Merry Xmas from the Melbourne Mob 2010

Greetings from the Melbourne Menzies & Devines.
It’s great to reflect on an enjoyable and busy 2010.
Our life this year has followed the pattern of work hard, playing harder and cramming as much as we can into most weeks – some of which have been well-planned and others – well, chaotic.
Amelia has a great group of friends who regularly catch-up at each other’s houses or at the gym or ballet or parties. Although Amelia sounds great on the violin, she has decided to switch from the violin to the saxophone next year, aiming to learn to play the theme from The Pink Panther.
She loves gymnastics and ballet, passing her grade 1 ballet exam this year. Her ballet year culminated in a grand performance of an Australian classic ‘Snugglepot and Cuddlepie’.
Ella had a fantastic start at Genazzano secondary school this year, making a group of great friends and taking up every opportunity that the school offered. She also has been really lucky to have a wonderful flute teacher at school and did her Grade 5 flute exam this year.
Our lives have been much busier with the new activities that she took on with her endless amounts of energy. Ella continued with nippers surf life saving, swimming, netball and in this last term tried water polo. She qualified as a surf life saver and is now in a patrol at Williamstown beach over summer. Kevin and Teresa both continue to work in the same jobs as last year (information technology at Toll and English language teaching for adults).
We are living proof that whooping cough is making a comeback. First Ella, then Kevin and then Amelia succumbed; luckily Teresa seems to have missed it. You can imagine living at our house during this time!
Ella was a week into the coughing, but undiagnosed, when she attended her 5 day intensive training to achieve her surf life saving qualification. She obviously has a lot of reserves as she was swimming in the cold sea with a thick wetsuit during this time!
Well that is our year in a nutshell; busy, fun and blessed. We have a ton of photos to share; contact us and we’ll send you the links.
We hope that family and friends have a wonderful Christmas and 2011 brings much joy and good health.
Love Kevin, Teresa, Ella and Amelia