We're back!

Dear Family and Friends

It’s been quite a long time since my last blog and when you read this one you’ll understand why. I know I’ve been off the radar for ages but now I’m back.

Life has been manic for us over the past couple of months, enjoyably manic though I might add, as we have had both sets of parents staying for 4 weeks each, consecutively with one week overlap, and my parents only left on Wednesday so life has been busy.

We now have the house back to ourselves after 7 weeks of it being full of people and initially it was quite strange. We had weeping from both the kids after my parents left on Wednesday and Amelia understood that there were no longer any grandparents for her to be with and that they had all gone home. Iain and I have both had our moments too but slowly life is returning to normal and soon back to our routines. Although they are a little on hold because Iain is in Melbourne tonight and we have Nicole and her family coming to stay for Easter which we are really looking forward to.

It’s hard explaining to the kids, well Amelia, that she will only see the grandparents on the computer now and we don’t know the next time we will see them. Cameron is crawling – started at 6 months, so that was a surprise and he is a very strong little boy. (big too, no surprise there). He is pulling himself up and wanting to be on his feet all the time. He’s still very wobbly though.

Amelia is a challenging child. She is like a rollercoaster, high ups and high lows!! Unbelievably smart and funny and clever, and doesn’t miss a trick, but also unbelievably demanding, strong willed, independent, wants to do everything herself and more. She needs a lot of effort but the rewards are immense.

Cameron is much more needy at this age than Amelia was. He’s a light sleeper, a little koala bear who clings to you but loves to motor around the house following his sister and pinching her toys. He is gorgeous and cuddly. Amelia moves up to the Kindy room after Easter - she will be in her words “a big Kindy Girl” – so we are very proud parents and she is really ready for the next step before school.

Cameron has adapted to childcare so easily and loves being with other kids with all the activities and things to explore. Amelia visits him in the sunflower room often and it’s nice that she wants to spend time with him.

We went on a School Principal’s tour not that long ago as we need to start thinking about which schools we want to get the kids on the waiting list for. This one was a co-ed private school called Pulteney Grammar – blimey school has changed so much. They listen to their ipods in art class, and use Garage Band to compose music. They encourage kids to form bands and play music, they teach Yoga and Pilates, and dance, they have a gym with personal trainers who come in at lunchtime for the kids, and the parents can use the gym before and after school. They have rowing on the river and a boathouse. They teach a wide cross section of subjects, some of which would never have been considered when I was at school. They have a Barista (coffee master person) who comes in to the courtyard at the school every Friday morning. The teachers sit in the yard and parents can drop by and have a coffee and talk to the teachers. So different!! We plan to look at other schools too, this was just the first one. We will look at a wide cross section, private girls, private co-ed, catholic (lower fees) and state. The government has just released a new website called the myscholls website which has comprehensive information about every Australian School so you can compare a number of things about each school.

We are starting to do some much needed work on the house, we had a real estate person that we know come and give us some direction, as we always do when we move into a new house. She had some brilliant ideas to add value and prioritise what we want to do.

It’s autumn here now and the leaves will start to turn soon. We are still having 30+ degree weather, but soon it will come down slightly to mid 20’s which is beautiful in the Hills. For the first time I have thought about bulbs for spring and I had 500 bulbs delivered this week so I will be busy planting. First time for me so I’ve been reading my gardening books. I believe they don’t like wet feet! Iain floated the idea of moving because he saw a house in Stirling (location A++) and for the first time in my life I thought – I don’t relish the challenge of something new or change because quite frankly I can’t possibly think about or give brain space to anything else at the moment. My head is full. And selling the house, which I love and have come to really enjoy – no way! I might consider moving in the future for a better location and therefore a higher potential capital gain but not at the moment. I am really happy where we are.

We had a super week in Robe when Sylvia and Ken were here. Beach, good weather, wine and food basically. A brilliant break to recharge the batteries. Next time we will head somewhere else though as we’ve been to Robe twice now and it’s time to try somewhere new.

I spent a few days interstate with mum and dad last week, I had to go to Melbourne and Bendigo and I took mum and dad with me. We had a really good time and they loved Bendigo. I saw Nicole and Katina while I was in Melbourne so that was really good.

I had a bit of an experience recently – my neighbour who has MS and lives on her own had fallen and broken her hip. I found her, about 24 hours after she had fallen, dehydrated, naked and disorientated. Apparently I saved her life (as she keeps telling me) because she wouldn’t have had a visitor for another few days. I noticed she hadn’t been on her deck for a day and she is usually out there at some point for some fresh air and the curtains were open and it just didn’t feel right so I went over and found her. Very upsetting for me actually although worse for her of course. I had to call an ambulance and help them get her onto a stretcher.

Work has been very challenging but good. It’s a very different environment from Lifeplan and getting things happening requires considerable collaboration and engagement and formal presentations to get anything started! I am having some wins though and the Executive in charge of Wealth and Third Party Banking is finally on board (after some persuasion) and gave me the green light to hold a marketing workshop with the heads of the business units I work with to really sort out and clean up the Wealth and Third Party division from a brand and marketing perspective. I’m having it in Sydney in mid April so I’m working hard with the Business Transformation team to make it all happen and give it my visual touch! Getting those people in a room in one place on one day is almost impossible. Now I have to give them pre-reading and thinking to do so I have been spending time working out the best way of presenting the information so that it’s appealing to read.

I am also about to be involved in the Australian Marketing Institute’s mentoring programme to mentor an emerging marketer. Fortunately it only requires 1 hour commitment a month and I will have my mentee assigned to me in the next couple of weeks.

On top of that, at work, I have been invited as one of 12 people that are nominated by the Executive to attend the Annual Board Planning session next week which is a 2 day offsite. Us 12 have to do considerable pre-reading and we get to observe a board meeting, be involved in workshops with the board members and the Exec to help them develop their plans and there’s some high profile speakers and some activities etc.

It’s a bit nerve wracking but I’m very excited about being nominated so early on. Hopefully I will acquit myself admirably.

Well folks, that’s all for now. I could go on and talk about our day in corporate hospitality at the Clipsal (V8 Supercars) in March or our plans for the Easter Egg hunt for the kids next weekend, but I won’t. I’ll leave you with a link to some photos of the last 2 months.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=408443&id=794955156&l=c81fb6b9a0

Love to you all
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