Our year has been dominated
by a hasty decision to buy a new house. Those of you who have followed our blog
will know that we'd had the idea of upsizing in the back of our minds but
didn't think it would happen in 2011. But fortune perhaps favours the bold (or
fools rush in) and here we are 10 months later with a slightly larger home (for
now), much larger section, somewhat increased mortgage, a big project on our
hands, and (fortunately) huge smiles on our faces. We're in, have made the
place liveable, and are now enjoying our enchanted corner of Sydney while we
tame and “terra-form” the garden (bringing to mind, though not coming close to
eclipsing the tennis court building efforts of David's father and uncles) and
begin the process of converting our outbuilding into something that we can
squat in when we eventually get round to renovating the main house.
As a result of all this our
planned Tuscany/UK holiday was put on hold and in fact 2011 is probably the
most stay at home year we’ve collectively had.
Since returning from New Zealand
in January Dave’s been on short trips to Brisbane
twice and Melbourne
once for work and Flick hasn’t been on a plane!
We did, however, enjoy a short trip to central NSW, over-nighting in Orange (with friends Pam and Mark who made a tree-change
there last year), Dubbo (to visit the wonderful Western Plains Zoo) and Mudgee (a
picturesque town near the base of the Blue Mountains).
Charlie & James are
developing into energetic, exuberant, healthy and largely cheerful little
boys. Charlie, now four, started
pre-school (kindergarten) two days per week and has made his first friendships. He enjoys building with Lego, loves dressing
up as Batman and other super heroes and has a bit of a thing for rubbish trucks.
He is coming out with lots of great insights and very sweet compliments. Jamie
(three next Feb), meanwhile, is at Family Day Care one day a week, loves going
to the Zoo (“We go to da zoo! We go on da fast ferry an’ da cable car!”), is
very cuddly and likes figuring out how things work. We are enjoying parenthood, apart from the
sleep deprivation and sibling squabbles.
Being a few minutes’ bushwalk from our local harbour beach is also
helping the kids develop their water confidence.
Dave reached a milestone in
August and as most of you will know we combined his 40th celebration
with the house warming, which resulted in a party of somewhat overwhelming
proportions (160 guests at home over the course of 9 hours!) Our thanks to everyone who made it and
needless to say our future entertaining will be on a more intimate scale.
Flick has been enjoying
swimming and Pilates this year and in February completed her first 1km Cole
Classic ocean swim. With the boys she
bakes regularly and has used the output to get to know our new neighbours – her
ANZAC biscuits and chocolate brownie are very popular.
We were fortunate to attend
the weddings of two sets of friends earlier in the year and have seen the
increase of several friends’ families – more kids for the boys to play
with. Despite our lack of travel the
boys have kept in touch with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins on Skype
and we’ve hosted both sets of grandparents (twice in the case of the
grandmothers), Flick’s cousins Kate and Anna and recently good friends from
Ottawa (Caniwis, as they call themselves, en route to visit NZ family and
exhibit their latest addition).
We’re looking forward to
having Flick’s folks over for Christmas and will be in NZ in early January.
All the best
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