My name is Carolyn and I am 39 years old and loving it!! Someone once told me getting older was like a good bottle of red wine. I shudder to think about the 'dregs' at the bottom of the bottle, but hey you take the good with the bad!! I am happily married to Steve and have been for 19 years. About 16 of those years Steve served with the Royal Australian Navy. We have spent a lot of time away from our extended family, but since 1997 Steve has retired from the Navy, and we are at long last civilians.

Steve and I have three children, Michael who is 18, Allissa who is 15 and Jaysen who is 8. We live in the city of Newcastle which is about 1 1/2 hours drive north of Sydney. Newcastle is the 6th largest and one of the oldest cities in Australia, and because of this we have been blessed with many wonderful old buildings of great beauty. Our beaches are among the best in the country and are very clean. We also have mountains about 1 hours drive inland that have pristine bush in the valleys. And for those of you who are wine buffs, our Hunter Valley wineries are among the best in the world.

We have a rather different family tree. My older sister Sandy, married Steve's younger twin brother -(younger by 10 minutes!! lol) Phil. Sandy & Phil have two boys, James and Shawn. Their two boys look similar in many ways to our three children, and sometimes they make facial expressions that remind us of each of the children.