The Patrick Family

Hello Autumn

2011-04-15T12:03:00.009+10:00

Dear family and friends,

As the seasons turn and we start to see the fabulous colours and enjoy the smells of autumn in the Adelaide Hills, we are enjoying the last few weeks of that very special light and great outside temperatures in the low 20's. We're going to the Stirling Autumn Garden Festival on Sunday which is a fantastic day of markets, readings on the Stirling library lawns, a fairy gnome parade for the kids, a photo exhibition of the local area and lots of other things to do with the food and wine of the Hills. So of course we'll be going!! I couldn't possibly be at home when I know that there is a fairy gnome parade going on 2kms down the road.

Summer passed us by a bit here in Adelaide. We were lucky though that while we missed out on a normal South Australian summer we were not ravaged by natural disasters like other parts of the country. We watched in horror as water swept through massive tracts of Queensland, destroying areas bigger than the UK in days. It will take years to rebuild. Parts of WA suffered fires and of course most recently we have felt for our pacific neighbours in Christchurch, NZ and Japan.

In the Patrick household it has not been the easiest few months, but in comparison, we appreciate our life is also not that hard!

A combination of a few things have put some strain on our family but we are emerging from that and back being our usual happy and optimistic folk.

In the past couple of months I have been very busy at work. We have invited a Rotary foreign exchange student called Charlotte into our home when her 3rd set of host parents dropped out, we are still moving slowly through the process to become registered respite foster carers for disadvantaged kids and been planning our much longed for and anticipated holiday to the UK and France in July.

Every day Amelia's abilities and language development, her thought processes and character astound us. She is learning so much at pre-school. Her friendship with Jared has developed into a strong friendship and they have had sleepovers at each other's house. Her night away from us was rare (she's only stayed over at James and Zoe's house once before) and while she missed us in the night, she had a great time and came back having thoroughly enjoyed her sleepover. We are starting to have some very interesting conversations with Amelia. She's very observant. Recently she has said that she will never use cigarettes and that she sees people using cigarettes in their cars on the way to childcare and she doesn't know their names or she wants to know how Zoe's baby will get out. So we're honest and we tell her the answers to both, that cigarettes will kill you and where babies come out! She comments that the hairdresser's we go to is open late when it's still open on the way back from the city and random things that like. Usually very amusing.

The childcare she goes to has established some great activities for the children, one of which is the maintenance of a community garden where the children grow tomatoes, sunflowers, strawberries and corn. They encourage parents to go along so Iain and I have both been with the kids, we walk to the garden which is about 10 minutes from the childcare so the children cross roads and when they get to the garden they weed and plant and the teacher talks about roots and how to choose strawberry runners to plant to make new plants. They then walk around the garden and see the compost and the worm farm, the other sections that are maintained by others where vegies of all kinds grow, Courgette (Zucchini), Peppers (Capsicum), Watermelon, Corn, herbs, chillis and lots more.

They also had a visit to the spiegeltent at the Garden of Unearthly Delights which is part of the Adelaide Fringe Festival. They met performers and watched a rehearsal. We took the kids to the spiegeltent to see the Kids Comedy Circus and Show which they loved.

Cameron, well what can I say about him. His personality is very different to Amelia's more balanced approach to life. Cameron is a blonde angel who is an affectionate, cheeky, stubborn risk taker. His energy is exuberant and usually uncontrollable, which is fine unless of course he has a thick black permanent marker pen in his chubby little hand.

I had a fantastic weekend in 'mad march'when everything is going on in Adelaide. Katina came over on the Adelaide Cup long weekend. We had a night seeing La Gateau Chocolate, a hilarious large black Nigerian opera singing tranvestite at the garden of unearthly delights. Iain and I spent a day at the races and then went to see the one man Lord of the rings show (which Iain being obsessed with the book and the movies got 100% more of the jokes than I did) but we knew it was all for Iain not me because it was the only show he got to see so fair enough. Katina and I spent the day at Womadelaide on the Sunday seeing Indian flautists, Afro Celtic music and other weird and wonderful world music. A great day. Unfortunately, after all that exertion I just didn't feel I could make it to the ABC Gardening Show so I gave that a miss and we gave Adelaide Cup a miss too again this year. Maybe when the kids are older...

Workwise - I have spent 6 months planning, developing, influencing, negotiating, driving cultural change around the launch of a new brand called Bendigo Wealth which is Bendigo and Adelaide Bank wealth management arm. It's been fun, challenging, frustrating, satisfying and hard work all at the same time. We launched it last week and so I am enjoying (dare I say) a couple of weeks of easy street before the the next project.

It's been a good year professionally, I was awarded CPM status which means I have been recognised as a Chartered Professional Marketer, I'm now sitting on the Financial and Professional Services Special Interest group for the Australian Marketing Institute and am mentoring an emerging marketer as part of the AMI mentoring program again this year. I'm proud of Iain, he has joined the board of Epilepsy SA in addition to his work with Northern Volunteering and is still doing what he can for Rotary.

We both completed a senior first aid course recently where we learnt a lot and also a child safe enviroment course (this is part of the requirements to be become registered foster carers). How much we learnt, my goodness. Not just on the first aid course which was excellent but also how to recognise the signs of physical, emotional and sexual abuse in children and how to report it. What a depth of information we now have at our fingertips and have the skills and tools to have difficult but necessary conversations with our children to keep them safe. Sad but necessary.

We are all looking forward to an extra long Easter break this year with Anzac day and Easter falling on consecutive days. The Easter bunny has already dropped off the eggs for the Patrick household! We've also purchased the hunting eggs for the Easter Egg hunt which we're going to friend's in Stirling for this year. Should be great fun.

We are excited about the arrival of baby Cursley, James and Zoe's baby in June. We're hoping that we'll get to meet the little one before we head off to the UK at the end of June.

They have been busy getting themselves sorted out with the things they need including a bigger car and the obvious things like pram, car seat, baby sling, bassinet etc.

We are also so excited about the delivery of his and hers iPad 2's next week. Our 5th anniversary present to each other. Yep 5 years this May. Goodness we've been busy in this time. But it doesn't seem like that long ago. I guess that's a sign of the times that we're giving each other technology for our wedding anniversary. Very useful and fun technology though I might add.

I'm also looking forward to sitting with Amelia and watching the Royal Wedding because she will see a ordinary person become a princess and for Amelia it will be magical.

Once this May is over I'll need to start thinking about and planning for Iain's BIG birthday next year in 2012. He probably won't appreciate me mentioning the number but I will enjoy giving him a birthday he will love whatever we decide to do.

And finally, yes I have discovered Glee (I know I am probably one of the few in the world that hasn't been caught up in the mass movement that it is) but a guy at work burnt me a copy and, yes it's great. Not managed to include Zumba that other worldwide movement just yet, just can't fit it into the week but maybe next year!

Well that's it for now. Hope you are all happy and healthy and enjoying the change of season in whichever hemisphere you happen to be.

I've posted to the links to publicly available Facebook albums below so you can see a selection of photos from the last few months.

Much love and hugs.

Caroline, Iain, Amelia and Cameron xxx

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=609396&id=794955156&l=766b434671

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=624621&id=794955156&l=2f191ee80d

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=635543&id=794955156&l=1d20828f16

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=641373&id=794955156&l=b20e1f5679

2010-08-23T17:04:00.009+10:00

Dear family and friends,

It’s been ages since I posted my blog and that’s because we really have been busy, and then I was getting closer to Cameron’s 1st birthday so thought I’d wait and post something then.

Work has been really busy for both of us and we’ve also been out in the garden a lot planting bulbs and getting hanging baskets ready, putting in applications to the council for the removal of 8 pine trees (which has involved numerous arborists, tree removal specialists and a dispute with an idiot neighbour), visiting my lovely neighbour with MS who you might remember I found in the summer having fallen and broken her hip and general house maintenance such as researching and choosing a new bed and bedroom furniture, oven and various other heavily discussed but no action taken until now items.

July was jam packed with me travelling to Melbourne and Bendigo twice for work, one trip to Bendigo immediately prior to us having to be in Melbourne for Kevin’s 40th birthday. So we decided to make the trip to Bendigo a family trip and we drove over there and Iain spent the 2 days I was at work tripping around Bendigo with the kids. It was a long journey but it was fun to have Iain and the kids with me in Bendigo, particularly as it was my birthday while we were there.

Iain and the kids had bought me a very lovely and warm new coat which I needed for winters in the Adelaide Hills but then also couldn’t resist some pottery from the Bendigo pottery for the outside wall of the house. A sun, of course in bright colours. And the obligatory bottle of Lanson which I will drink given any occasion but especially on my birthday!

Since I have a million photos to post of this trip and I have already posted them to facebook – here is the link.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=472555&id=794955156&l=62edbb85e8
and
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=470279&id=794955156&l=a245a6b4ad

We then headed to Melbourne through the little Victorian towns and got to Nicole and Alex’s house late in the afternoon. Amelia was so excited about seeing her friends Charlie and Tommy and they had a ball. Amelia shared a room with them and there was much fun to be had. At 6am in the morning when they all ran across Iain and I sleeping peacefully on the air mattress in their playroom in their haste to get to the Thomas the Tank Engine – well that was not so much fun!

We had a super meal with Nicole and Alex while Nicole’s brave and pregnant sister Jo looked after all 5 kids (our four and one of hers!). Brave, so brave.

On the Saturday Nicole took Amelia and the boys to a park while Alex cooked and Cameron slept we chuffed off to have Yum Cha in Prahran with Kev, Dave, John and a friend from Lifeplan, Alison. Heading back to say our goodbyes and collect the kids and cases we moved on to the hotel we were staying for the next 2 nights near to Kev’s 40th birthday venue.

It as great so see everyone and Kev had a ball. Oh so fast Monday came around and our long and tiring drive back that began at 4.45am and ended at 2.30pm. We were very glad to be home by then!

Cameron’s 1st birthday was a small and enjoyable event at our house. A winter baby does not go well with a BBQ so we were all packed into the kitchen and lounge with bursts of sunshine when we could herd the kids outside with bubbles and balls.

He had fun and then had to have a nap.

Can’t believe he is one already! Here are the links to facebook for some general “I am one” photos and also a comparison with his sister at the same age.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=475591&id=794955156&l=63b724d14e

and

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=474459&id=794955156&l=0323fb9848

In the meantime we have been to the work mid year show which was the ‘time travellers ball’ see how fabulous I look here  - new dress folks and designer too (which as is my nature got 80% off the original price – how impressed are you?)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=458720&id=794955156&l=09f4afb874

and the rendering of the house is finally finished after 4 long, long months.
See before and after shots here http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=472563&id=794955156&l=7b1c3ae639

In exciting news as well, we have booked our holiday to the South of France for July next year and will be attending my Dad’s Rotary President’s night in London and then enjoying 3 weeks in France with all the grandparents near Carcassone.

I have to say a special thank you here to Iain who has done so much organising of this trip and also incorporated the ability to see fireworks on my birthday (again) because he knows how much I love that. Iain I may not have expressed my appreciation on all the work you have done because I’m usually thinking ‘how soon is it before I can go to bed and fall asleep” recently.

So mountains of stuff to look at!

Now it’s time to start planning for Amelia’s birthday party and Christmas!!

Enjoy and until the next time – lots of love
Caroline, Iain, Amelia and Cameron
xxxx

Photos - in no particular order sorry!

Phew - I need a rest!

Dancing!

Cameron's 1st Birthday

2010-08-14T20:04:00.005+10:00

Hi Mum and Dad

This blog is especially for you. We opened Cameron's presents when we had time to video them and upload them so it's like you're there watching it happen. One of them didn't work which was a shame, but there's a fair bit here.

Enjoy!!

Amelia practising her cooking skills

2010-07-13T11:19:00.002+10:00

June 2010 050.AVI

2010-06-13T10:41:00.001+10:00

A baby's laughter truly is uplifting, particularly when they're yours!
We all love reading in this house, we start early!

Busy day...
Pizza and home made beer with Katina at Grumpys

Afternoon at Warrawong Sanctuary.

Lovely dinner with James, Zoe and the kids last night.

2010-05-29T21:58:00.023+10:00

Dear Family and Friends,

We have enjoyed the last of the summer and now are just starting to experience Autumn at its finest, beautiful gold, yellow, red and copper leaves throughout the Hills and it's getting cold - 15 degrees - and rainy. Which of course is great for the garden and the farmers.

As we move into the middle of the year and I have settled in at work (and passed my probationary period :-) ) we have turned our mind to the house and started some of the work we have identified we want to do. We've had the driveway done and we're now rendering the front of the house from an old fashioned slate cladding effect to a lovely modern 'bushland' render.

Apart from the usual, work etc, I have been quite sick with a nasty cough and flu like symptoms so had quite a few days off work and 2 courses of antibiotics to clear it up. I'm geting back to normal now, I'm about 98% right again!

May is always a busy month for us because we have Iain's birthday and our wedding anniversary to celebrate. On our anniversary we spent a night in a hotel in town, the hotel adjoining where my parents bought their apartment.

We had such a lovely relaxing time - spent some time in the spa area of the hotel and went for a fabulous dinner. One of the best things about it was we could wake up in the morning naturally and then doze off again and just have peace and quiet. No Amelia jumping on us, no requests to watch any kids TV. It was quite a luxury!! We took our time and went to have breakfast at the farmers market at the showgrounds.

James stayed the night and looked after the kids and did very well. I think he was tired when we arrived home!

Last week we went to the Helpmann Academy dinner which is an Academy of Arts. We were invited by one of Iain's board members and it's a spectacular fund raising event. I've been to many but this was something else. Because it's all about the arts, you can imagine that there were amazing artworks in the auction and there were various performances of singing, drama and performance artists throughout the night. I sat next to a Professional Organiser so that was interesting conversation.

The next morning we popped back into town with the kids to collect the car and ended up having a super afternoon in the city and a trip on 'Popeye' which is the boat which goes up and down the river to the Zoo and back. Amelia and Cameron were beside themselves with excitement being on a boat trip and she adored getting in the city centre tram to the Mall.

Apart from these rare but enjoyable 'going out' occasions we have been pottering about Aldgate and Stirling, visiting the Chestnut Man for roasted chestnuts, and Kane the butcher for his home reared meat!

Iain has been doing really well at work and got a super performance review and pay rise recently, I am very proud of what he's done with his job. Not so much about the increase in profits he's delivering (although of course that's what helps the salary!) but that he has created a super environment for his staff and implemented policies such as some paid parental leave for all staff and just a really good, fair workplace where people are rewarded for good work.

James has finally submitted all the paperwork for his permanent residence visa which is good news, now we just wait to hear about whether it gets approved. We hope so.

The kids are great, both are flourishing. Amelia is now in the Kindy room at childcare and she is coming on in leaps and bounds. She has started to write individual letters and her grasp on language is brilliant.

Cameron is copying sounds now and he loves to say 'uh oh!" when he drops something. He's crawling around, such a fast little crawler and desperately trying to walk. At the moment he contents himself to walk around furniture.

Hope you are all well. Enjoy looking at the photos. We're away now to hibernate for the winter with a well stocked cellar, my slow cooker on constantly making hearty soups and 2 tons of red gum wood for the fire.

Lots of love
Caroline, Iain, Amelia and Cameron
xxxxxx

Amelia just about inhaled this German homemade cheesecake at the Stirling Market

At the playground
Dad the packhorse at bedtime
Cameron loves having a bath

Caroline almost inhaled this locally made Chicken Pie at Stirling Market!
A rare photo these days! Us all dressed up and off to a dinner

We're back!

2010-03-26T16:56:00.001+11:00

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
xxxxxxxx

The story of Amelia and Cameron at The Beachouse and at the Zoo!

2010-01-31T20:12:00.009+11:00

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.

A new year

2010-01-17T12:14:00.008+11:00

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

Cameron - curiouser and curiouser
At Amelia's friend Emily's 3rd birthday party
First swimming lesson
A Christmas Cameron

Ready to throw some prawns on the Barbie!
Christmas breakfast - handmade by Kevin
It's so exhausting opening presents, I'll just have a nap
My new Christmas outfit from Kev - I match my swings!
Having a cheeky glass of wine in between cooking

So much to tell....

2009-11-28T17:13:00.013+11:00

Dear Family and Friends

You’ll understand after reading this blog why I haven’t posted one since September. I think this has had to be the busiest few months we have had in a very long time!!

Cameron has been growing fast and becoming a gurgly, happy little boy, Amelia has turned 3, I have started a new job with Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, Iain has finished work and become the temporary house husband/father and we have had a beach holiday.

I was made redundant from Lifeplan (officially) at the beginning of October, following the merger with Australian Unity the Marketing was shifted to Melbourne. I knew about the redundancy in early September. So I was keen to find another job quickly as I was due to go back to work on November 23rd and Iain was due to take over the home duties until March. It was a disappointment about my redundancy because Iain had worked hard to arrange with his Board of Directors his time off and I knew he was looking forward to this special time with the kids. Therefore it was a mission for me to find something else.

Through the grapevine I knew of a position at Bendigo and Adelaide Bank that was available as the person was going on maternity leave. This seemed ideal so Iain could still take his time off and I could be finishing the contract just before summer next year and have the summer off – or so I thought. Not only was I offered the job but offered it in a permanent capacity so I started on Monday as Head of Marketing, Wealth and Third Party Banking for Bendigo and Adelaide Bank. So as seems to be my pattern after all my redundancies (4 now) better job, better company, better money, new challenges to tackle. I am hopeful that I will be with this company for a good few years or that’s it, I’ve had it with marketing in Adelaide!!!

Before I started the job we took the opportunity to have a beach holiday in Robe on the Limestone Coast (SE South Australia), so we headed down there a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately I had a car accident on the day we were due to leave for Robe (not my fault) but it was bad enough that the car had to be towed away (all packed with our holiday items), unpacked and Iain had to rent a car for us so we could still go on our holiday. It was very scary at the time as I had both kids in the car and we were on the freeway - it could have been worse so we were very lucky. It was an upsetting experience though. The lady who hit us lives locally and is very nice but got a caution from the police. So following all that drama we are without the family car until just before Christmas which is not ideal. Particularly when we are relying on Iain’s pre-family car - a 2 door BMW to ferry the kids around in. Can you imagine the difficulty of getting them in and out of their car seats? Suffice to say it’s amusing. The pram wouldn’t fit in the boot without taking the wheels off! Definitely not made for family transportation!

Anyway, after all that we got down to Robe and enjoyed our few days there. Amelia had lots of fun on the beach. I chilled out at the local beauty place and Iain and Cameron just chilled out. We ate fish and chips on the foreshore, drank lovely wine and played trivial pursuit into the small hours. The TV didn’t go on once in the 4 days and it was really super. We enjoyed ourselves so much that we are booking another beach holiday to the Yorke Peninsula for February.

When we got back we had to start thinking about Amelia’s Wiggles themed birthday party which we held at home. Iain had organised the cake – his staff member Arthur used to have a business making cakes and makes unbelievable ones so he’d offered to make it just at the cost of the ingredients. It was a stunning cake – see the photos. Amelia had a super birthday. We took her out for dinner to the Stirling pub and then the following day had about 16 kids and their families round for a BBQ. As you can imagine, when everyone had gone, the place looked like it had imploded with toys, wrapping paper, party bags and washing up!

The dishwasher was loved that day!

Amelia had a brilliant time, and so did we – we were exhausted though at the end.

Now we’re thinking about Christmas. Last night’s Stirling Christmas Pageant was cancelled unfortunately due to the bizarre heavy rains we are experiencing. After a few weeks of extremely hot weather the rain is needed and our swimming pool is full without needing to get the hose out!

We are hoping it will be rescheduled as it was very hard explaining to Amelia why we couldn’t go and see Santa last night. Tomorrow we are going to a Rotary family day – Iain was recently inducted as a member of Stirling Rotary – so we’re hoping the weather cheers up a bit for tomorrow,

On Thursday we will be telling her that it’s one more sleep until the Wiggles Concert on Friday afternoon and the childcare Christmas party straight afterwards.

The following week I will be making my first trip across to head office in Bendigo for the department Christmas party (fantastic time to start a new job!!). It’s a fly/drive experience via Melbourne as there’s no airport in Bendigo.

And then Christmas will almost be on top of us. So I wish you all a very happy, relaxing and merry Christmas – I’m not sending cards again this year (helping the environment) so have a super time and enjoy every minute of your time off work/family time/parties/holidays or whatever else you’re planning to get up to.

Lots of love from all of us
Caroline, Iain, Amelia and Cameron xxxxx

Amelia's birthday - just about to go to the pub for dinner

chilling out on holiday

Amelia the little poser!

Practicing for the full family shot on Amelia's birthday

This was at the Macclesfield Field Day, that was a great day

Amelia reading to her brother

Now this is really chilled...Cameron knows how to enjoy a holiday!

Amelia's fabulous cake

Nat and her kids Tommy and Curtis in our garden on a visit with us recently

Amelia opening her presents on the morning of her birthday

Amelia's very happy with herself here - she finished a jigsaw - Cameron missed it, he was asleep again!

This was on the way to Macclesfield Field Day - we parked in the same place as we did when we went 3 years ago and have an almost identical photo but with Amelia in the Baby Bjorn on Iain's chest so we thought we'd take another with the new addition!

We bought new read leather sofas for the family room and here's Cameron trying one out. Kids and leather - wipe clean - we love it!!

Amelia loving herself silly on the beach!

This was taken at my good friend sandy's wedding which she had at her house with a magnificent deck overlooking a shiny, sparkling blue sea. It was a great day, lots of laughter and dancing.

This has got to be one of my favourite photos of Amelia, dancing with Sandy at her wedding

Here's our little man having a kick

A very friendly Robe family offered Iain and Amelia the use of their Kayak

With a cake this amazing, it could only have sparklers not just candles!

This photo is just so you can see Iain's T Shirt that he ordered off the internet especially for the next BBQ - can you read what it says? " I didn't climb to the top of the food chain to be a vegetarian"

Cameron at 9 weeks

2009-10-28T14:45:00.003+11:00

Hi - here's a little video of Cameron at 9 weeks old. Gurgling and smiling now!

The sun has been shining all week and the garden is coming to life. It's beautiful. We are seeing the 3 lilac trees in full bloom, the roses are coming out a few at a time, bearded iris are popping up all over the place and the herbs are going mad!

Not warm enough to use the pool yet unfortunately.

We're off to our friend Sandy's wedding this Saturday so looking forward to that.

Amelia is enjoying trips out with mum and brother to Stirling, the Botanic Gardens and the various parks on a regular basis and going to childcare 2 days a week at the moment.

Lots of love
xxxx

Spring has sprung!

2009-09-21T23:17:00.005+10:00

Dear Family and Friends,

Cameron is now 4 weeks old and we have adjusted to the new family dynamic well. He is a really good baby and we're enjoying getting to know him.

Mum went back to England at the end of August and immediately following that Iain took 2 weeks off, one week just with Cameron and me and one week Amelia was off childcare and so we spent time as the four of us.

It was a wonderful 2 weeks, like living in a little bubble and it was very sad when reality hit and Iain had to go back to work. We enjoyed some good weather and were able to take Amelia to the park and spend some time in the garden. We also had a day at the Royal Adelaide Show which was here in early September. Amelia had a ball seeing the animals and going on the rides and we had a ball taking her. Cameron enjoyed sleeping all day in his comfy pram!

So this is now my second week of it just being Cameron and I. Last week was really busy just getting stuck into all the jobs on my to do list. Which is now longer because it includes the task - find another job! Yes folks, I have been made redundant again. This is redundancy number 4!

Following the merger with Australian Unity, lots of roles at Lifeplan are being made redundant and I am one of many.

So I have also been busy getting stuck in to updating my resume and using the outplacement service to refresh myself on job hunting.

Because of this and not knowing how long I'll be home for on a full time basis from this week we are taking Amelia out of childcare 3 days a week so from this week Cameron and I will enjoy Amelia's company for part of the week.

This week is already shaping up to be full and busy with Cameron and I having lunch with the managing director of the advertising agency I used at work today, then a board meeting and AGM at the disability organisation I am on the board of this afternoon. Tomorrow we are off to a birthday party, one of Amelia's friends from childcare is 3 tomorrow. Thursday I have meetings with recruiters and an appointment with my outplacement consultant and Friday the 3 of us are having lunch with a friend I used to work with at SKYCITY.

So I'm actually not sure when I managed to fit work in!!

Spring is here, except for today when it thundered and bucketed down all day and we are getting into the garden and planting various herbs, fruits and vegetables to see what we can grow. This weekend we planted tomato seeds and did a big clean up of the entertaining area and the BBQ in the hope that soon the weather will be reliable enough to have our first BBQ of the season.

We want to have one to get to know the neighbours a bit more. We've met them all a few times but since we moved in here in November I've been pregnant so we haven't done much entertaining. Now we have new neighbours on one side who are doing lots of work on their house and seem lovely. They have 2 kids. The neighbours at the back had a baby a week after Cameron was born, a little girl and we all got together with another neighbour for a big pow wow at the bottom of the garden last week and decided it was time for us to get together socially.

We have 2 weddings to go to in October which we are looking forward to. One is a massive Polish/Greek wedding at the National Wine Centre and the other a more intimate wedding at a house with views of the ocean south of Adelaide. We're not taking the kids to the Polish/Greek one, James is babysitting and we are going to get dressed up and have our first day out just the 2 of us in a very long time! I have 1 dress that fits me, unless I manage to lose the baby weight miraculously in 2 weeks which of course, is doubtful, but fortunately it is a lovely dress and will be just right for a wedding. We're very excited!

Well that's all for now - we're also looking forward to visits from Brandon and Nicole in October, our out of town friends.

Hope everyone is well - much love to you all

Caroline, Iain, Amelia and Cameron
xxxxx

Amelia at Warrawong Sanctuary

Here we are at the Royal Adelaide Show

Amelia was allowed one showbag from the show and she chose "In the Midnight Garden" which had an 'iggle piggle' hat

Cameron slept all day long missing out on the ice cream and the rides :-)

Amelia riding on a mini tractor

Amelia is holding a one day old chick in this photo

James and Amelia reading

Amelia in the Alpaca/Goat pavilion at the Show

At the playground

Cameron - 3 weeks old

Amelia (and Iain) enjoying a ride on the Carousel at the Show

On a Sunday walk

Holding her brother

In front of a beautiful spring flowering bush at the Mount Lofty Botanic Garden

Mount Lofty Botanic Garden

2009-08-24T13:02:00.003+10:00

Dear family and friends,

Thank you for all your lovely messages over the last week. It’s been fantastic to hear from so many of you.

So Cameron was born after a much shorter labour than I expected which was really good as it's really quite a painful experience :-) A totally different experience to what happened with Amelia where I had a really long labour and tons of drugs. As a result Cameron has been much stronger and alert from the outset and we have got on with the breastfeeding together much better than I did with Amelia.

We got home from the hospital on Thursday afternoon and it was super to be home and back into a comfortable bed. So far we have found him to be a good night sleeper, giving us plenty of rest in between nappy changes and feeds. Iain as usual is brilliant and supportive and mum has been here helping out with Amelia and particularly the cooking and the laundry which is a great help.

Iain is going to go back to work tomorrow for the rest of the week while mum's here and then take some time off when mum has gone back home. Amelia is going brilliantly well with being a big sister, of course we are getting some odd and not perfect behaviour but considering that she has an extra person in the house (grandma), a new baby brother and her routine has been completely disrupted over the last few weeks (and she’s 2!) we are really proud of how she’s coping.

She is besotted with Cameron and is always wanting to kiss him and huggle him. Usually at times when he's fast asleep or just about to fall asleep!

We have our first community midwife visit this afternoon at home so we'll see how he's getting on with his weight and all the other things they check for.

So what more can I say, we're very proud parents of a son and couldn't be happier.

Here's some photos

Lots of love
Caroline, Iain, Amelia and Cameron
xxxxxx

Countdown!

2009-07-24T14:55:00.010+10:00

Dear Family and Friends,

This will no doubt be my last blog before the new addition to our family appears! I am in Week 38, approaching week 39 of this pregnancy now and so almost there.

It's been such a busy time during this pregnancy, moving house just before, taking on extra responsibility at work and also working on a merger since January with a Melbourne based organisation - not to mention the everyday life in between!

I finished work last Friday and it was a very nice last day, lunch, gifts and drinks with my colleagues. I tidied my office, cleaned my desk, emptied my drawers of any food and gave my mug a good clean - all those little things that have to be done when you're vacating for a while!

Since I've been on maternity leave - one business day as of today, I have already managed to lose my brain down the nearest drain. I locked my handbag containing my car keys and everything else in the car without meaning to after I'd been grocery shopping today so that was not a good start. Failing to be able to reverse charge call a mobile or be able to recall anybody's phone number (the downside of mobile phones and speed dials) I had to go to the police station where the kind policeman let me call Iain who came, like a lovely white knight, to rescue me from my predicament.

In return, I drove him back to work and dropped him off as he is hosting a dinner for his board members tonight at one of Adelaide's more upmarket restaurants so can now get a taxi home and have a few fine glasses of wine. Let's hope the rest of my maternity leave goes more smoothly!

I managed to fit in a trip to Melbourne at the end of June for work and it allowed me to catch up with Nicole and Katina and see Nicole's lovely little boys again which was super, albeit a flying visit. I don't recommend flying through turbulence when you're 8 months pregnant, it's not comfortable!

Iain went on a trip to Melbourne the other weekend for a long time planned footy weekend with his friend Sam. A busy weekend, they managed to fit in 2 games and plenty of eating and drinking!

No more trips for a while now for either of us. But we do have a special visitor arriving on Saturday. My mum will be arriving for a few weeks to help out and meet the new baby. We are all very excited about her coming and Amelia has been promised a trip to Zoo with Grandma which she is really looking forward to.

Amelia has been talking about the new baby a lot and she seems to understand a great deal about what's going on. I'm sure it won't be smooth sailing but we hope we've done lots to prepare her for this big change in her life.

At the moment she is enjoying a 2 week visit at childcare from Mitchell the Lizard. The centre is able to borrow certain animals and reptiles from an organisation, a bit like an animal library service and Mitchell the Lizard is the current visitor. Apparently Amelia likes to read to him and help him do jigsaws which is her passion at the moment.

We are having some beautiful days of sunshine at the moment at the Hills but it's still cold enough to enjoy our open fire on weekends and a sneaky hot chocolate from time to time.

As we move into Spring, the Hills are coming alive again with vivid yellow wattle trees in flower, blossom in all different shades and daffodils. We must make a time to get to the Botanic Gardens while Mum is here and see the colours.

We have been working on the garden and learning about gardening. We've pruned all our roses, sprayed the fruit trees and tidied up the pine needles. There's still lots to do but I am reading gardening magazines avidly and working out what we need to do. We still have to tackle the big vegetable garden at the back but one step at a time!

We're sure that both Mum and Sylvia and Ken when they are here will have some great tips and help for us.

I'm just about ready to get to that hospital now, even my maternity clothes are getting tight, I reckon it's time! Mum is hoping I hold out until she gets here, I think I can manage that :-)

We'll see! Just hoping this baby doesn't make a very late appearance, I'd quite like my body back now thanks very much!

Lots of love to you all

Caroline, Iain, Amelia and rather large bump xxx

Our Wattle tree in flower - aren't they glorious?

Amelia and James hanging out

A cuddle for Uncle James

Building a "very very big tower"

Reading Scaredy Squirrel to her doll - Lindsey, Iain's sister sent us a couple of Scaredy Squirrel books, they are by a Canadian author and they are super. Very funny.

And here we are having our sneaky hot chocolate on Saturday. Amelia is especially happy because she got to have marshmallows

Winter in the Hills

2009-06-06T11:04:00.018+10:00

Dear family and friends,

We have been enjoying settling into autumn and winter in the Hills.

The new house is much warmer than the old one and we have been making use of the real fire that we have in the lounge.

I have been using my slow cooker a lot and making lovely stews and soups - so easy with a slow cooker!

Work has been very busy - particularly for me as the company I work for is merging with another organisation a similar one but much bigger based in Melbourne. I have been part of the team putting the merger together since January and it's an immensely complex process and a lot of hard work. I've learnt a lot though.

And of course through this I have been pregnant so tiredness has featured a fair bit in my life!!

Iain has as usual been super and so supportive. I am 30 weeks pregnant now, and starting to get into aches and pains territory so am trying to take it easier.

Amelia is delightful. Her sentence structure is amazing, how it's coming on every day. She has had a few firsts recently. She went to the theatre with childcare to see a kids play based on a book called the Terrible Plop. They went on a minibus - Iain went too and was responsible for looking after Amelia's little friend Jarrad (see pic on bus below). Amelia had such a good time she still talks about it.

She has been a mischievous one at childcare recently. Her and Jarrad snuck into the bathroom, plugged up the sinks and turned on the taps and flooded the floor of the Bilby Room. Iain wondered if her and Jarrad had plotted this the day before as she insisted on wearing her welly boots to childcare that day. hhhmmm

We had a little party for Iain's birthday in May. We had a lunch here for a few friends. Zoe made Iain the most magnificent cake. Her cakes never fail to amaze us!!

I am finishing work on July 31 which is still a little while away. Iain and I are sharing the maternity/paternity leave, 3 months each. My mum is planning to be here in August which will be lovely.

We are enjoying a long weekend this weekend for the Queen's birthday public holiday. We're not doing much. Catching up on some things around the house and some rest!

We've given Amelia a new bedroom complete with red and pink furniture and accessories so the room she has been in since we moved here will now become the baby room as it has all the baby furniture in it. We got Amelia a new bed so Iain now has to return the bed that she was using to become the cot again.

We have sorted out all the baby clothes and starting buying essentials for the new one. There's not much to get at all which is good. Hopefully we'll be sorted out so that when I go on maternity leave there's nothing to do except put my feet up and wait :-)

Hope all is well with you all.
Love to hear your news

Lots of love
Caroline, Iain and Amelia xxxx

James and Amelia enjoying some quiet book reading time on Iain's birthday

While everyone else was lifting a glass of wine to Iain, I was lifting the cordial!!

The birthday boy blowing out his birthday candles with a little help from a little helper

Amelia and Jarrad on the way to see the "Terrible Plop"

Getting bigger....

Amelia, swiped her dad's undies off the clothes horse and put them on

We went to a chilcare outing in town a few Saturdays ago, one of the parks in the parklands and had a great time watching Amelia run around with her friends. Here's some of them.

Her dolls are going everywhere with her these days

Singing in the rain.

Tiger Amelia - they had been doing facepainting at childcare that day

Video of Iain and Amelia on Iain's birthday below - click on the little arrow

The rest of the photos are on our day out in the Hills on the Queen's birthday public holiday Monday (8 June) to a little railway set on a farm .

2009-03-16T13:56:00.004+11:00

Hi everybody,

Goodness the last month has just flown by.

We have celebrated Valentines Day and the anniversary of when we met in 2004 (any excuse!!) Iain surprised me with a swish new set of kitchen knives for Valentines which might sound very boring to you but to me it was great! Something I’ve been after for a while. With my new found love of cooking, they have been a delight to use. Iain was presented with a batch of chocolate heart shaped biscuits with messages on them that I’d iced with a red icing pen. Both he and Amelia enjoyed them and I think they were all gone in a couple of days!

Iain has started his trips to Melbourne for the year and enjoyed a fun weekend with his friends there at the end of February.

I hopped over as well to see Nicole and Katina and had a super time. Her boys are lovely – it was really nice to see them. As Nicole has been living in Japan for the last few years I haven’t been able to see much of her.

I went with Katina to see ‘Wicked’ (the musical) and the movie ‘The Reader’ that Kate Winslet won her Oscar for. As I don’t get to go to the movies or the theatre much these days it was a real treat of a weekend. Nice to be back though on the Sunday and then enjoy a super day out at Carrick Hill (house and gardens on a hill overlooking Adelaide) on the Public Holiday Monday (Adelaide Cup) with James, Zoe and the kids.

We are trying to keep our weekends quiet and homely at the moment. Having said that, Iain is back in Melbourne the weekend after next!

This weekend there is an annual event held in Aldgate called the Enchanted Garden Party. It’s for kids and is held in the grounds of a heritage property that has 4 acres of Camellia gardens. We will be taking Amelia and meeting some of the mother’s group there who I haven’t seen for ages. So that will be a nice outing for us all.

The Adelaide Fringe Festival is on for a little while longer and while we haven’t been to see much we did go with a group of people to see Going Ape at the Zoo which is 4 stand up comedians putting on a comedy show in the heart of the Zoo. We have been before and it can be a bit hit and miss but it’s a nice environment, something a bit different and you can take a picnic. 2 of the 4 comedians were very funny and so was the MC so it was really enjoyable and a chance to catch up with the group that we went with.

I have also booked to see Phantom of the Opera with a friend when it comes to Adelaide in May. I haven’t seen it for years so I’m really looking forward to that.

I’m now almost 5 months pregnant and all seems to progressing well. I have started to feel some movement and now well into my maternity clothes. I have a scan next week where we can find out the gender - we thought we’d do that this time so that’s very exciting. Then we can make it a bit more real for Amelia and talk about her brother or sister. She understands very well and we’re lucky that one of her carers at childcare is the same amount of weeks pregnant so they talk about it there too.

I made my first purchase for the new baby at the Pregnancy and Babies Expo that was on in Adelaide this weekend – some new bottles! Not very exciting but we do seem to be pretty well set up this time round! Don’t have to think about too much.

Amelia is such a happy little girl – her language is coming along and her sentence structures are really very good. It’s so nice to be able to have a conversation with her.

Work is busy for both us. I have managed to take on even more responsibility in the last month or so which is great for my resume and experience, challenging but new so a good change. Iain is busy setting up a new part of the business which will concentrate on COTA membership acquisition and retention.

His board of directors have been astonishingly flexible and we have decided to take 3 months off each when the baby comes, with Iain still being able to work 2 days a week from home or 1 of those days in the office with the baby. Of course we’ll have to see how it pans out in practice but they have been very good indeed in looking at flexible options so Iain can keep his finger on what’s going on while taking time off to care for the new one.

The weather has started to turn now into autumn type weather and we are pleased for the cooler air. While it means we have closed up the pool and don’t expect many more weekends where we can use it, if any, the garden should return to a non scorched look and we can go for walks with Amelia in the milder weather. We’re looking forward to the beauty of the Hills in Autumn and the amazing colours.

Hope you’re all keeping well and we’d love to hear your news.
Caroline, Iain and Amelia xxx

At the Botanic Gardens for a Valentines picnic.

Getting really into her lego

James and Zoe at Carrick Hill last week

Iain with his Valentines present - chocolate biscuits - Amelia couldn't wait and tucked in straight away!

At Carrick Hill on the children's literary trail which was great fun. Reminded us all of the books we read as kids.

Here we are on the real grass benches at Carrick Hill - so clever.

We took Amelia to the beach on Saturday with her bike

Amelia and 'big' Amelia on the grass bench

On a hot day staying in the shade with her colouring book

Last week at Carrick Hill

2009-02-12T12:57:00.006+11:00

Dear Family and Friends,

Thank you for all your cards and good wishes over Christmas and New Year.

We are settling into the new house and it feels like we’ve been there forever – except for the fact that we still have a lot of work to do in getting the rooms set up just how we want them!

January has flown by. We have both been busy at work and both grateful to be still in our jobs both working in financial services!!

Amelia is growing and her language is coming on in leaps and bounds. She enjoys singing and reading a lot.

We had until recently been suffering with over 40 degree temperatures and while that was nice on the weekends to spend the hot days by our pool and teaching Amelia to swim, during the week it was a bit challenging! The thermometer in the car was usually at 35 degrees on our way into work! I captured this photo on a particularly hot day.

Wow - there's not many people felt temperatures like that!

I'm sure you've all been hearing about the awful fires in Victoria - for those not living in Australia - it's been an absolute tragedy. Almost 200 people are dead and many more injured.

I know that some reports in the UK have described the area where the fires have been blazing as Southern Australia - while that's correct, they have been in the state of Victoria so a long way from us and we haven't been affected.

Having said that, we live in an area of South Australia that has experienced terrible bush fires before so we are attending a bushfire prevention workshop next week.

Iain is going to Melbourne for a boys weekend next weekend and I am looking forward to my Melbourne girls weekend in early March.

However on this trip there will be no drinking as I am 14 weeks pregnant with baby #2! I'm due mid August and now that the nausea and tiredness is beginning to cease I'm pleased about it all :-)

In January we took Amelia to the Shutzenfest, a German festival that is held in the City every year. Iain was able to enjoy the lovely, but expensive German beers and Amelia the free kids play section with bouncy castle and an ice cream.

Amelia also experienced her first haircut at the hairdresser's which was badly needed. Our attempts at cutting had been pretty bad and now she has a lovely stylish bob.

Of course a cool chick with a stylish bob needs cool Dora the Explorer sunglasses for those sunny days...

We have already enjoyed the company of a number of visitors in the new house. It's a great house for entertaining and we have been making the most of the entertaining area by hosting quite a few BBQ's.

We regularly enjoy the company of Zoe and James and are excited that they have announced a wedding date for January 2010. Exciting times.

Hope everyone is well and those of you in Canada, US and UK are dealing with the cold ok. Anyone wanting to escape is welcome to visit!

Lots of love to you all
Caroline, Iain and Amelia xxxx

We're settling in!

2008-11-27T11:16:00.005+11:00

Wow it's been a hectic few months, we've bought a house, pratically renovated a house, sold a house, got more responsibility at work (an extra department!!) and have moved house.
Phew, time to relax. Oh whoops, I forgot, we had Amelia's 2nd birthday last week, have James's 30th birthday next week, both of which hosted in our new house and then it's Christmas, parties, outings, preparation for the big day. So, actually no time to relax at all....
But we are having fun and that's the main thing.
Our new house is brilliant!!! Flat land so Amelia can have a swing and play, we have a pool, (can't wait for those lazy hot days), a vegetable garden (I am going to be green fingered by next year) and 2 levels (so my bum will be toned as well!!).
Mum and Dad have been staying with us and helped us move - they have been invaluable and so helpful. It's made the move so much easier and we come home to a cooked dinner - brilliant!
We are so pleased we have worked so hard the last few months as everything has come together and it really is a relief to know that we got rid of our house so fast (in a week!!).
It's been fantastic to see them with Amelia - just like it was in Canada with Sylvia and Ken - it's so nice that she knows who they are and can say Grandma and Grandpa and play with them.
It's the Stirling Christmas Pageant tonight so we're going to that and are going to have a mini Christmas with Mum, Dad, James, Zoe and the kids tomorrow so that will be nice.
We'll be celebrating James's special birthday next week with a 70's party - aaahh I have to find something to wear.
It's just a short blog entry this month as I think the photos tell their own story!
Hope everyone is well and happy - we look forward to having you to stay
Lots of love
Caroline, Iain and Amelia xxxxx

Our new house. We moved exactly 2 kms!

Here we are, the Family Cursley in the garden which is stuffed full of roses, beautiful. Good job really because we named Amelia, Amelia Rose because of all the roses we had at the last house!!

Amelia and Mum taking a dip in the pool - it was too cold for me that day.. it's not heated...yet (I have to persuade Iain that having the pool heated is very important to someone that was born in a heatwave and doesn't much like the cold)

She knows what's comfy

Birthday cake and sparklers. In case you're wondering we had planned for her to wear a lovely, dainty dress but Iain gave her a Hawthorn Guernsey from this year's AFL final and that was that. No more dainty dress...

On her new slide, Grandma and Grandad (Barbara and Chalmers) bought Amelia a swing set and slide for her birthday - lots of giggles and squeals

James and Zoe gave Amelia a fantastic fairy dress for her birthday - she's going to wear it to big Amelia's fairy birthday party at Camelot Castle next Friday.

Grandma and Grandpa in Canada (Sylvia and Ken) bought Amelia this very popular bike. It has pink and silver tassels and a bell too.

No visit is complete without a visit to the beach

We're a happy team at Hawthorn!

2008-09-29T09:52:00.006+10:00

Hi everyone, Lots of news on this edition of the Patrick Family Blog! Since we've been back from Canada we have not stopped - which will not surprise most of you!! We have bought a house!!

There are some photos below of the new one. We're not moving far, just around the corner really.

So that means we have flat out getting out getting our house ready for sale. We've been working solid on it for 4 weekends now and have another 2 weekends before we start showing it.

Fortunately the weather has been pretty good for us as we head properly into Spring and the garden is starting to bloom. We had a surprise 33 degree day on Saturday for the AFL Grand Final - in which Iain's team Hawthorn were playing. It's been 17 years and they won!! Iain was very happy indeed and after all the barracking for his team he finally flopped on the sofa with Amelia and they both fell asleep.

We are all well, if a bit tired from all the activity. Zoe and James are in England for one of James' friends weddings so we miss them but they are having a great time with Mum and Dad with visits to Scotland and Paris during the time they're there.

Hope you are all well and if we haven't heard from you for a while - why not???

Lots of love
Caroline, Iain and Amelia

A tense game
did the other team just score, oh no
The Hawks have won!!! - We're a happy team at Hawthorn, we're the mighty fighting Hawks, we love our game and we play to win, riding the bumps with a grin at Hawthorn! (team song, first few lines)

The boys were on one sofa so we girls didn't talk over them...

Starting early, reading the weekend papers

After the big game

With her friend Emily

new house, 196 Old Mount Barker Road, Aldgate - from 31st Oct

New kitchen and family room

Hallway

Pool

Lounge/Dining

Front part of the back garden

Our trip to the US & Canada

2008-08-02T00:36:00.029+10:00

Time in Adelaide

Time in Montreal

Time in London

Hi everyone,

A sightly bigger blog than normal as we’ve been on our holidays now for 4 weeks. While we’ve been having a great time, our health has not been great and we have both been fighting bad colds and coughs which has ended in a course of antibiotics. Typical!

We arrived in New York to see Charleen after a very long journey. Amelia was great on the plane, much better than we expected. The Qantas staff were great and seated us in a bulkhead seat and blocked out the one next to us so Amelia had her own seat. She met a little friend on the flight called Alexia and they played with their little toy bags that they get on the flight.

New York was fun. We went specifically to see Charleen so we didn’t do too much touristy stuff as both of us have done the tourist sights in NY before. We walked through Central Park where a big free Bon Jovi concert was taking place that night so people were queuing right round the park to be able to get in. We took Amelia to the big toy shop FAO Schwartz and she had $20 spending money from granny and grandad Cursley. She chose a lunchbox with a sunflower on it.

Iain took Amelia to the Museum of Modern Art, I passed on this after seeing some of the modern ‘art’ at the Tate Modern in London. Iain did report ‘art’ such as the pink wooden plank and a piece of string, so I was glad I passed and went make up shopping instead (my art!).

After NY we drove to Washington DC to see Auntie Joan, Uncle Shaun, Jeff and my cousin Simon. We planned to have a few days in Washington, but we did break this trip to drive to Hershey in Pennsylvania to go to the funeral of Sylvia’s very dear friend, Penny, who many of you may remember from our wedding, who died of cancer while we were over here. We drove through Gettsyburg on the way and saw the many memorials and graveyards of some of the people who fought to save the Union and emancipate the slaves in the American Civil War. We left Washington and drove back to NY – it was interesting to note that while it took us about 4 hours (with stops for Amelia) it took us about an hour to go the last 10 miles off the New Jersey Turnpike through the Lincoln Tunnel and into New York City amongst people who really CANNOT drive at all. Lane markings really are there for fun not to be obeyed.

We then got the train to Montreal. That took ages. It takes about 11 hours on the train to go as far as you could go in the car in 7 hours but we wanted to take a form of travel that Amelia could move about. She met a little friend called Batisse who is French Canadian and they spent many hours together wrapping up their toys in blankets and reading both English and French books, and running up and down the train. We talked to just about everyone in our carriage and met a nice man from Adelaide who was over for a conference.

We have mainly spent the time in Sylvia and Ken’s house outside Montreal relaxing not chasing about seeing everything which has been nice. Sylvia and Ken have a beautiful house and garden and swimming pool and Amelia has become a real little water baby. Everyone has gone to so much trouble buying, borrowing and sourcing toys for Amelia and she’s been spoilt with gifts and clothes.

We need an extra suitcase just for Amelia’s clothes! She has enjoyed running around all over the place usually with no clothes on, it’s been fantastic for her. She's also got to know her cousins as they have been here and stayed and we have visited them. I have celebrated my birthday here which was fantastic and have got to know the local beauty place that Sylvia goes to quite well as I've been there for a haircut and also a facial that I was given for my birthday. I found when I got here that the humidity (high) and longish hair that is curly don't mix, even my straightener couldn't help me so off it all got chopped!

We have taken trips into Old Montreal which is beautiful and Iain, myself and Keith, Iain’s brother spent an evening at La Ronde, the amusement park in Montreal with brilliant rides. We went on all the good ones including Goliath, a BIG roller coaster with a humungous drop and it’s fast. I went on it twice! We bought a 'flash pass' to skip the queues which worked brilliantly - although Keith did make the observation that we wouldn't need one if the fashion police came along and and arrested people for crimes against fashion the queues would have been almost non existent.

We had also booked Gold class tickets to see a round of the World Firework Championships. It was the US that night. Many countries take part including Australia and it’s amazing. If any of you ACC Councilites are reading this – take note, an amazing event. Each country does 30 mins of fireworks on a designated night. I have never seen such amazing fireworks, all set to music (the ones at are wedding were spectacular mum and dad by the way!!) these went on for 30 mins and just blew us away.

We have also been to Ottawa to see Iain’s sister Lindsey. Her and her husband Claude both work in Ottawa for the government (for those who don’t know Ottawa is Canada’s capital and was chosen as such by Queen Victoria who’s advisers advised her to choose somewhere that was not close to the US border and the only town of significant size between the two parts (French and English) at the time.

I have been learning a lot about the influence the Quebecois have with the French language. To preserve their language and heritage there are very strict rules they have imposed, such as, if you live and work in the Province of Quebec unless you went to an English speaking school in the Province you have to send your kids to a French speaking school. All signs and packaging of products has to be bilingual and the French wording has to be bigger than the English. And here’s an odd one. Women have to change their name by deed poll if they want to adopt their husband’s name after marriage – it doesn’t happen like we do it - the Quebec government have taken this step so French surnames don’t die out.

We are off to Quebec City tomorrow, just Iain and I – Amelia is staying with her grandparents for 5 days. It will be lovely to spend some time alone doing pre baby stuff that’s hard to do now! Quebec is celebrating it’s 400th anniversary and there’s lots going on including another set of magnificent fireworks which we have tickets for (yippee) and street parties. I shall have to brush up my French this afternoon! Iain has booked a magnificent hotel, we're splashing out a bit and going to make the most of the time on our own. He's organised the fireworks because I love them so much and a couple of other surprises so I am looking forward to it.

That's after the BBQ we are off to at Iain's schoolfriend Mike's house this afternoon. Mike, Iain and Keith spend the day together yesterday at the Nascar racing in Montreal. It rains a lot here because of the humidity. It seems that the morning are sunshine and just beautiful then the humidity builds and late afternoon there is thunder and lightening and a rain shower. Quite different to home. Here are some photos of our trip so far.

Sylvia and Ken (Iain's mum and her husband)

Iain and Amelia in Sylvia's pool

A very hot and sticky day in Washington D.C. (hence the hiding of the hair and loose clothing!)

Iain and Keith on Mont Royal overlooking Montreal City

The Patrick Family l-r Keith, Daniel, Lindsey, Alexandre, Iain and Amelia

In the garden
The Orange Julep in Montreal - the place to go for poutine and an orange julep - poutine is the a popular French Canadian fast food dish which is French Fries (usually home made), cheese curds all covered in gravy. Sounds disgusting, tastes delicious, but definitely a one time 'treat' for me. Orange julep is a bizarrely delicious drink made with orange juice and ice cream which miraculously doesn't curdle.

Iain, Amelia and Sylvia by the pool

Amelia in Washington D.C. eating a 'Patriot Ice'

Amelia and Grandpa

On my birthday, Princess Caroline!

Amelia and her cousins enjoying 'popsicles'

In Old Montreal

On top of Mont Royal, Montreal

Amelia and her cousins, Daniel left and Alexandre right

With Charleen in Central Park, NYC

Iain in the pool with his nephews, Daniel and Alexandre

Keith and Amelia in Ottawa

You'll love this one, Amelia eating snails (escargot) and lovin' it!

Grandpa and Amelia in the swimming pool

A book fest with cousin Alexandre and auntie Lindsey

Iain with Amelia and Amelia's friend Batisse on the train

Amelia having a brilliant time in the water fountains in Central Park NYC

Getting ready for our holidays

2008-06-29T21:08:00.002+10:00

Hi everyone,

It's been a while since I updated the blog, we've been so busy.

Iain has been flying around the country for the last few weeks and visiting the other COTA offices. I've been really flat out at work as we are about to launch a new financial product.

Iain and I have been spending a lot of time talking about whether we do some renovation work to the house or we move. We had an architect come to the house and for what we want to do it looks like it might be cheaper to move so we have started to have a look around and see what's on the market and get a feel for prices. We won't be moving far that's for sure. We have grown to really love this area.

A few weeks ago I spent a weekend in Melbourne to see Nicole when she was over for her sister's wedding. It was really fantastic to see her and to meet son number 2, Tom. And of course it's always nice to have a weekend away by yourself.

We have about 2 weeks now until we go away and we are very excited about it. It seemed a long way away and suddenly it's almost upon us. Iain has been doing a lot of planning and organising for this trip. We will fly to New York and spend a weekend there seeing my friend Charleen. Then we will drive to Washington DC to see Joan and the rest of the family. Then back to New York for 1 night to get on the train to Montreal from Penn Station.

We will spend the rest of the trip with Sylvia and Ken in Montreal with the exception of a trip that Iain and I are taking by ourselves while Sylvia and Ken look after Amelia to Quebec City. We will also take a trip to Ottawa to see Iain's sister Lindsey and her family. VERY EXCITING!!

James is now over here on a 'proper' working visa - and working with Zoe's Dad Bill doing some bits and pieces around the place.

We had a lovely dinner with them and Zoe's friend Miranda last night at the local pub. We will see them again next weekend before we leave as they are very kindly taking charge of Jemima (the cat) while we're away.

Mum and Dad have just put a deposit down on an apartment in Adelaide which is currently being built. It is scheduled to finish December 2009 so we are expecting a visit then! There is a plan in the offing we that might well have had baby number 2 by then...

Work is going well for both of us and we have some exciting projects happening. I will have been there a year when we get back from our holiday, time has really flown.

I will be very glad of the break. The last few months have been incredibly tiring actually and so we are both looking forward to having some relaxing time and I'm looking forward to meeting the rest of Iain's family.

For photos of the weekend visit http://gallery.mac.com/cpatrick27/100098

and for all recent photos visit my mac gallery on http://gallery.mac.com/cpatrick27#gallery

Holidays here we come - hope you are all well and hope to hear from you soon.

If you want to email us while we're away - cpatrick@adam.com.au or via my facebook page.

Lots of love
Caroline, Iain and Amelia xxxx

A wonderful time of year...

2008-04-22T23:07:00.009+10:00

Dear family and friends,
This is my favourite time of year. We have enjoyed numerous public holidays , beautiful sunny glorious weather without it being too hot, the colours of autumn in the Adelaide Hills and the late summer/ early autumn fruits and vegetables are in season. That means succulent corn on the cob, apples, plums, chestnuts, quince, onions, organic walnuts at the side of the road, golden pumpkins. It truly is a glorious time of year.

Since our Easter weekend and our trip on the riverboat we have enjoyed an outing to Cleland Wildlife Park where Amelia met a number of kangaroos and was brave enough to get up close and personal.

We have enjoyed spending time with Zoe and James and Zoe's kids. Zoe and James are setting up a much needed domestic cleaning business up here in the hills. James has been back to the UK to get his working visa and has arrived back with it in his hot little hands. Finally! We have been busy with various things. Amelia is really growing up and has a growing vocabularly. She is a also a very cheeky little vegemite. And very strong willed. Hmmm wonder where she might get that trait from!!

Iain and I have been to a couple of black tie dinners and enjoyed being out by ourselves and being dressed up! I was presenting an award at the SA Media Awards and the company that Iain works for was celebrating 50 years.

Iain spent the weekend in Mebourne catching up with friends and watching the football while Amelia and I spent some relaxing girlie time at home.

Now the weather is starting to turn to winter and soon we will begin to hibernate until we pack up for our holiday to sunny Canada in July.

I am busy with my board responsibilities for DIRC (the disability information resource centre) who are starting to look for ways to self fund since the state government cut their funding by $200,000 and also trying to raise their profile with some media exposure.

Work is going well and while I'm very busy I am enjoying it immensely. Lots of challenges.

We have a couple of exciting events coming up in May, our 2nd wedding anniversary and Iain's birthday so we will be combining those events and having a nice dinner out somewhere.

I have also been learning how to make home movies from the video footage we have. I now have a .mac web gallery and so if you're interested in having a look at some recent footage, visit
http://gallery.mac.com/cpatrick27#gallery
Lots of love to you all
Caroline, Iain and Amelia

Having fun in the Mount Lofty Botanic Gardens

Amelia found a stick that she thought was great fun

James playing with Mitchell and Amelia

Zoe and Amelia Zoe looking beautiful
James and Mitchell playing footie

Cool Dude Amelia

James took the following 3 photos of Amelia playing in the water - we think they are wonderful photos

Here is Amelia and her little friend Emily having their lunch

and then playing house

And here we are in our finery at the SA Media Awards

Lazy days of summer

2008-03-02T20:44:00.015+11:00

Time in Adelaide

Time in Montreal

Time in London

Dear family and friends,

We have been baking in the unbelievable heat of the last few weeks, we've been having a run of 38 degree days. So we have tried not to do much outside! We have taken Amelia to the park and been down to the Fringe Festival. Iain and I have been to the races with Marsh Insurance Brokers and we've had a long weekend for Adelaide Cup (horse race).

Iain has been to Sydney, he had a meeting there and stayed overnight to see his mates. Stuart has just bought a boat so they spent the evening on it, on the harbour.

Amelia is a little treasure. Her personality is becoming so much more pronounced. We take her to the park most nights after work when it's a a bit cooler. She LOVES going on the swing and shouts 'weeeee' when she swings back and forth.

She also likes to say bye to everyone as she's leaving whether she knows them or not and wave at them.

We were delighted when we picked her up from childcare the other week and the review of her day, written by her carer was 'little miss kindness and compassion, Amelia took teddies to sad children and dummies to crying babies'.

As the season has started to turn the colours in the Hills are becoming quite beautiful

Last week James and Zoe joined us for dinner at a local Tapas place where they only serve food and wine that is from within a 100 mile radius. We have a lovely evening.

Today we have been to the Stirling Market and eaten lovely local food and bought locally made cake from the German cake stall. We then drove to Mannum which is on the River Murray and had a picnic before taking a paddleboat steamer cruise down the River. We've had a few days of 28/30 degrees so lovely, not bakingly uncomfortable.

Below are some photos from the last few weeks.

Love to all of you
Caroline, Iain and Amelia xxxx
On the swing

Here's Amelia with the autumn leaves at the park

Amelia enjoying sauerkraut in Hahndorf.

Being cheeky!

Looking cool in sunnies

With her balloon in the Garden of Unearthly Delights

On the merry-go-round at the Garden of Unearthly Delights

Reading together - we are both partial to a book!

Amelia with her Easter Egg. She has chocolate so rarely (last time was Christmas) she had forgotten the delicious creamy taste and was delighted to rediscover it!
Here we are in the park having fun!

Last week the childcare that Amelia goes to had a visit from Remabi Wildlife Park and they brought some animals for the kids to look at. One of the animals was a baby crocodile and Amelia was fascinated. One of the girls very kindly sent us a photo they took so although it's small you can see Amelia above being very interested in a baby crocodile.

Today (Easter Sunday) we drove up to Mannum which is on the River Murray and we took a paddleboat steamer trip down the River. Amelia had a lovely time and was busy pointing things out all the way!!

Our adorable, cheeky girl :-)

January 2008

2008-02-02T12:15:00.001+11:00

Dear Family and Friends,

We have had a lovely January. The weather has been superb and we have been making the most of it with visits to the beach and BBQ's.

Last weekend James, Zoe and the kids came over for dinner and we thought it was about time we had a family photo so here's a couple...

Amelia is still a cheeky monkey and while Iain was away in Brisbane last week we had girlie fun. Here's Amelia in her pigtails (and the white stuff is yoghurt) - she has a penchant for cucumber and yoghurt dip with her food at the moment!! She is also WALKING!!! We are very proud and she is just loving being mobile. She's about 10cms off the height chart so tall and now she's walking you can really see it. Wonder if we're going to have a supermodel or a basketball player on our hands???!!!!

And here we are with our matching palm tree hair!!

And here we are enjoying a day out at the beach.

We have also had a few lovely relaxing dinners with friends in the hills. Last week was the Stirling Community Carnival which is part of the Tour Down Under cycle race. It's great fun and we went to a new place in Stirling called the LocaVore. It's a tapas place but serves only food grown within 100 miles of the restaurant. It was very delicious with a couple of bottles of great local wine. We grazed over a 3 hour period with our friends Sam and Jane and their little girl Emily. Here are the 2 girls fast asleep.

Last weekend was Australia Day long weekend and we were delighted to catch up with my friend from Perth, Pam who is over for a couple of weeks. The 3 of us went down to the Bay at Glenelg and spent the afternoon enjoying food and wine in the sun. Here's Sarah and me.

Dave McDonald is staying with us this weekend. He lives back in Sydney now and is off to Barossa Under the Stars. A few big names playing again this year and the weather is perfect for it, 28 today. We are heading off to see James who is looking after the kids while Zoe is working. Tomorrow we will take Dave to some of the local wineries, Nepenthe and Shaw and Smith wil be our top picks and Bird in Hand as they make a cracking rose.

For those of you interested in a top drop. We recently bought some Chapel Hill Shiraz, which was a lovely wine. So good, we've ordered some more!

My job is still going really well. I've really settled in now and am getting to grips with the industry.

Hope you are all well and as usual we'd love to hear your news.

All the very best to Jane and Jason who are moving back to London and to Anne who should be a mum any day now. Looking forward to hearing the great news!

With much love to you all
Caroline, Iain and Amelia xxx

Christmas and New Year

2008-01-01T21:59:00.000+11:00

Dear Family and Friends,

Hope you enjoyed your Christmas break as much as we did. Amelia visited Santa at Iain's work and here is she (above) in her posh frock ready to go and visit him.

We have managed to have a busy yet relaxing time over the Christmas period and enjoyed the company of family and friends.

Kevin came to stay with us from Melbourne for Christmas we all enjoyed a Christmas champers on Christmas morning... even Amelia (no not really!!).

We were joined for Christmas dinner by James and Zoe, Zoe's kids Amelia and Mitchell and Zoe's mum Eloise.

Here we are having entree (prepared by Zoe) and then we moved inside for Christmas dinner, behold the Christmas table and in the background Kevin is holding a painting that I bought just before Christmas in a charity auction. It's painted by a person with a disability and it's a Sturt Desert Pea, the state flower of South Australia. I love it, it's so beautiful.

Amelia was of course spoilt and received some lovely presents from all quarters of the globe but so was I as Iain gave me a magnificent piece of jewellery for Christmas and I was quite overwhelmed. The shop where it's from doesn't have a branch in Adelaide so he organised with Kevin to buy it in Melbourne and bring it over for me. What a star!

Christmas day was a wonderful day and we had a lot of laughs. Zoe brought an antipasto platter for entree and made the Christmas pudding and Iain prepared all the other food so I didn't have to lift a finger. I am a very lucky woman to have such a husband! I was able to spend the day enjoying everybody's company and it was lovely to have James here for Christmas. Such a shame the rest of the Cursley's and Patrick's couldn't be with us but we did a lot of video calling to the UK and Canada using Skype and we even opened presents across the world from each other, but in front of each other. I love this technology!!

Adelaide has had some very hot weather over the last week so we have taken Amelia to the beach and the swimming pool. She got confident in the water so quickly and on her 2nd visit to the pool she was kicking and splashing and even had a little swim with us holding her and propelling her around.

It won't surprise you to know that Mum and Dad sent this T-shirt for Amelia - she is her Grandad's Harley Princess (Thames Valley, Berkshire branch) but she doesn't have a motorbike yet, just a rocking horse to ride on!!

This has been a most fantastic year - our first full one as a family of 3, our first full one where we're both working full time at the same time (finally!!), one where we have spent time with both sets of parents, had close friends visit us and James has been living here with a wonderful woman - life couldn't be better. We remind ourselves how lucky we are every day.

With all our very best wishes to you all, may 2008 bring you, our friends and family and those dear to us, health and happiness.

Lots of love

Caroline, Iain and Amelia xxxx

Amelia's 1st Birthday, a surprise visit and other things!

2007-12-03T16:37:00.000+11:00

Dear Family and Friends,

We just celebrated Amelia's first birthday which as it turned out was a pretty amazing event. Mum and Dad had flown over secretly from England to be with us which was fantastic.

Not one of us knew, Dad had booked everything and not even told mum until 2 days before they were due to fly.

We had a great day. Amelia wore a special dress from my cousin Lisa and was showered with presents, the lucky little girl. The weather was perfect and I made a cake which came out extremely well.

The last couple of weeks since have of course been very busy with mum and dad here, working and christmas coming up so I am fitting in this blog very quickly!! Hence I won't write much now, but post these photos of the last couple of weeks.

With much love to you all and a very happy christmas!!

Caroline, Iain and Amelia xxxx

Amelia on her birthday with her cake

Amelia with a birthday present - her wooden trolley
On the see saw

enjoying the slide

At Symphony in the Serengeti

News from the hills

2007-10-18T15:47:00.000+10:00

Enjoying a relaxing lie down with mum

Hi,

It's been a very busy couple of months here. I have started my new job at Lifeplan which is going well. The company is very family friendly so I can leave at a good time and we can be in plenty of time to collect Amelia from childcare each evening. It has taken me a little bit of time to settle in as I landed there with no department, all the marketing people had left and the job had been restructured with different priorities so it's taken a little bit of time to get to grips with who does what, where and how!! I have been recruiting my team and I have been very lucky to have Alison Brown working with me who I worked with at SGIC. I have been to Sydney to visit the staff there and am off to Melbourne in November to do the same. The Funds Management industry is quite complicated so there's lots to learn but I am enjoying it and that's main thing.

Amelia has started crawling which is very exciting and now she's getting about very quickly. She's very keen to walk and this week has started doing a yoga movement we would know as downward dog, we assume this is one of the progressions to getting up!! She is getting quite independent now and wants to do things herself including a messy exercise where she grabs the spoon with such force and won't let go - she wants desperately to feed herself but doesn't yet understand the idea of keeping the food on the spoon. Consequently our kitchen floor gets pretty messy!

Little Aussie munching Vegemite toast

A couple of weeks ago my good friend Alison from the UK was over here visiting. Ali and her friend Peter spent a few weeks in Australia and their first stop was with us. We had the best time with them and were very sorry to see them go.

We took them to wineries, down the Fleurieu Peninsula, had a BBQ so they could meet our friends, had fish and chips at a shack on a beach, I took Alison to my yoga class and we also spent a day in the city with lunch at Henley Beach. This was taken at Nepenthe Winery in the Adelaide Hills - taken by our visitor Alison - what a wonderful day we had.

Visits are never long enough. Although the last day with them was a disaster as I came down with gastro and had to go to my bed. I was supposed to be in Melbourne that weekend but postphoned it to November. Iain was away in Brisbane so Zoe, Pen and Alex all rallied round and looked after Amelia while I was ill.

This weekend Lifeplan are having their Christmas show at the zoo so all kiddies are welcome - we are taking Amelia - I think it will be a lovely day. The first of the Christmas celebrations. Iain has a work Christmas event - we are going to the adult one for him so it will the 2 of us joining his colleagues for a dinner. We have Melbourne Cup coming up next week so there's lots going on that afternoon at my work, sweeps, raffles, food and wine and of course the horse race which all the Aussies stop what they're doing and watch - I used to find it bizarre that a horse race stopped a nation for half a day but now I just enjoy it!!

Here's Amelia in her new dress sent by my parents.

We had a very exciting experience last night, there was a scratching at the door and when Iain went to investigate there was a koala sitting on the front porch. We're not sure what he wanted - I thought a cup of tea - but soon after he waddled off and went up the nearest tree!!

We got a photo of him once he was safely up the tree.

Here's Amelia and Dad on a walk this weekend

Anyway, that's it for now - here are some more photos - mostly of Amelia as usual!! Will get some of our visitors posted soon I hope. Amelia is 11 months old now and we have a first birthday celebration planned for her in Mount Lofty Botanic Gardens on Nov 17th.

Lots of love to you all xxx

Enjoying a bath - we are being very water concientious and bathing Amelia in her old baby bath so we don't use too much precious water every night.

Spring in Adelaide

2007-08-20T10:12:00.000+10:00

Dear All,

Spring is coming, we have temperatures of 18 - 23 degrees this week and it's a welcome relief to see some sun after some very cold and foggy weather in the Hills. Finally we have blue skies, and daffodils, camellias and other spring flowers are out.

The last few months have been very busy for us. Hence the reason there's not been a post for about 2 months!

In June I started the interview process with Lifeplan Funds Management for their Group Marketing Manager. It was an intensive process and I was offered the position a few weeks ago. I start with them on September 3rd so I am currently having a couple of weeks off as I finished work at the Adelaide City Council last Friday. I'm very excited as it's a great job with a family friendly company and the people seem fantastic.

James is now here and it's been lovely having him just around the corner. We see him and Zoe and the kids quite a lot and they have been great having Amelia now and again when we have needed babysitting.

We started a stock market trading course last month with a private company called HomeTrader. It's very enjoyable and of course the idea is that is will also be profitable for us. Most of the tutors are no longer working and make their income through it so although we have a fair way to go until we could get to that stage, it's certainly possible one day. Although I think I would miss the social interaction and the enjoyment I get from my work. Some modules have been trickier than others. In my 2 weeks off I am going to modules during the day and Iain is doing them in the evening so we don't have to find babysitters every time we go. Up until now we have been doing them together in the evenings.

My birthday was in July and in the usual fashion we celebrated for weeks! Iain took me to see Cirque De Soleil - they were here in Adelaide in July and that was wonderful. We had a trip to Melbourne and last weekend had a long weekend in Sydney and caught up with Dave, Stuart, Brandon and their girlfriends/wives/kids.

The weather was fantastic and we had a lovely time pottering around going to markets and eating fish and chips by the beach.

On Monday I took Amelia to watch our friend Pen from Scotland take the Australian Citizenship oath at the local council offices. I gave her the words to the Australian National Anthem, Advance Australia Fair, but she was more interested in eating the words!! It also happened that Susie from my yoga class was taking her oath that evening as well, she is from South Africa so I actually was there to witness 2 people I know! Pen is having an afternoon tea this Saturday to celebrate her new Aussieness and also her birthday so we are looking forward to that.

We are off to dinner on Saturday night with my hairdresser Anita and her husband which should be nice and then Sunday, Pen and I have a stall at Stirling market where she is selling her hand knitted beanies and tea cosies and I will be selling cards. Of course there's no money to be made for me from cards but they are my creative outlet and I enjoy doing them. The stall is a one off, just wanted to do it once and have the day at the market in the nice weather and have friends come and visit and buy a card, drink organic coffee from the organic market cafe and gossip with the other local stallholders.

With lots of love to you all - write soon with your news! Photos from the last few months below

Caroline, Iain and Amelia xxx

Winter is here

2007-06-14T20:51:00.000+10:00

Dear family and friends,

We have had a very busy but enjoyable month. We have celebrated our first wedding anniversary on the 13th May. Thank you for all your cards and wishes. I can't believe it's been a year since we got married. Time has flown. Of course we've had the beautiful Amelia in that time so lives have been hectic.

We've also celebrated Iain's birthday on 21 May and he really enjoyed his first birthday with his daughter. I had a birthday helium balloon in the house and it lasted for about 3 weeks. Amelia was entranced by it, she defnitely couldn't figure out what it was but she had fun trying.

She's sitting up now properly, very few wobbles. In the last month she has also taken to solid food, and we're just starting on food with little lumps.

I am still busy with work at the Adelaide City Council, I have some interesting projects on the go and Iain has completed his trek around the country doing his business planning. It's the end of the financial year here in Australia at the end of June so now he has to present his plans and budget to the board and get their approval. This weekend therefore he will be busy with his preparation for that.

My friend Nat (bridesmaid) gave birth a few weeks ago to Thomas (Tommy) and he is very small, very squishy and very cute. I can't believe Amelia was the same size at one point!

So here are a few photos from the last month. It's cold and wet here now so we are usually to be found snuggling up at home with our new heating system.

Iain's birthday dinner.

My first meeting with Nat's new baby Tommy.

We went to see Hawthorn v Port Adelaide and Iain's team Hawthorn (the Mighty Hawks) won, he was mighty pleased.

Autumn in the Hills

2007-05-05T15:21:00.000+10:00

Dear Family and Friends,

For the past week or so it rained almost non stop in the Hills. While we would normally groan about this, it's been so long since we had good rain that we are very pleased. The garden has been well watered and hopefully some of our plants will spring back to life. We have had such tough water restrictions that keeping some of the plants alive has been a challenge.

Autumn has arrived and living up here means that we can really see the seasons change. The trees are starting to turn and display beautiful reds, golds and yellows. Iain and I had a fun day a few weeks ago pickling some quince and some onions. So many people grow so many things in their gardens here. Zoe has a walnut tree and I could take a whole page listing what you can buy on the roadside, apples, quinces, onions, chestnuts, to name just a few.

The most exciting news of the last few weeks has been James's marriage proposal to girlfriend Zoe who we are very fond of. James is leaving us tomorrow after 3 months to head back to the UK to sort out settlement on his flat and also apply for the required visas he needs to be able to come back to stay for a 12 month period. He is also looking at the options he has for setting up over here doing the foreign currency exchange work which would mean getting sponsored by a company so it's a bit complicated.

Over the last month or so we have said adieu to my friend Charleen who has moved to New York for an exciting job with Grey Worldwide advertising and also Chelsey who has moved to London. But we have welcomed back to the country Jane and Jason who have been living in London and are now in Melbourne.

We are hoping to get across to Melbourne in the not too distant future to see Katina's new place and catch up with friends. Iain is busy for the next few months flying to see colleagues in Perth, Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne to start the new financial year business planning. So we'll have to figure out some dates.

A friend and I have started up a new working women's dinner group once a month to catch up with ex colleagues and meet new people. We held our first one on Tuesday evening and it was a lot of fun. I managed to get gravy all over my white top so Iain was very amused when I got home. I'm worse than Amelia!

Amelia has been growing and is now into 6-9 month clothes. Mainly because of her length. I think she will be quite tall.

She has settled into childcare 2 days a week while I'm at work and she seems to be very happy there. We have been impressed with the quality of care that she receives.

Amelia and I have both been touched by the cold bug and have been feeling very snotty and dry so hopefully that will disappear soon.

This May we are looking forward to meeting Nat's baby who is due on the 20th, our wedding anniversary on May 13th (yes its been a year already!), my first mother's day also on the 13th and Iain's birthday on the 21st. So lots to celebrate.

Here are some photos from the last few weeks.

James with Amelia (ours) Amelia (Zoe's) and Mitchell

Looking happy after getting home from childcare

Local trees

James and Zoe

Iain and Amelia having a chat

Easter 2007

2007-04-06T23:19:00.000+10:00

Hi all,

Lots to tell since my last posting. I have returned to work 2 days a week at the Adelaide City Council which is great for the brain drain. I have Amelia on a waiting list down at a childcare in Aldgate but in the meantime, my retired friend Raice is looking after Amelia on a Friday and I work from home on a Tuesday.

Iain has continued travelling around the different states meeting his new colleagues and catching up with friends. On Thursday night we went out for dinner with Iain's management team and I picked the place. As a work funded dinner I picked Chloe's which is a beautiful posh restaurant, we ended up drinking 1965 Argmanac which just about blew my head off, but was fabulous.

Over Easter we have friends staying from Perth. They have come to watch the Rugby at Adelaide Oval.

On Friday we took them to the Meadows Country Fair and then to Hahndorf for lunch and a meander. Then we were invited to go to meet James' girlfriend, Zoe's family at her house for drinks. The whole family were there so we met Zoe's mum Eloise, her brother Dion and his wife Bree and their kids Elliot and Adeline.

We are having a quiet Easter weekend, enjoying time at home with Amelia in the beautiful Autumn sunshine and then on Monday we will take our guests, Ruth and Eleanor to the Barossa, it's the Barossa Vintage Festival at the moment and there's lots going on.

Below are photos from the last couple of weeks and this weekend so far.

Iain with Amelia at the Meadows Country Fair

Iain with his stein, a 1 litre dunkel beer in the German town of Hahndorf. As the Good Friday licensing laws dictate, to have a beer a meal has to be consumed so a Bratwurst was also enjoyed.

My stein was smaller!! Family photo in HahndorfOur guests from Perth, Ruth and Eleanor outside the German Arms Hotel

James saying hi to Amelia

It's been a while....!

2007-03-12T14:19:00.000+11:00

Hi everyone!

It's been a while since we last posted anything. We have had so many visitors it's been busy busy! Sylvia, Iain's mum was here for 3 weeks until the end of February and it was lovely having her. She had a great time getting to know Amelia.

While Sylvia was here, James also arrived to stay with us for 3 months. He met Zoe at Christmas and has returned to spend some time with her. Zoe lives in Stirling and has 2 kids, Amelia (another one!) and Mitchell.

Iain has been flying around the country visiting his colleagues in each of the states, so far he has been to Brisbane and Perth and goes to Melbourne this week, happily he is in town during the Grand Prix and has been invited by Allianz so he is looking forward to that and seeing his mates. He was also taken to the Clipsal 500 at the beginning of March. The Clipsal is a V8 Supercars race that happens every year in the East End of the City. The Adelaide Fringe Festival is also on during the month of March so Adelaide is buzzing. The Fringe is like the Edinburgh Festival, music, comedy, dance, arts and lots of exciting events. Comedians and artists come from all over the world and there's a lot of British comedians in town. We have booked to see the Scottish comedian Danny Bhoy again this year as he's so funny and we're also going to a night of comedy at the Zoo. I'm really looking forward to that.

So we're getting back to normal now and back into 'normal' life. Iain is enjoying his job and although it's Adelaide Cup and a public holiday today he has to work as they are a national company so will be still taking calls from interstate where it's a normal working day. However it means he gets a day off another time and we are off to Kangaroo Island for a long weekend just after Easter. The island is beautiful and unspoilt, it's a 90 minute car journey to Cape Jervis to the Ferry Terminal and then 45 minutes on the Ferry so not far to go. We have just bought a new car. A Subaru Outback which is all wheel drive so we get to go exploring off road and the boot is huge, just perfect for getting all of Amelia's paraphenalia in!!
Here is a recent video of Amelia on her playmat.

Here's some photos from the last month or so...

This was taken on our trip to the Barossa at Maggie Beer's Farm Shop. Amelia was put out that she couldn't have any of Maggie's beautiful ice cream so she was having a whinge...

This is the new car we have bought to replace my little Daewoo, which was miles too small for me now with a baby seat and pram etc. We are delighted with it and would recommend this car to anyone! It's a Subaru Outback

We discovered this beach on our travels down the Peninsula and it was so beautiful we had to go down and have a dip. This is Amelia's first official beach visit, she's the one you can't see in the pram!!

While James has been here he has been roped into a bit of photography.

Amelia a couple of weeks ago, happy in her pram.

And below some photos featuring James

James and Sylvia

James and Zoe

Iain at the Clipsal 500.

Our daughter is smiling and giggling!

2007-02-08T17:46:00.000+11:00

We are delighted that are a few weeks ago Amelia started to smile and giggle and make very cute noises. I wish I could upload the movie I sent to all of you but not sure how to do that and it doesn't seem possible with blogger. Anyway here are some up to date photos.

Recently we've had visits from Auntie's Nicole, Charleen and Chelsey. Here are a few snaps with the Sydney chicks

Meeting Char

Meeting Chelsey

A new year, a new us

2007-01-21T15:18:00.000+11:00

Dear Friends,

2007 is the beginning of a very special year for us. As good a year as last year but with less of the ups and downs - a more steady year for us we hope. We have started this year with an established home, Iain in a good job he is enjoying and a beautiful daughter so we are looking forward to what the year brings and finally getting settled, making plans for the future. Iain has settled into his new role as General Manager at Insurance and Member Services Ltd and is looking forward to progressing the business. He's already started to identify the things that need to be changed and some of the key opportunities for them to move forward.

We are incredibly excited about a visit from Iain's mum Sylvia, hopefully also his brother Keith and James coming back for a long visit in February.

January isn't out yet and already we have enjoyed a visit from Katina and will play host to friends from Sydney next week over the Australia Day long weekend and another visit from Nicole before she returns to Japan in February.

It's 40 degrees and I've flaked out!

Meeting Auntie Kat

I rock!

''I'm down in the hood'' - this hooded cardigan was sent from Holland by Cecile

At the Tour Down Under Street Party in Stirling

Email us at cpatrick@adam.com.au

Away in a Manger

2006-12-18T14:33:00.000+11:00

Dear All,

The last blog update of 2006 finds us in very good spirits and eagerly awaiting the arrival of Ma and Pa Cursley and James tomorrow evening. They have been in Perth and are coming to Adelaide via Uluru. It will be very very hot at the rock at this time of year so just one night there for them. We are very excited about introducing them to their grandaughter and niece. Amelia has been told that they are coming and promptly fell asleep...

Last night we took Amelia to her first Carols by Candlelight and she must have enjoyed it as she slept through most of it!! She just woke up for her food which was fair enough as Iain and I had been enjoying our picnic and then it was her turn to chow down in the open air!!

We took her to the local Stirling one. The one in the City is fantastic but you have to get there about 7 or 8 hours beforehand to get a good position and in this kind of heat it's hard enough when it's just you but with a nearly 4 week old, not sensible at all. So along we went to the local one which was very good. They did a live nativity enactment with animals from a local farm barn and lots of school kids as well as a choir of people who have fled the Sudan and now live here in SA as refugees. Their music is very different indeed.

Nat and some of her husband, Al's relatives from Lincolnshire joined us, they have 4 lovely boys from 5 to 11 and they had a good time. Here are some photos from our Carolling adventure.

3 weeks in...

2006-12-09T18:48:00.000+11:00

Hi everyone. So we are now 3 weeks in and we think we're doing ok as parents!! Amelia is thriving after a shaky start - she was knackered after all the effort to get out and was very quiet and sleepy for the first few days. Then we had troubles with breastfeeding. She's now a formula baby and now putting on weight and getting stronger every day so we're very pleased. The midwives have been fantastic and 2 of them, Sharon and Kate have been visiting in turns about every 4 days which has been a tremendous support. We have had plenty of questions for them!

Here is Amelia having her first bath at home. She loves the water and as soon as she's put in her eyes go wide and she makes faces that suggest she's very happy. As soon as she's old enough to come with us to the swimming pool we'll be taking her.

We took advantage of a beautiful day outdoors while Nicole was staying with us recently to get some shots in the garden. Unfortunately Amelia was having a bit of a moment and grizzling a bit. Here are the best ones where she's looking reasonably ok!! The last photo is of Nicole with her gorgeous 8 month old little boy Charlie. It was so wonderful to have her stay the week after Amelia was born. It was like being fast tracked into being a mum. She had so many great hints and tips that she's learnt over the last 8 months that I feel like I learnt many months worth of experience in 3 days. We went out together, the first times I took Amelia out without Iain, and was able to get to grips with the pram and nappy changing etc with lots of help and support from someone who knows what they're doing!

Now that Amelia is being bottle fed it means Dad can take over some of the feeds. Handy for some of the middle of the night ones. Although all that will change when Iain goes back to work, he will need his sleep...

After weeks of getting around to it, we finally spent a lovely evening this week putting up our Christmas tree while playing Amelia some carols. We also read the Christmas story to her so she knows now what Christmas is all about! Iain's sister Lindsey sent us a baby bjorn and here is Iain with Amelia (can you see the baby hiding in the photo?!) Amelia loves the baby bjorn, she falls asleep in it very quickly and looks very contented.

Just so our other 'baby' doesn't get left out, here's Jemina joining the family photo.

Iain had his mates down last weekend from Sydney and Melbourne. Iain had got tickets for the first day of the Ashes at Adelaide Oval. They had a great time, a lot of alcohol was consumed and a good time was had by all. Below is Kevin looking very cool with Amelia on his lap.

We are a family!

2006-11-23T23:01:00.000+11:00

Dear All,

I am so proud and incredibly delighted to be writing this blog announcing the creation of Family Patrick! Amelia Rose Patrick is now home and here are some of the photos from the last 2 days. First of all a photo of the Roses that are blooming at the front of our house, a beautiful view to welcome her to her new home.

Eskimo kisses for dad and daughter

First and only photo so far of the three of us. We'll be getting more of the family unit over the next week or so when we have people around to take them. This one we were still in the hospital and I'm wearing no make up and trackies, hence the need to take more pics :-)

We arrived home late last night (22nd November) and were all very weary, here are phgotos of Iain and I as we arrive in through the front door.

Mum, Dad and James sent a lovely bouquet of flowers...

Amelia has been napping on the sofa this evening, still recovering from her really intense entry into this world!

This was taken earlier at the hospital - we were both so tired and I took the opportunity while waiting for the doctor to have snooze in the reclining chair.

But when Amelia was pronounced fit and healthy we were very happy and went shopping for PINK clothes - I think I was more excited about that than she was, she's been ok with green so far :-)