I’m Julia, mum to three amazing sons and Children’s Guide is my “other baby” – my continuing passion project.
We have also had children of various family friends, sometimes up to 3 at a time, live with us at different stages for durations from 8 months to 5 ½ years as these kids moved from teens to early adulthood. We were always that house that everyone dropped in to and other parent friends regularly asked for child-minding or sleepover favours.
Following our move from Sydney to the South Coast of NSW, as my sons move through their teens to adulthood, and as the population of my house gets smaller, I am loving this new chapter of adventure and discovery.
Like all families, life can get busy and chaotic regardless of age, but we have a pretty good routine – I am a neat-freak, I love being organised, I love lists and everyone helps. We are an open dialogue family and we’re prepared to pick our battles and let some things slide. But above all, we have fun!
A library in our home (we love books), a once large and well used craft cupboard now downsized to make way for teen interests, experimental foodie-family kitchen and simple living to save every spare cent for travel and DIY house reno’s, we have an eclectic and happy home. We have always had a love and appreciation for our local community, as well as the communities, small towns and cities that we and our kids grew up in.
My corporate background ranges across government, private, environmental, media, charity and arts sectors, I’ve served on a Board and regularly volunteer at community activities and events. In setting up Children’s Guide, I am certainly drawing from my past career as well as my love of lists, our busy-organised-happy family, and travel experiences to develop Children’s Guide into a comprehensive resource.
But I couldn’t do it without the incredible support of so many businesses and organisations wanting to get involved, and I especially couldn’t have gotten this far without the best team members in the world. I am so grateful to CJ, Hally, John, Karen, Jaz, Louie, Lynne, Marie and Victoria, who have each had an invaluable role in setting this up over time.
They say it takes a village, it absolutely takes a team and I’d love it to take a community.
