The Patrick Family: January 2010

Hi Folks

Brilliant day with the kids today. We went to Jared’s party at The Beachouse in Glenelg which is a kids heaven. It’s full of adventure and fun. Rides like carousels, water slides, soft play areas, train, Ferris wheel, bumper boats and all by the beach!

Jared was 3 today and his mum and dad hosted a pirate themed birthday party. Oh arrrr.

Amelia was the only girl that Jared invited so she is a very special friend. James, Nixon and Riley were all there with their families and we enjoyed a fun time, watching the kids play and having a chat. Jared’s mum and dad really put on a great birthday party. After all the rides we went out to the reserve by the sea and had finger food. Quiche and sandwiches for the parents, choc crisp squares, cheezels, biscuits and cupcakes for the kids – a festival of food!! Then we had the treasure chest birthday cake and all the kids got a pirate box full of gold coins, pirate eye patch, pirate vest (plastic), treasure chest stamp and all sorts of fun stuff. But the really special bit was when everyone got a pirate ship helium balloon before they went home.

Katina (who’s been in town for Big Day Out ’10) has been staying with her friend Deb at Henley Beach this weekend so she met us in Glenelg and we took the kids to the Zoo to see Wang Wang and Funi, the only Pandas in the Southern Hemisphere.

We had a brilliant time at the Zoo. We saw, Lemurs, Pink Flamingos, Kangaroos, Cassowary, monkeys, peacocks, pygmy hippopotamus, otters, nocturnal animals, lion, leopard, and so much more!

The pandas were amazing. They have a fabulous new habitat and a new main entrance especially for them! It was wonderful to see live pandas up close.

The weather was spectacular. We stopped for a while and put our picnic blanket down by the rotunda on the grass and we had a little break from animal watching to eat an icy lolly.

Then we went to see the giraffes and headed back past the shop where Amelia chose a panda pen and badge and we bought Iain a Haighs Panda Chocolate as a present because he couldn't come with us today.

We got home to find Iain had done so much around the house. Mulched the back of the house flower beds, mowed lawns and generally done a fair bit of gardening work. He was happy to see his chocolate and beer!!

Lots of love

XXXXXXX

I just thought this flower was amazing.

Dear Family and Friends,

Happy New Year!!

Well 2010 has arrived and we hope, seriously, that this year will be quieter and not quite so full of surprises!!

Although 2009 was a great year and we welcomed Cameron to our family, our plans were thrown into disarray somewhat when I was made redundant from my job at Lifeplan while I was on maternity leave.

Initially it was a shock but as always happens, one door closes and a more interesting one opens and with my new job with Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, my working life has returned to being challenging and extremely good fun!! And hopefully a little more stable! So Iain was still able to take off his planned 4 months of leave to look after the kids which he is thoroughly enjoying.

Cameron is becoming more and more curious and has started to roll over and assert his little personality. He is just adorable.

Amelia is a smart, cheeky little thing and loves her brother dearly. We fall about laughing when we hear some of the things that come out of her mouth that we recognise as being our expressions

“Actually mama this dinner is tasty”
“It certainly is”
And this one never fails to make us smile “don’t talk to me like that, go to bed”

She’s got a strong personality that’s for sure but how can we complain – we both do too!

We had a very enjoyable Christmas and New Year. As has become our traditional Christmas, Kevin comes to stay with us and James and Zoe and the kids come in the afternoon for prawns by the pool and a later dinner.

We enjoyed some hot hot weather over Christmas so spent most of our time in our swimming togs around the pool and in the garden eating leftovers and drinking wine! It was super.

I worked through but it was very quiet at work and not a great deal to do which being new was ideal for me because I could take some time to learn about my new company and meet people.

I took a trip to the head office in Bendigo in December for the Marketing Department Christmas Party and met the rest of the marketing team, then last week spent a few days in Sydney meeting the people who work in the margin lending division which is another area of the business I look after from a marketing point of view. It was very interesting as margin lending can be quite complex and I enjoy learning about new things. I was astonished though at some of the systems they have built to measure market risks and exposures post GFC. There are some insanely clever people about. Way over my head! But interesting all the same.

I’ve started on my post babies weight loss regime and I’m telling you all so you can keep me honest and encourage me to plough forward on this project of mine. I’m only at the beginning but I have bought a great exercise DVD which I am enjoying doing, once I’d got over the “oh my god how unfit am I???” moment.

And some exciting news for us – we finally decided to shed ourselves of the last vestiges of Iain’s single man about town lifestyle and the BMW has been traded in for a Subaru. We’ve been so pleased with our Subaru Outback and being without it following the car accident in November for about 8 weeks really forced us to make a decision (plus it was hard to resist the offer they made of a free family pass to the Zoo if we had a trade in evaluation - the pandas are finally here!). It was very hard transporting 2 kids in car seats about in a 2 door BMW. People must have thought we were mad, I really wanted to put a sticker in the back window saying “our other car is much more practical, honest, it’s just in the garage being fixed”

Poor Cameron was manhandled in and out of the car at some funny angles and getting his pram into the boot- well that’s another story!

So here’s to 2010. Let’s hope you all have a great year and the year brings you much happiness. Peace and quiet for us? We’ll see 

Lots of love
Caroline, Iain, Amelia and Cameron

xxxxx