Dear Friends and Family,
wow – where did that year go? But on recollection, I guess we did manage to squeeze in a fair bit, and sharing here it helps remind us just how lucky we are – we are thankful every day.
To start with, since last year’s annual “dear diary” entry 😉 we celebrated Christmas 2015 in Albany with our Aussie side of the family. After some beautifully mild summer weather in Albany, and lots of good food and company, we then made our way a short distance around the coast to go camping with friends outside Denmark to see in the New Year.
It was about this time that we started talking about fostering a dog again, having looked after a rescued Staffie for a short while towards the end of the previous year. Whilst thinking about it, “let’s just pop in to take a look at some puppies,” Sarah said. Famous last words. Lucy snuggled into our arms, melted our hearts (Dave took a bit longer, but has since confessed), and we brought home our new fur baby in February.
We had some minor home renovations early March, re-doing some of the tiling in preparation for winter. But the main event was definitely the Easter break, with Sarah’s family coming across for a well deserved two-week holiday. We had great fun introducing them to Aussie rules footy, the wildlife out at Caversham, and the welcoming cheer of friends and Dave’s family down in Margaret River for a surprise birthday party for uncle Bob.
April brought an unexpected job opportunity – and change – for Sarah. She’s now travelling the state helping clinics and pharmacies grow their sleep and respiratory businesses, training staff to use her new company’s medical devices. Sarah gets to work based from home the rest of the time, and is loving her new role and team. She was also granted Australian permanent residency status in June 🙂 Dave has continued in the software architecture role he’s had since last August, and the work this year has progressively been getting more interesting – he’ll be happy there for a while longer yet.
Breaking up our rainy (but mild) winter, Sarah had a July sales conference in Queensland, so she decided to go a few days early and Dave tagged along for the weekend. We invited up some friends that live in Brisbane – it was great to catch up, do some coastal walks and drink in the amazing scenery.
In September, Dave’s sister Rachel and partner Dan had our super-cute nephew Joshua. He and family are doing well, the usual sleep deprivation aside! First time Sarah’s held a baby in a while – can you tell from the expression? 😉
At the start of October we had the opportunity to tack onto another of Sarah’s work trips, and this time spent a long weekend in & around Adelaide, road tripping, hiking, and avoiding flooded tracks with varying success.
Then at the end of the month, we took four days down south in Yallingup to celebrate Dave’s “Big four-O”.
Incredible turn-out on the Saturday evening with nearly 40 people – thanks to everyone who came down and made it so special!
After all that excitement, the last six weeks has seen us knuckling down at work, and Sarah studying for the last unit of her MBA. After her final exam in a week or two, she will just have her major project to hand in early next year – and then will be done! A very gratifying effort juggling work, study and life so successfully over the last couple of years.
Finally then, as we send this, we get to round the year out with family & friends in the U.S. A couple of weeks to recharge and enjoy a festive – probably snowy with a chance of meatballs – Christmas and New Year.
We hope you have an amazing, happy and healthy Christmas!
Love, Lucy, Sarah, and Dave.
(PS: sorry for writing in the 3rd person, we never got round to looking up the grammar rules for letters that come from two people and a dog! Just means you get to have fun guessing who it was)
Other pics from the slideshow are linked below.
Click any thumbnail for a full-sized picture and description.
