The Family That Stays Together

WRITTEN BY VERONICA STIVALA

To celebrate upcoming Mother’s Day we find out more about the strong bond between a mother and her daughters.

 

It is not every day that you find a family who works, travels, spends the evenings and weekends together. Then again, the Carabot family are not your everyday family.

I speak to the three vibrant ladies in this family – Annemarie and her daughters Sarah and Nicola. Just looking at them one can see their zest for life, the sparkle in all three pairs of eyes.

Indeed when I ask the daughters what strikes them about their mother, they note assuredly how it is her ambition that comes to mind. “Our mother worked so hard to achieve what she has today, together with my father, and it makes us so proud to think that at 24 years old, our mother knew exactly what she wanted to achieve in her career, and put all her soul, passion and love into making it a reality.”

The girls are speaking about St Michael School, a co-ed establishment, which has successfully grown to include a kindergarten, junior and senior school. And this is how the three have come to work together: Sarah teaches in the Primary School and Nicola works in admin.

A sign of their close relationship is reflected in the fact that not only do they spend their working day together, but they unwind together in the evening in front of TV or chatting. On the weekends, they muse: “We love to go out for lunch and enjoy going round the shops together”.

The family’s best tradition is their annual family holiday. “We love to travel, and have visited many countries both in and out of Europe. In fact, we visited Colombia and Panama during the Christmas holidays,” they reveal.

Sarah has the travel bug particularly strongly and recently spent three months traveling around South America. She attributes this love for travel to the fact that she was exposed to many different cultures and lands on the family trips. “I love adventure, exploring new places, meeting new people and tasting new food, and I really don’t mind roughing it up, which is why I love backpacking,” she confides, adding how she thinks that “the more you travel, the more you realise how important it is to go through life with an open mind… and it is always amazing to see how music and food connect people from all walks of life”.

the more you travel, the more you realise how important it is to go through life with an open mind…” 

While the three ladies are very close, they are also strong, individual characters, and this is reflected in their style. Sporting a matching white blouse and trousers, Annemarie describes her style as smart casual. Her hooped earrings and red and grey Saz scarf with matching lipstick certainly add a touch of flair to her dashing outfit.

Like Mother, Like Daughter.

Annemarie Carabot with her daughters Sarah and Nicola.

With a bright emerald and magenta scarf in her hair, Sarah wears wide black pants and a stylish elbow-length white blouse. While she loves wearing black, she admits her style varies according to her mood: she likes to “mix bohemian, flowy clothes and accessories with some on trend items like crop tops and chunky sneakers”. 

The three tend to stick to dark colours, so they find Saz’s scarves and accessories always inject that flare of colour and dress up an otherwise dull outfit. This is exactly what Nicola has done. A fan of current fashion trends, Nicola has jazzed up her ripped jeans and black polo with a powder blue Saz scarf that is dotted with orange, black and beige.

The ladies sit close together as they pose for the camera, again a reflection of their close ties. “My proudest memory is seeing both my girls graduate from University,” reminisces Annemarie. She will also never forget when she was about to give birth to her “supposed boy, Matthew, but then hours later Sarah was delivered” or watching Nicola perform and dance on stage. 

To all our mothers, and mothers-to-be, Happy Mother’s Day!

Photos: Tina Mifsud
Annemarie and her daughters wear: