Declan was born in May. He is our all-star sports champion with an awesome natural runners talent. He does eat more than a fully-grown African elephant, but he sure burns it all off too. Oh, and I guess he can jump pretty good too
This year the Toyota Family Christmas party was held at Preston Peak Winery. At first, we thought that this wasn’t the most ideal choice of location for a family Christmas party. However as it turned out, it was quite a fun filled afternoon. The kids had a large jumping castle to bounce on. There were plenty of outdoor oversized games to play, like chess and naughts and crosses. The highlight of every family Christmas party is the arrival of Santa,…
We are officially now home owners…again! As of 2:07pm today, our new home in Colvin Street settled. Both Belinda and I are very excited to finally have a place to call our own. The kids are also very excited about moving into their new bedrooms. Luckily, over the past 2 weeks we have had early access to our place. This allowed us to start moving our stuff in gradually, rather than all over one weekend. We still have a fairly…
Today Declan turned 17! It warms both of our hearts to see that he has grown into the kind and responsible young man he is today. Yesterday afternoon Darren and Lorraine came around for some cake and to wish Declan a happy birthday. We “virtually” gave Declan his birthday present, which is a new iPhone, which he’ll get to pick up in a few weeks when all the house stuff settles. He still needs to work more on smiling in…
When most people are trying to avoid COVID-19, we are buying a house named after it. Well not exactly, but 19 Colvin Street is eerily similar sounding to 19 Covid Street. So yeah, we bought a house! It is a good feeling, although a little mixed at the moment, due to the current uncertainty surrounding the pandemic. However we have run the numbers and it works out that we will be about $500 a month better off, plus, we will…
As the self isolation restrictions continue to be enforced, we have been forced to spend more quality time together. While this is in most part a good thing, there have been some crazy confined-related outbursts. Overall everyone has handled the isolation and close quarters quite well. Fortunately I am still working and was looking forward to having a four day weekend. On Friday night we all ventured over to the side paddock with some camp chairs and sat around the…
Well this year it likely to be a memorable year for us, and especially Ryan, as it will be remembered as the year that the Coronavirus pandemic cancelled his birthday party. While we are not trying to focus on the impacts of this pandemic, it has made it hard to do the simplest of things, like having a birthday party. Even though we weren’t able to celebrate Ryan’s birthday the way we had intended to, we still had a great…
The new school year has started today! For Declan, this is his final year of school, which is exciting, a little scary and hard to believe all at the same time. Emma is going into Year 5 this year. She is in a composite class of Year 5 and 6, with only three other grade 5 students. She seemed nervously excited of the unknown of what the day will bring. I’m sure that she will quickly get over her nerves…
We are back again to the State Championships for Basketball for Declan this year. Unfortunately, this year the event was held a week later than usual, which meant I was back at work and Belinda was on her own for the first few days (possibly not such a bad thing for Belinda). Because I was working, Ryan went to stay with Ma, at Mt Mee for the week. Belinda headed up there on Tuesday to drop him off, and then…
Today I surprised Belinda for her birthday with dinner at the Westbrook Tavern. It was all thanks (mostly) to the help of her best friend Kate, who suggested and booked the venue, organised people to attend and made the delicious birthday cake. I just took care of the rest! Even though a few of Belinda’s friends unfortunately couldn’t attend, it was a fun night out. The kids enjoyed playing and running around. We pretty much had the whole place to…
Sadly, today was our last day of holidays. We say goodbye to our little holiday home at Ashmore Palms. Despite the constant fighting from Emma and Ryan trying to kill each other, the holiday was fairly relaxing and enjoyable. We definitely are going to miss being able to go to the pool everyday. Last night we went out to dinner at the Ashmore Tavern. It was just a short walk around the corner, so we set off on foot. We…