final year of high school in 2008. He is looking forward to becoming a young adult in May.

Blair now 15 is still 5 foot 11 inches tall and is a little disappointed that his growth spurt has stopped for the moment. He plays in two basketball teams and exercises regularly which has helped him loose a lot of weight this past year and has really slimmed down. Blair loves playing his guitars and helps Marty with his DJ work. Blair is a good student and achieves very good results at school. He is still focused on being an accountant. Blair will commence senior high school and 3rd year of seminary in 2008.

Jordan missed the last two weeks of school due to the chicken pox, I picked him up from school and his face had red spots on it, by that afternoon he had more and we confirmed it was chicken pox. So Jordy has had an extended holiday. He has been a very valuable player in his basketball team this year helping them win most of their games. This New Year will be Jordan's last year in primary school. He will turn twelve in July which means he will be in Young Mens.

Brooke did very well at school this year, she is a very confident little girl and makes friends easy. She has made friends with all the children that live close by to our new house. She is looking forward to her Baptism in the new year. She will be eight on the 30th of January. It's hard to believe my baby girl will be eight soon. In the new year we will start her in a netball team. Much to the boys discuss as they all play basketball. Brooke is covered with chicken pox at the moment so she is house bound to watching movies and taking baths. Brooke loves to play guitar hero on the XBox 360 and she is very good, sometimes she doesn't even look at the t.v. and see still wins.We wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy new year. Love from the Nelson’s