2012 Year in Review - Easter Greetings

We are staying home for Easter this year and I am at this moment boiling the eggs to dye and Zoe and I will start making Koulourakia as soon as I finish this email.  Our school holidays start next week and Tony's boys, Harry and Daniel will come and stay with us for a week.  Zoe is still learning to drive but has gotten to the stage where she has driven in all conditions (except snow! :-) ) and is driving for us everywhere.  She is doing well and from now we will have to do more parking and reverse parking practice so that when she gets her licence in November she is highly competent in all areas.  She is doing very well at her first year of College (yr 11 and 12 her last years of school) and then the following year she expects to go to Japan for a year before studying to become a vet at Uni.  She is studying Japanese and doing well and really enjoying it.  Of course she gets a bit of extra help at home which is fun for me and helps her.  We try to speak a bit of Japanese around the house when we remember.  I wish I had continued to use Japanese at home with her and Grant as they were growing up.  Oh well...

Grant is having a good start to the school year this year and I am hoping that this will continue and improve some more.  He is actually capable of much more at school, but tends to just cruise instead of pushing himself.  A bit like his soccer really.  He could be and do so much more but seems to lack motivation maybe.  He is still playing well and has great skill.  Maybe that will come with age, who knows.  He played very well at the Futsal Championships and his team for the first time in many years, beat every team in Australia.  Unfortunately they lost in the final match to NSW our rival team even though they beat this team the day before in their pool to their great delight!  It was a shame to lose in the final as they had played and achieved so much, but they were very happy overall and surpassed their own expectations. They even made it on TV! for a couple of seconds! :-)  

The outdoor season has just started and after many months of trialing, Grant has made it into an under 16 Canberra City team.  Most of the boys in the competition are 15 year olds but Grant and a couple of boys who are 13 have made it into this team.  We didn't think he would make it, but has played well in their first match of the season against what looked like a team of giants! :-), even though they didn't win the match.  Zoe has also come a long way in her soccer and she is playing under 19's this year.  Her team played in a pre-season tournament the two previous weekends, and ended up winning the whole tournament undefeated.  This is the first major competition she has won and she was very excited.  I'll put a link to the photo and report online at the end of this email if you're interested. 

She's still working at KFC, but she's not as happy as she was there, so she's thinking of changing jobs at some point soon.  I'm still working at the school, though finding this year tougher than in the past, but still enjoy it.  I'm also singing in the choir again this year and am really enjoying it.  I've also taken up tennis again, mainly because Grant is keen to play, so he and I go down and have a hit at the local club as often as we can fit in.  But with him training twice a week, having a match once a week and training with the ACT squad once a week, it's hard to fit it in.  Spike is still lecturing and is also still playing lots of soccer.  He's out currently playing tennis with a friend this morning.  Zoe's in the kitchen starting on the Koulourakia and Grant is in his room playing on his ipod and chatting on Facebook no doubt.  He's just become addicted this year.