The ‘Melbourne Stewarts’ News2015 This year has been another full one
for us as a family; with births, a death and no weddings!
We were delighted to welcome the very
cute Letty-Brooke into the extended family on Jan 3rd – she is
indeed a joy and delight and Brandon, Safina, Arieta and Samuel are justifiably
proud.
She was born right on her due
date and the next few weeks Grant was often found down in Wonthaggi with
Brandon helping renovate their 1950’s newly purchased bungalow as the “Young
‘uns” prepared to relocate 125kms southeast.
They eventually moved in February with nearly all the work
complete. Brandon and the kids
especially love being 10 mins from the coast with plenty of coves, rock pools
and swimming beaches, not to mention some delightfully challenging kayaking
opportunities on the wild south-facing coastline!
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| OK Brandon... now what? |
January we scarpered to NZ to meet up
with Grant’s sister Jan and Graham for some summer sailing in the Bay of
Islands. It was fantastic to see them
both looking so well and we had a wonderful week cruising what is one of the
best sailing destinations anywhere. We
even managed to join in with the annual “Tall Ships” race, albeit as
spectators… Unfortunately, Kalai
developed some overheating problems with the engine which restricted us from
some longer planned expeditions and meant some re-conditioning work over the
next few weeks. Ahhh, the joys of
boating are certainly mixed with the challenges!
Grant was back again in April to
complete the work and also to make a few more improvements (as is his
custom). Together with Barry and Ruby, they
picked up a second-hand little dinghy in Dargaville which only needed a few
minor seating modifications to work with the 2.3m ‘turbo’ hand-crafted oars which
he managed to smuggle onto the plane in Melbourne.
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| Sir Graham on the helm! |
A highlight this trip was meeting up with
some old buddies (aka ‘The Balunatix’) to celebrate Mike Enright’s 59th
birthday – they all decided that the ‘x9th’ birthdays were much more
worthy of commemorating and to meet again next February for Grant’s.
Cathy returned to NZ again in February (along with Amber) as
a surprise for her parents who were celebrating their 60th wedding
anniversary. It was a very quick four-day
visit, but they were totally unaware of the surprise until we arrived on their
doorstep.
Meanwhile, Amber and Nick were busy preparing
to move into their new home in a delightful terrace house in North Carlton… upon
which Amber promptly started drawing plans for renovating. Around this time an announcement was made
that a second grandchild would be forthcoming in 2015 and November was the due
date – for both baby and the completion of the renovations! Unfortunately, the building work had some
delays, but fortunately so did the expected birth. The builders finally signed off early
November and Edward Frederick (Ted) was born on November 18, a fully-formed and
long-limbed 9lb 1oz young man!
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| Hey... What's up, Doc? |
He’s certainly an active character,
rolling over at 2 weeks and wanting to engage with the universe right from the
start. The grandparents are also suitably
delighted to add two more to their tally in the one year!
Grant
continues to pastor part-time at East Doncaster Baptist with some encouraging
signs in the development of new connections with a younger generation through a
variety of fresh ministries and some real positive signs for the future. He continues to chaplain the Melbourne Storm
NRL team and has picked up some exam supervision and teaching
opportunities. His commitment to the
sailing regime has curtailed some of his other recreational pursuits, though he
still enjoys sea kayaking on a regular basis with friends, particularly with
his good mate Bob Fergie.
Cathy continues to work two jobs
over 4 days a week as well as keeping busy running Jonathan around to various
evening activities and as volunteer Site Manager at emotion21 Adults group (Jonathan’s
dance group).
Jonathan
started the year well with part time work at a local Community Centre, but
unfortunately this only lasted 5 months and stopped once the funding for this
work ceased. He has continued to attend
a course one morning a week and volunteer at the emotion21 dance office on
Friday mornings. We are hopeful of work
with Melbourne Storm next year which is being set up differently to previous
times and he will have 3 shifts a week, starting in February. He continues to be involved with basketball, gym,
Special Olympics (athletics) and dancing.
This year he was privileged to be part of the group dancing at the Mazda
Foundation Gala Dinner, which was held at the Crown Casino. As the date was also his 26th
birthday, he was surprised when everyone in attendance sang “Happy Birthday” to
him, which made his day.
Brandon finally handed in his last
assignment for his degree in Mission Studies at Tabor College last month after
working hard these past few years and has started work at Connecting Skills
Australia, an organisation that provides work for people with disabilities. The best thing is that it is five minutes’
walk from their new home!
In December
Grant was delighted to have Brandon and young Samuel accompany him on a ‘Boys Sailing Trip’ (See ..\Davidson31\Videos\Boys
trip.mp4 ) to NZ with young ‘Samu’ quickly becoming an accomplished sailor,
delighting to scramble into the ‘little boat’ and relishing the opportunity to explore
‘Pirate’ Ships, learning how to steer a yacht and to discover some secret
coves!
Sadly, we had to have Shana, our 14 yr old greyhound and
family member for nearly 12 yrs put to sleep this past week. Ash, our other greyhound is missing her, as
are we.
We managed
to get most of the ‘mob’ together again this year for Christmas – next year
should be a beauty with an 8yr old, 5yr old, 2yr old and 1 yr old no doubt all leading
the charge!
Lots of love, Cathy, Grant and Jonathan
Young Canny Caston dutifully was waiting atop the Opua Hill and we loaded bags, nicked off to Paihia for a few more supplies and within an hour or so were poking our noses down the estuary on a beautiful afternoon...
