2012 on the march

So, since Christmas we have had....

- Birthdays for both Alissa and myself – probably the most non-eventful occasions we’ve experienced in a while. We’ll save it till next year.
- Aibhe’s 6th birthday which involved a party with about 20 6 year olds in the house and pool and garden for 2 crazy but fun hours.
- Aibhe starting year 1
- Emma starting proper Kindy
- Max....... ‘starting’
- Nana and Tom’s visit for the month of February – incorporating a trip to Sydney for all. Everyone enjoyed the time and the room downstairs certainly became "Nana and Toms".
- Lots of rain resulting in rather phenomenal growing all around the house – meaning a very busy Toro tractor, regular mower and whipper snipper come weekends. An acre is time consuming.
- Roughly 100 plants put to ground around the place
- A brown snake experience
- The somewhat embarrassing saga of the Australian PM battle between Gillard and Rudd. Nobody I knew cared – they’re both crap. As for the ultimate muppet Treasurer Swan, God help us. If Stalin was around they'd be sharing political views.
- Regular early wake-ups to Max (pretty much 5am or thereabouts daily) – now going through that terrible frustrating 6 to 12 months phase (7.5 months old now)
- Confirmation that it is now medically impossible for us to have another – so put away any thoughts about asking if we’re going for 4

I have also been up and down to Sydney with work regularly, to Melbourne once, heading to Fiji for a conference on Sunday, then the following Monday to Shanghai for 3 days. Then back into the short hops up and back to Sydney. Alissa and I are heading to Auckland for a few days in June (without the kids!) to take in the Ireland vs All Blacks encounter and then come August, Emma and myself fly home for a couple of weeks.

The house. I think we can safely say we are done for the time being. Recent amendments include fly & insect screens pretty much all around the house (now I concede these are 100% necessary and not nearly as ugly as I was lead to believe), more joinery in the spare (guest) room downstairs and giant remote controlled outdoor blinds for the main deck to reduce the need to wear sunglasses in the living room from late Autumn as the early sun blasts in for the first few waking hours of each day. This latter addition also has the effect of almost making a quasi room out of the big deck area, most pleasant. We have one final plan for the place which is of a larger scale, but that can wait. We need to sit back and enjoy for a while.

What is very pleasing is that despite the massive amount of rain we’ve had (still less than last year mind you) the pool is still pristine. No need for stress every time I see the next bout of torrential downpours approaching – unlike back at the old place in Bardon.

Safe to say, we’re appreciating and enjoying living where we are now. It’s good. All we need now is for Max to start crawling (very close), expending some daytime energy and frustration so that he'll go past 5am in the morning. Autumn is coming and mornings are darkening, it's just not right to be awake at that time.