Merry Christmas to Everyone

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We hope the festive season is treating you well. It’s been a dry few months in Cairns, and we have been lucky enough to have had a fairly mild summer so far- long may that last.

2012 has raced by us, even the kids have said how fast the year has gone. It seems we get busier as the kids get older.

I interviewed the rugrats to find out what their highlights were for the year…

Connor has had a very successful year with sport. He has participated in 3 state championships – Cross Country, Athletics and Junior Surf Lifesaving. He was also picked in the FNQ swimming development team which travelled to Brisbane for a State Qualifying Meet. He placed 1st in 200m Breast and 3rd in 100m Breast for his age.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I’ve had a great year at school with Mrs McNamara, and I’ve enjoyed it all. I also got into the extension class for year 7 because of my effort level in my work”.

Redlynch State College is one of the few Cairns (Qld?) schools in which year 7 is classed as high school.

Bryce was in Year one this year, and says that he had a “lovely time”.

“Ha Ha ! I like to do maths, play at playtime, and it was good when we got lollies from Ms Mckedie on Friday”.

Ms Mckedie says he has the neatest handwriting in the class (I think that would please Nana Marie), and he is a left hander.

Bryce has also got a medal from doing soccer and surf lifesaving this year, and he is joining the swimming club in the New Year.

“HO! HO! HO! MERRY CHRISTMAS!”

Aidan has just finished Year 4, and is moving on to Year 5. Yeeha! Aidan says he enjoyed the school obstathon, sports day and the cross country.

“One of my favourite subjects is sport, drama and I learned all my times tables in maths. One of my favourite nights of the year was meeting some of the Australian Olympic swimmers at the Marlin Coast pool”.

Aidan was fortunate enough to make it into a final, and he got to swim against 2012 100m breastroke silver medallist Christian Sprenger. “It was fun.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

“At the Branch Championships for surf lifesaving I got 2 silver medals & 7 gold medals and was named age champion (for the Carnival & Season).”

He was also undefeated in Flags for the whole season, which is an impressive feat.

Roxy our gorgeous mongrel is a lot of fun. She is 2 and has a few dogs she is friendly with around the neighbourhood. Though her vice appears to be food. She is an absolute guts, so we have to make sure she doesn’t eat more than she needs. She loves the water, and could spend hours in the creek fetching sticks.

Myself (Maz) – I have been working for Tobruk pool with some longer hours there, but closer to the end of the surf season I was offered work as administrator for the surf club. It has been a steep learning curve and I am enjoying it, but it is a lot to learn. It is quite amazing how much volunteer work people do, to make these clubs tick!

I have found another offsider to help, and her background is bookkeeping, so I think that will make the job a little easier. We have a beautiful new surf club, which is right on the beach at Palm Cove, so all of the members are enjoying the modern facilities.

The pool I work at was 50 years old this year, and desperately needs some work done on it, so that may be renovated in the next year or so. This will be a big project, and something that John may become involved in through his work with council.

John enjoyed helping out as Bryce’s soccer team manager (U6 green) and he completed his Surf Life Saving Surf Rescue competency enabling him to help out in the water with the boys different age groups on Sunday training sessions and also at carnivals.  John is thinking he may try for my Bronze Medallion level competency in 2013 to keep up with the boys in swimming!

So it is an exciting time for work there. With all the work, we haven’t had much time for socialising, but I have managed to do a few surf carnivals this year in the masters section. It has been fun, but it does give me a real appreciation for how fit my children are.

It hasn’t been all plain sailing, we unfortunately missed out on building the house. Without going into too much detail, we have just had to go back to saving as much money as we can before we can get the go ahead from the banks. We certainly have moments where we wonder why we are slogging away to get ourselves a bigger house & mortgage. At the moment, we are still hoping that one day it will go ahead.
We hope you all have a safe and happy year in 2013.

Lots of Love
Maz, John, Connor, Aidan & Bryce

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