That's a wrap!

Tom is now 18 and our work here is done ;)

We threw a joint 18th for Tom and Harry in the back yard. Jo and I insisted on a guest list so that we could control who was invited and stop gate crashers - we were amused when we were presented with a list which had 48 boys and 73 girls - apparently it's all about ratios! We had 2 marquees - a dance floor and a food/activity marquee. The party started at 7pm and Tom did a set at 8pm which was amazing. He played the first chord to "Into You" and everyone went off! It was basically karaoke for the next hour as every guest sang along to all the songs Tom played - it was fantastic and really set the tone for the party. We had Noah Rumbold as DJ which he does in his spare time. Noah is Leanne's son (one of my very best friends) and I've known him since he was 6 weeks old when we met again through Tess' mother's group. It's amazing how life comes around. It was such an amazing evening and everyone had a ball. 

Harry, Sheldon (who for the record is bald!!) and Tom

The two marquees 

Tom on stage doing his set 

A view of the party goers

The night before Tom's party he was out at Nina's formal until 2.30am! Nina was also at Tom's party and the two of them held up very well. Tom commented that he shouldn't have got drunk at a girls formal the night before the party because he had an extra number of girls to add to the party list on Saturday morning...

On the afternoon after the party we had a Balgowlah Heights Primary School reunion for all the kids finishing school. It was so fun seeing all the kids and trying to recognise them - I'd last seen a lot of them when they were 12 years old! Quite a few had been at the 18th and plenty of parents came up to me to say they'd heard great things about the party - Parents of the Year award coming our way!!! 

I'm not sure where this leaves this blog. The kids are grown up and they were always my focus. My blog posts have become fewer and further between as a result of them growing up. They're living their own lives and it's not my story to tell. I suspect I'll continue to do the odd post for major events - holidays, significant events but it will be a lot more irregular. 

I started this blog because of my mother and her legacy to me in the form of her audio tapes telling the story of her life, the amazing family photo album she produced which goes back several generations on both sides of the family and her Desert Island Discs that everyone who attended her funeral received a copy of. Having this history in various forms has been so incredible for me and I've loved sharing it with the children at the appropriate time. I also started the blog because we chose to live in Australia and I wanted our UK family to feel connected to us without having to always jump on the phone or on email. It was an easy way to share photos and stories without inundating people's email boxes - they could choose how much/often they wanted to engage and that sat better with me rather than constantly going "look at us and our amazing life!!!". There's no doubt that blogs are curated so we've had bad things happen that I may have glossed over but I've tried as much as possible to "tell it like it is" because this is also for the kids - a record of their childhood and a reminder of how very very lucky they are.