Q2/3 2026 | April - August

Another quarter (well almost two quarters) and the blog posts are now fewer and fewer.  Its starting to feel like the end of an era - and perhaps this blog becomes key milestones only - birthdays, graduations and holidays... But the 743 previous posts are a great journal of the early years - hopefully the girls enjoy reading them over the years to come - because mum & dad will definately be flicking through the pages!

Onto fun - Given Spud is usually the only child paying any attention to mum and dad these days - we took him out for a nice day on the beach... 

After which he was very tired.

We even made him a new cover for his crate!

Claire got a new job, at Honey Birdette... and Keira - is just her wonderful self :)

Mum and Dad have been getting out and enjoying the increasingly child-free weekends and evenings.

And occassionally even getting out with the girls!

Senile Youth performed another two gigs, at Abby's (the 1 year anniversary of their first performance) and again at the Petersham Town Hall.

Keira's penultimate school photo...alas no more sibling photos!

And Claire revealed her 'first' bit of permanent doodling!

And we even celebrated dad's birthday with yakitori and gelato cake!

Happy 17th Birthday Keira

And our wonderful Keira is 17, and racing towards adult-hood at a scary pace!  

Keira celebrated her birthday with a wholesome picnic party, complete with parachute play - though we didn't get to see any of the pictures.

On the day of her birthday - we celebrated with cake and food at home, and seem to have moved on from The Room of previous years, though she did watch it herself!

And after a rather turbulant evening, Keira chose the perfect moment to surprise us and reveal a belly button piercing!

And... for memory sake, some quick links to Keira's previous birthday celebrations!

• 2009 - Birth day
• 2010 - 1st and the party
• 2011 - 2nd and the party
• 2012 - 3rd
• 2013 - 4th 
• 2014 - 5th
• 2015 - 6th 
• 2016 - 7th
• 2017 - 8th
• 2018 - 9th 
• 2019 - 10th
• 2020 - 11th
• 2021 - 12th
• 2022 - 13th
• 2023 - 14th
• 2024 - 15th
• 2025 - 16th

Japan | May 2026

In May, Dad & Keira jetted off for a week and a half in Japan - carrying on the dad-daughter tradition started with Claire back in March 2023, on the premise of 'work-experience', but was really just a good excuse for the two of us to escape the cold of Sydney, and enjoy some quality time, some great shopping, amazing food - as well as attend the Short Shorts Film Festival (which was the true excuse).

We started the trip with a couple of days in  Nagasaki, to the far south of Japan - which gave us an insight into small-town Japan (even though Nagasaki is a reasonably large town) - where the pace of live is vastly different to that of Tokyo.  We spent some time learning about the infamous history of the town, but also exploring the old (undamaged) part of the town, incluing an unagi restaurant that has stood in the same location for 160 years!

After leaving Nagasaki, we had a whirlwind week in Tokyo.  We based ourselves in Ebisu, but spent time exploring all over town on various side-missions, focused around gachapon, pokemon, thrifting and eating!  We visited what must have been every used CD store in town, the thrifitng town of Shimokitazawa, the flea markets at Oi, and had at least 1 matcha drink every day for the entire trip!

We visited an Art Aquarium (very cool actually), ate way too much food, and make a nightly pilgrimage to the convenience stores (konbini) to pick up some snacks and some YouC1000 drinks to replenish ourselves from the 20,000steps per day we were walking!

The film festival, at MoN Takanawa: The Museum of Narratives was a great experience - where we saw 25 odd short films by young and emerging directors from around the world.  Each daily session finished with a short Q&A with some of the directors.

We ended with a Sumo Show & Dinner - which was surprisingly good fun... And then it was back to reality - work and school!   Unfortunately Dad's phone catastrophically failed with about 3 days to go - so there's no photos to share of the final days!

So - here are the photos - Nagasaki!

Tokyo

Film Festival

Art Aquarium

Sumo

And wise words..