All the latest news!!!

This will probably take a few minutes because of the amount of photos, why don't you take a power nap...

 This update, July 2002.

Well, since the last update (late 2001) a lot has gone on in the Joyce family. Of course the big news is how great Keira is doing. She has developed into a regular little girl. She crawls like a little crazywoman, can stand up, shuffle left and right, sit down, play simple games, and she has two teeth on her bottom gum.

She is now 9 months old, weighs approximately 9kg and loves to laugh and chat away in baby language. To see a page of the latest baby photos go here.

Keirin graduated university finally in December, yay! Hardly satisfied though, he has signed up for a Masters of Aviation Management through University of Newcastle. Rae also can't help herself and has signed up for a Bachelor of Education (Secondary) through Charles Sturt University and a Masters of Religious Education through Australian Catholic University.

Christmas was a wonderful affair last year with a new baby in the family. Keira got most of the presents understandably and although spending most of the day asleep, we are sure she had a lovely time with all the extended family.

January's big event was Keira's Christening. Held in Canberra, it was wonderful to have so many of the family come down to celebrate it with us. Keira is indeed very lucky to have such a loving family.

Before we left Canberra, we did manage to finish up most of the Canberra house, get some tenants in, and landscape the lawns. On a weekend trip passing through Canberra we also dropped in to do some gardening and plant the flower beds. It now looks lovely and has appreciated in value quite substantially.

Also, before leaving Canberra we finished the Super Caravan! Most of the summer holiday was spent out in the front yard working on it, but it was worth it because it gave us a home for the next four months in Wodonga and Wagga. It's pretty flash and will do us for many a family holiday in the future.

We packed up the house in Duntroon and moved on out. Our first trip was to Albury/Wodonga from January to March. Some of the photos from Keira's latest page were taken on one of our day trips to Woolshed Creek Falls. We had a lovely time there with many of our friends on course also. The only real downside to Wodonga was our car doing a head gasket and costing us a whole lot of money and heartache.

After course, Keirin headed up to Townsville for two weeks while Rae and Bub stayed with the folks in Sydney. Keirin came back down for Easter break and we all headed to the next destination, Wagga. We spent a three weeks in Wagga and one in Melbourne on that course. We learnt why people hate Melbourne weather - it was very cold and wet the whole week! But, we got to see brother Jon quite a lot which was lots of fun.

Then we made the big move - Townsville! We got to spend a weekend in Canberra first which was great because we got to catch up with heaps of our friends before taking this very large trip. The move went remarkably well and we moved into our new married quarter - it's huge (compared to what we're used to anyway...)!

We spent a few weeks getting to know our new home and Rae had her first Mothers Day.

Then, with only four days notice, Keirin got the call-up to go to East Timor. He was the officer in charge of a servicing team sent over to do extra maintenance on Australia's Blackhawk helicopters. The trip itself lasted five weeks and included a week in Darwin doing preparation course. The money was great and the work and environment wasn't that different to working at the Townsville base. With the job done though he was more than happy to come home.

With a bit of extra cash in the pocket we went shopping when Keirin got back to Australia. We bought a house! It is a very old miners cottage in South Townsville that needs some TLC, but has had a lot of renovation already done to it. Yes, we have taken on another project to chew up all our time and money! It has its own webpage too. We should settle on the contract and move in sometime in mid August.

Speaking of projects, you might be asking what's happened to the Corona? Well, due to being so hectic travelling around and now committing to a new project in the house, well, she's on the backburner for the moment. She started up well enough when we moved all the gear out of Canberra after sitting idle for four months - I'm impressed! She'll get there.

Back to main page.