HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Wishing You a Safe and Happy 2026!

Hi Everyone, I know we are already a week into it, but I just wanted to wish you all the best for 2026. I hope it will be a great year for you and those who are important to you.

Alex and I were incredibly lucky over the holiday break; both Calan and Xander came back to Forster to visit us, and their partners, Sarah and Alyssa, joined us as well.

We had the most fantastic Christmas Day with our dear friend, Eleanor, reminiscing about our 18-year-long friendship over great food and a brilliant bottle of 10-year-old red from Eleanor’s collection. (Yeah, there might have been a few other bottles opened as well that day.)

Eleanor was the first person in Forster who offered and, more importantly, whom we trusted, to babysit the boys for us when they were younger. The boys loved staying over at Eleanor’s, as she would set them up in her lounge room with their own table of snacks and let them watch “Nickelodeon”. No streaming service back then; you could only access if you had cable service, and we didn’t.

Here we are, pictured below, in 2009, with Eleanor celebrating Xander’s 6th birthday.

And here we all are in April 2021, the last time we all got together, celebrating Easter at Eleanor’s place.

Eleanor, Alex and I also got to enjoy some very special Christmas cake for Christmas pudding, which Calan and Sarah helped make on Christmas Eve.

Our cake, which was so tasty, was a bit of an homage to my Aunty Jan, who has been making the family Christmas Cakes for decades now. She actually made two cakes for us this year, but we were unable to catch up before Christmas, and this is why we attempted our own.

Unbeknownst to us, Santa was working her magic (aka, Aunty Jan). She drove out from her property near Grafton to the highway and met Xander and Alyssa (who were on their way down to us from Queensland) at a rest stop and delivered them two Tupperware containers of gold.

With one and a half of these bad-boys still remaining in the pantry, Alex and I are set for the next couple of months. Thanks, AJ!

One final note before closing this post, I would like to say thank you very much to all of you for checking out the blog last year and reading my posts. It is still such a thrill to know that something I create and post might be of interest. Also, another huge thank you to those of you who reached out to me to share your own connections to our family. What a gift.

Happy New Year,

John