It is difficult not to feel weary and old at this time of year! And yet we also feel accomplished and ready: why? With our shopping done and calendar of events filled up for December, we are looking forward to focussing on friends and festivities, and wish you a wonderful Christmas season.
Ross and Nik this year did more or less the same…more taxiing of children and achievement of weekly schedules for those under 18 (for example: band, choir, soccer, indoor soccer, golf, tennis, dancing, netball, indoor netball), and less of much of anything for ourselves!! Not quite true: while games of golf were few and far between (and counted on ONE of Ross’ hands) there was more opportunity for spectator sports at ANZ Stadium and Shark Park. Due to his involvement in a major fire incident in Bankstown in September, Ross was also invited to attend an emergency services function with Prince Charles during his recent tour down under. Nik (tried hard to) maintain all her previous work and volunteer commitments, and also added an exciting new project: just as she was feeling called to volunteer somehow at a counselling service called Southern Community Welfare run out of Gymea Baptist Church, Southern needed a Treasurer on their Board of Directors. This included being involved with their annual fundraiser, a movie night, in Nov.
(Commercial break #1: as SCW is a not-for-profit and reliant on grants for income, please feel free to let me know of any grant applications I could make…)
The “big 3” kids, Jarrod, Tim and Abi, all continued to enjoy life, school, friends and too many activities. Highlights for Abi included many performances for her choir and dance groups (and many ticket purchases for us to watch), including singing a solo at the Sutherland Shire Music Festival. Tim had a great year, which included many many opportunities to represent his school as the Deputy Prime Minister. He was also invited to read a speech he had written about the Christmas Truce at our local Anzac Day dawn service in front of over 5,000 people. He is now looking forward to going to high school next year with Jarrod. Jarrod’s highlights for the year included success in debating and public speaking competitions, which saw us head to State Parliament House in November for the grand final of the United Nations Youth competition. Jarrod has also been successful in his audition for the school’s senior band, which will travel to the US next December and perform at Disneyland.
(Commercial break #2: Jarrod now has to find work to pay for at least some of the trip! Anyone with work opportunities for an unqualified 13y.o., please let us know…)
The “little 3” (Zac, Sam and Belle) also continue to enjoy life, school, friends and activities, although Zac believes we should really classify the children as the “big 4” and “little 2”. Zac is very responsible, usually getting the smaller two breakfast each morning, and making sure they only watch G or some PG movies. He is excited to move to the other school site with the bigger kids next year (as our Infants dept is down the road from the Primary in a split site campus). Sam has enjoyed starting school this year, and loves to draw and write. An example of a successful writing piece of his is a very detailed diary he kept when the 8 of us went to Queensland for a week’s holiday in September. A less successful example is the letter he wrote to a classmate asking her to be his girlfriend – writing if she said no he would vomit. His emotional blackmail didn’t work and she said no. He managed to keep his lunch down and has recovered well…
Belle has loved her weekly routine this year: one day for dancing, one for preschool, one day for staying home and two days for shopping she tells us! Her preschool day being our only child-free day is exciting, quiet, sad and strange all at once. I started to keep a blog of the exciting things I did while kid-free for the first time in 13 years, but extra work hours and housecleaning just didn’t cut it week after week…We organised a playday with Belle’s best friend Lily Isabella only to discover I went to high school with her mum! Small world! We need to be careful to tone down our spending with this child: after catching a plane to Tasmania on her birthday in 2011 we picked up a new car on her birthday in 2012. She is already asking how we will celebrate her 5th birthday next year…
Nik read an inspiring book during the year in which was this quote: “Tombstones show our entire lives are reduced to two dates and one little dash. You get to choose how you spend that little dash of time between the two dates of your earthly existence. Are you living the dash? Knowing fully who you are and why you’re here? Or dashing to live?”
Our goal for 2013 is to Live The Dash xx
