Mel's 22nd birthday

Here are some pics from the event. The young ones are usually shy of the camera and were reluctant to have their photos taken. I guess that's obvious! Ah well, I managed to get some anyway. They'll have to do. Nick (the rock star looking one- or 70s emulator as he calls himself) was in fine goofing around form!

Mark and Laura flew to Melbourne Friday evening and caught up with Mel that afternoon. They don't feature in the photos taken at the Pancake Kitchen, where Mel chose to share a meal on her birthday.

Tomorrow, school resomes for the fourth and last term of the school year. It is just 9 weeks and packed full of the end-of-year events that'd be expected.

I've had a busy and productive holiday. It's been great to spend some really good times with my kids and my parents in Adelaide as well as completing a lot of school work.

I'm looking forward to this time, with more family birthdays to come too!

Photos

Laura and Mark and Mark with me on my 52nd birthday in August

My oldest son, Mark, is a professional artist. He does some part time work gallery sitting, but not regularly. I wrote somthing about his art in an earlier post. He's in Singapore at the moment and has an exhibition there.

He'll return to Adelaide on Wednesday.

On Friday he flies to Melbourne to give another one of his artists talks about his work.

His partner is Laura. She works as a personal assistant to the Adelaide Senator. The life of politics would not be my choice, but she seems to thrive on it. She was this senator's campaign manager for the Commonwealth elections last November. It was through this campaign that this senator was elected to parliament for the first time.

They live in a town house in the city of Adelaide, about 3 blocks from the city centre of Victoria Square. It's what you'd call a central location!

They are a great couple who enjoy the night life that Adelaide city has to offer. She is very supportive of Mark's art career and they both enjoy visiting exhibitions and watching live bands. They both DJ at times too.

Mark is an expressive kind of guy. He's certainly not the traditional few words man and can express himself and share well when he feels comfortable with people.

I'll miss him if, well actually it's more like when, he and Laura spend a few years overseas in the not-to-distant future.