Our 2006 has been a busy year with weddings, celebrations and holidays. (All this in a year which were determined to pay our house off)

New Zealand – We had our first overseas trip to New Zealand – saw one of those bargain basement specials for May so we went for it. It was a 10 day fly/drive motorhome on the South Island so we extended that to both islands and 15 days. People said we couldn’t do both islands in that time – but we did and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Grampians We made the trip to the Grampians region in Victoria during the Easter long weekend. We met up with Scott and Linda and their family and had a great time. We went the long way home through Young and saw Frank while he was pruning his trees and then dropped in to see Joy and Arthur.

We also had a trip to Canberra early in April. This was a celebration for Julianne getting through her works accreditation process – which was a big (or)deal. I seem to remember that it mainly a shopping weekend. But it was still nice.

Birds – while most of the family has moved out a family of lorikeets have moved in. Julianne has now shelved the idea of having a bird cage. These little visitors keep coming back and demanding to be fed – of course they bring other friends like Cockatoos, Rosellas and King Parrots. By the time you read this the cockatoos will have eaten the back of our house off.

Jenny graduated last year. She has been doing casual teaching, working at a physio, playing soccer, part-time uni and some church youth group leading. keeps her busy. Daniel has been very supportive and they have just had a little romantic holiday down south celebrating their 3rd wedding anniversary.

Elizabeth is quite pregnant now and keeping well. They are setting up home nicely for the new arrival. Elizabeth and Mark have had a fairly busy year with working a fair bit, buying a house in Mt Keira and news of the baby soon after moving into their new home. They also had their 3rd wedding anniversary – time flies!

Matthew spent the first half of the year working. He then completed his second year of TV production at Wagga (CSU) university. He turned 21 in August and took 10 of his friends on a fishing charter for his 21st. They then came back to our place for a special meal. He’s back home now although we don’t see him much – Lucy is back from her OS holiday. He is also working and trying to fit as much fun in the days as he can.!?

Isaac has just got through his first year of uni and seems to be both enjoying uni life and doing well at his studies – quite different to his brother. He has been trying ( well actually other people have been pushing him a fair bit ) to finish off his Duke of Edinburgh award, which he has largely completed. That required him to complete some community involvement with a week long camp – so he went to Teen Ranch which he ended up enjoying. He is hoping to go there again. He is currently focussed on juggling, computer games and is also doing summer session at Wollongong uni.

Julianne turned 50 and we celebrated it on the top of the escarpment at Sublime point restaurant. It was a great night and we did have fun organising
it. Jenny and Elizabeth did most of the organising – I had to sneak a
few clandestine meetings with the girls. Julianne knew that something
was being organised but we kept her in the dark with talk of Harbour
cruises, etc. We invited friends from various stages of her life and she was blown away when she saw everyone at the restaurant.
Julianne has had a bad foot(heel spur) this year but it seems to be slowly improving – she has missed being able to get out and walk – the one advantage is that it has slowed up her shopping ability (wish).

Mum and Dad Mason Marj and Frank had their 60th wedding anniversary at Wollongong botanic gardens.

I am still working for Telstra – maybe not much longer. We hope to start traveling more, so have been looking at various options for going round Australia.

Mitzi is still the boss dog at home.

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