O’Dowd Family Christmas Letter

Although none of believe it can be, it seems another year has slipped through our fingers and the festive season is here once more. It has been the usual hectic pace for us all and, reflecting back, amazing just what was squeezed into twelve months.

The members of our household each became a year older – Rodney 45 and Yvette 46, Melissa 25, Kaitlyn 22 and Kieran 18, while Frodo and Merry the cats are now ten and our lovely dog Molly is a mature one year old!



For Kieran – and the whole family – it was a final year at school. Year 12, the infamous VCE and all the ‘lasts’: last school photos, last school uniform, last parent-teacher interviews!! As he puts school behind him and looks forward to studying computers at TAFE in 2010, it is a bitter-sweet end to a school-focused household since 1987, when Melissa began kinder!



Melissa may have grown up a lot since those days, however it seems she has spent most of this year in the dress up box! Her love of designing and sewing costumes continues to grow and she has created amazing outfits for herself and Kieran as they explore the world of Anime fans (a type of Japanese cartoon, if you are as bewildered as I!) She is enjoying her job at Savers Frankston, has recently moved to full time and is training to take on a more senior role. These past weeks she has had a few shifts as store supervisor. Melissa finally got her driver’s licence early this year and bought her first car. She continues to enjoy Salsa and Swing dancing and this year learned to Tango for a performance! And she still goes juggling when she can fit it in!





Kaitlyn has had a most eventful year, moving out of home in late July, into a share house with her boyfriend and several friends. Having bought her first car a few weeks before, you would think she couldn’t top that, however she and boyfriend Ashley Greig became engaged just prior to her birthday in October and are planning a wedding on November 14th 2010! Plans for that and an engagement party in January have everyone entering a whole new world!



Kaitlyn’s bedroom was briefly empty after she moved out, but only as long as it took the paint to dry in Yvette and Melissa’s new scrap and sew room! This motivated Yvette back into the scrapbooking which had stalled in previous months – most probably explained by her unnoticed need for reading glasses, rectified at her birthday check up!

Yvette’s health has been mostly good this year, the MS not causing any major dramas. Just as well, for between working 3 days per week at the new Breastfeeding Centre in Dandenong, continuing yoga classes and taking up swimming lessons and water aerobics, there wasn’t much room for downtime. Plus the steady scrapbooking that has resulted in 40+ albums (so far!)She celebrated her 25th year as a member of NMAA/ABA, clocked up 17 years as a breastfeeding counsellor and continues to have her finger in many ABA pies!



Rodney continues to work hard and play harder, fitting in two work trips to Japan amongst other more local travels. His racing bike goes nearly everywhere with him and he continues to ride/race most Saturdays and Sundays.



One of our greatest pleasures has been our dog Molly, a cavalier King Charles Spaniel who was born in April 2008. Her wonderful personality brightens everyone’s day – except for Frodo and Merry, who tolerate her antics up to a point and then thump her! Molly walks Yvette regularly on Frankston beach and has developed quite a local fan club.



Kieran is now the only one not to be a member of Facebook, everyone else enjoys regular connection with friends and family – including catching up with long-lost cousins, school friends and other faces from the past. We all embrace the internet technology and the way it keeps us together, even though our lives take us in different directions.

2010 will be a busy and exciting year for us all and we look forward to having our family and friends along for the ride!