It’s hard to believe that 2006 is already a memory, the time seems to have just slipped by.

In January I completed the Story Bridge Climb as a birthday present from 2005; the views were spectacular. I became an uncle for the second time, with the birth of Maggie Grace.

Between January and April, a foolishly dedicated group of my colleagues and I undertook an insurmountable task. To this day, I’m not really sure why we did what we did; but I’m truly grateful to have gone through it with some of the finest people around.

In March, as an early birthday present for Claire, she received a very cute kitten which we named Princess. Throughout the year, Princess has given Claire and I a great deal of pleasure and we’re grateful that she came into our lives. Still on the pet front and it was time for the Lattimore family dog, Gizmo, to move onto greener pastures.

Somewhere around the middle of the year, MFS (the parent company of Stella Resorts Group) decided it was time to turn Stella Resorts Group into a force that the market would have to pay attention to. To that end, they started an aggressive acquisition trail, acquiring a slew of other tourism related businesses such as:

• S8, which included Harvey World Travel, Gullivers, Travelscene, Travelsonic, Virgin Travel and others
• Outrigger Australia & New Zealand
• Tourism Hotels Leisure, which included brands such as Pacific International, Plaza Hotels, Grand Pacific and Golden Tulip
• Sunleisure
• and more

At the same time, Stella Resorts Group saw a need to replace their core IT infrastructure and software to accommodate the rapid expansion. The whole process has been an incredible eye opener, especially seeing first hand how swiftly changes of this magnitude can be executed in a large corporate. Its quite a daunting task however I and Stella Resorts Group are blessed to be working with a group of highly talented people and I can’t wait to see it all unfold.

August was a pretty huge month for quite a few reasons:

• I clicked over 2 years with my current employer
• Claire’s Grandfather Eric passed away
• Claire’s first nephew, Oliver was born
• We celebrated George’s 70^th birthday
• We found out that Belinda was pregnant

In September, Claire and I celebrated being married for a whole whopping year! It’s hard to believe that Claire and I have been together for the better part of ten years now, we’re old hands at this stuff.

Claire has been in almost constant employment with Education Queensland since she completed university. Unfortunately, that employment hasn’t come easily at all – at times its been a highly stressful and frustrating ordeal. Fortunately, on the last day of school last year; Claire was offered a permanent full time teaching position at a primary school! When Claire called and told me, I was jumping for joy knowing that we don’t have to worry about that aspect of our lives again. I’m really proud of Claire for continuing to kick the tyres and seeing it through. The Christmas break this year was fantastic, good company and great food. Following on from Christmas was my 26^th birthday and the seeing in the new year!

2006 seemed like a big year, with quite a few lows and highs. Overall the year has been rewarding and I’ve learnt a lot about life and myself. I think 2007 is going to be even bigger but it’ll bring different challenges; which I’m really looking forward to.