They are neighbours, they are mothers, they are business partners, and they both believe they live in the best place in the world.
In fact, on Monday 1 November, the pair will celebrate two years of bragging about their address to anyone that will listen.
And aside from their boasting becoming a full-time job, it has also brought them a very successful, profitable business.
Their names are Rebecca Searles and Sonia Cazzulino-Blake and their creation is Lake Mac Family Life, a website and social media group celebrating all things Lake Macquarie.
Since its inception in 2019, the online resource has become a go-to for everything its audience might need to know about living in the popular city.
The family-focused platform offers local businesses, family walks, things to do, events and jobs in Lake Macquarie.
“It’s grown and grown beyond our expectations,” Rebecca says. “It’s going from strength to strength and it’s very humbling.”
Lake Mac Family Life currently has 13,000 followers, its website receiving 65,000 hits per month.
It’s Facebook group boasts 8,500 members.
“The community has really enveloped it,” Rebecca says.
“It is such a compliment to hear they are using it to discover things about the area that they didn’t know before.
“And many of them, like us, have lived here all their lives.”
Rebecca and her husband were both raised in Lake Macquarie.
After a time living in Sydney and Newcastle, the pair bought a home in Valentine, hoping to mimic their own relaxed upbringings for their two young children.
“I had spent time chasing a marketing career in Sydney, I battled the traffic and the chaos for a while, and then came back to raise a family here,” Rebecca told Newcastle Weekly.
Fast-forward eight years to a primary school fundraising committee meeting and Rebecca stumbles across a like-minded mother.
“I remember we were both helping to organise a market for the school and I remember seeing Sonia take such control over the jobs she did, she was so efficient and organised, and I remember thinking how much she was just like me.
“We complement each other. We have a lot of respect for each other.
“We love working together and we love what we do.”
For Sonia, who still holds the threads of an English accent, an international move from the UK to Sydney 20 years ago left her feeling incomplete.
“I lived near Manly in Sydney, it was beautiful, but we moved out of Sydney for better housing affordability,” she said.
“We looked down to Wollongong and up as far as Newcastle and I couldn’t find the perfect place.
“Then one day I got lost and ended up in Warners Bay. I phoned my husband, who was home with our young children, and I said ‘I found the place we’re going to live’, and that was that.”
Sonia has been living in Lake Macquarie for a decade.
“It was the best thing my husband and I did moving here, it was a bit worrying, we’d made so many moves in our lives, but it’s such a wonderful place.”
The Lake Mac Family Life journey began when Rebecca’s husband, a tradesman, was needing to advertise, to kick start his business.
Confident her marketing background made her perfect for the task, Rebecca promised she’d get it the boost it needed.
“What I found, within 48 hours of looking, was that there was a hole in the market, in connecting local small businesses with the community in an affordable way,” she said.
“I thought ‘I can’t ignore this’ and I sent Sonia a text message (from next door) that just said ‘Lake Mac Family Life’.
“When I saw her the next day she said she hadn’t slept last night’.
“We knew it had legs.
“There was a lot out there for Newcastle and the Hunter Valley but in Lake Macquarie there was this void.”
The duo now regularly post articles about events, trades, jobs, and family-friendly activities.
“Our whole concept, what drives our business, is connecting locals and putting local business first,” Rebecca said.
“We love what we do and we love where we live.”
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