2016

2016

Given the lack of updates over the course of the year and the simple fact that I am on holidays and its raining, I thought I’d take a moment to put together a quick summary of our year. (though I didn’t get too far with it and am finishing it off in January!)

Waaay back in January, our year started with the excitement of a trip to Bali with the Rowlands. It was the 20th wedding anniversary and Jason planned a beach side re-commitment ceremony to surprise Bel. We were lucky enough to tag along. We had an awesome time and the fact that it wasn’t documented in my blog probably comes down to two things: How busy we were and the fact that I managed to spend at least part of the holiday turning myself inside out and couldn’t be bothered sitting down to write. 

The kids had a great time. We went white water rafting, rode bikes down the mountain, saw the monkeys, temples, snorkelled and even ate and drank a bit along the way. Michael took full advantage of the resort’s swim up bar and took on the role of drinking buddy for Bel, going cocktail for cocktail all thanks to my generosity!

The only thing that took the edge off the holiday was spending a couple of days turning my insides into my outsides. That and Cam deciding to get sick to the point of having to go to hospital on the last day and nearly missing the flight home. Alls well that ends well though.

February saw us return to work with no sign of holiday relief on the horizon. So knuckle down it was. 

We all had a good year and the biggest challenge that we collectively faced was probably adjusting to Caroline working full time at the same time that I spent much of the year travelling for work. 

Emily decided to follow in Sam’s footsteps somewhat. With Sam playing what seemed to be almost every sport that was offered, he usually had to be at school either early or late. As he was able to drive, Emily opted to go with him rather than get up almost as early to catch a bus that would get her there just in time for school. So instead she opted for getting involved in more sport herself. She did well at school for the year and all the extra curricular activities earned her her Mercedes Gold colours at the end of the year, something that not a lot of people manage to achieve. She also started playing softball with Sturt Falcons toward the end of the year just so that we don’t get to spend our Saturday afternoons relaxing (not the real reason, but certainly one of the consequences). So far it’s been good with mostly positive results, though she’s going to miss the start of the second half of the season due to other holiday commitments.

Thomas spent the year at a new school, having decided that he’d like to try a different path. He was accepted into the Australian Science and Maths School late in 2015 and so this year has been enjoying a completely different approach to learning. He has certainly revelled in the fact that there isn’t a uniform to wear. His results were pleasing and hopefully have set him up for his next 2 big years as he takes on years 11 and 12. Sport wise, having committed to a school where sport seems to be something of a distraction rather than any sort of priority, he opted to go back to playing club soccer. He went out to Adelaide University and played in their U16 side. The results were challenging, but from a personal perspective it was pleasing to see him improve significantly throughout the season. 

In addition to playing, Thomas continued with his refereeing and spent a lot of his Saturday afternoons assisting at U18 and Premier League reserves games. He enjoyed it enough that he’s planning on only refereeing in 2017 which will no doubt result in us transporting him all over the place (though much of that work load was taken up by Sam.). One more year to go of that as he managed to get his learner’s permit and by the end of 2017 should be onto his P plates. Scary stuff indeed

Sam had a big year with it being his last year of school. He approached it in typical Sam fashion: Organised, dedicated and self-driven. Given some of the horror stories that you hear from some people about how much stress there is around the family when someone is going through year 12, I can only think that we were very blessed indeed. As noted previously, he took on a lot more than just the final hear of IB. He went through the year with a significant sports commitment as well. He did give up his job at KFC so that he could focus on his studies, but other than that, there were few concessions, just a whole of lot of effort. And given that I’m finishing this off in January, I can happily report that the results are in and he has done very well. Sam also turned 18 late in the year, so you can read more about him in the post that I put up for that occasion. 

Michael has spent the year at Uni working towards his double degree (at least when he’s not sleeping or playing a computer game) The biggest change for him was probably taking up hockey. After being prodded and poked to do something physical so that he’d be at least a little bit active he came home from orientation week to announce that he was going to play, much to his mother’s delight. It added another fixture to our winter weekends and we managed to get out to a number of his games. He certainly improved a lot over the course of the season and appeared to enjoy it as well. He’s continued to be employed at Donut King for the year which has resulted in us consuming more donuts than one family really should eat, but I suspect that he’ll be looking for a change sometime soon if for no other reason than the opportunity to earn more money than one shift a week brings in.

Caroline’s biggest challenge for the year was her knees. Having had an arthroscopy during the year before she was torn as to how much involvement she should have in hockey. In the end she opted to coach and play for Uni’s Div 5 team, dropping down in the hope that the demands to run wouldn’t be quite the same and that it might preserve the knee. Sadly it seems that it didn’t pay off quite as much as she hoped and it may prove to be the last year of her career (though there’s talk of filling in occasionally in 2017 just to stay involved). 

Work wise Caroline was made permanent during the year and then later took on a step-up role replacing someone on maternity leave. She continues to enjoy what she’s doing which is always positive. About the only change that she’d really like to make in the work scene is to cut a couple of hours back to see a bit more done around the home front, especially with me travelling as much as I have been.

As for me, it could be said that 2016 was the year that I ran. I decided that if I was going to be away from home I was going to keep fit rather than sit in hotel rooms eating and drinking. I think I’ve resolved not to assault everyone with my running on Facebook this year, I’ll just leave it on Strava for those that are interested 

I decided at the end of the previous soccer season that I’d enjoyed things enough that with the team dropping back to division 3 I’d have another tilt in the reserves. After all, I fully expected that we’d take out the Reserves title and that proved to be true. We even had another run deep into the cup competition, falling in the semi-finals to the eventual winner. I was even asked to play first team a couple of times and only missed being best and fairest by one vote. Not bad for an old fart and so 2017 will see me fronting up again. 

Work has been challenging, but seems to be headed in mostly the right direction. It certainly beats being unemployed and I’ve appreciated having the full 12 months behind me 

That’s about it for us over the last year. We managed most of our traditional camping trips as well, Easter and Port Hughes and October in Mannum and will look forward to them again in 2017. Hopefully the year behind was kind to you and 2017 brings you good things as well.