Elke Laureen Mowbray!

Born 22.21, 6th November 2009 at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Sydney, weighing 3.89kg (8.6lbs) and 53cm in length. It wasn't an easy start and after an 18 hour labour and with the help of some forceps little Elke came into the world!



K only spent the Friday and Saturday night in the RPA and then we were allowed to bring our little girl home. The first week was busy but great as we got to know our little girl and she got to know us!

Sydney to Gong 2009

K was due the next day but I had to do the Gong ride this year so Andrew had someone to ride with :) and so we could do the whole 90km this year. I managed to borrow a road bike from Phil at work so at least I wouldn't be struggling bouncing up and down on the hills on my suspension like last year.

We started at round 6.20am from St. Peters near the city, we were riding in the Westpac team hence the shirts. Thinking we'll take it easy at the start to pace ourselves we didn't really hold back and rode well.




We did well in the end - thinking we'd do it in around 4 hours we managed 3 hours 19 mins inclusive of forced lights and police stops - pleased with that :) and K didn't even go into labour once.

City 2 Surf 2009 Training has begun

I've managed two training runs over the last week in addition to my normal boot camp routine. The training runs have been in the form of the bay run plus 2Kms. Tracking this in MapmyRun.com Check it:



Although I'm some 3 mins off the pace of last year I have had over a years break from long runs since completing the Sydney Half Marathon in 1hr50 at the end of last May.

Update:
I managed to run in 74 minutes even though I pulled a ligament in my left heal a week before - running on pain killers works though I wouldn't recommend it I've been hobbling around in the morning for months! once it warms up it's not so bad, hope it is well recovered for training for next years run, as I'll be in the first group!!

Boarding in Japan

The last week in February saw us heading to Hakuba, Nagano region, in Japan. We were meeting up with Nige, Si, Jane (16 weeks pregga's at the time), Mart and Rhona. K and I had a quick night in Tokyo then it was off to the mountain via a 5 hour Bus Ride from Tokyo.

It was our first trip to Japan and I can safely say that "We Loved IT!!". The Japanese people and their culture is amazing. People are so considerate of each other it makes the rest of us look like a bunch of... lets face it.. Wankers!

We had a week boarding / Skiing - minus Jane, due to the growing lump in her belly, and plenty of vending machine beers and interesting meals out. Apparently the snow was the worst it's been there for years, but we certainly didn't complain. Compared to Threadbo this place was a dream!

The girls and Si headed off to the Snow Monkey's mid week, while Nige Mart and I battled with the worst weather of the week. Still the following day was magic and "Hukuba cam" attached to Nige's head got the best movies of the trip.


After a fun filled week in Hakuba we all had a few days to explore Tokyo before heading our different ways home. We'll definitely go back.... a little surprise was K was actually 5 weeks pregnant when we were there, which was confirmed on our return. So "Jellybean" as it was then had a very early trip and snowboarding lesson ;)
This had to be the best meal of the trip - Hakuba Sushi night..... uuummmmmm Sushi.... eye poppingly good.

For more pics check out the links below:

Part 1:http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=79893&id=524261120&l=4b280c7080
Part 2:http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=79899&id=524261120&l=58e4402ff3

"Big Stuff" Sydney to Sunshine and back!

Karen and I have just returned from our christmas trip up in QLD
Budrim on the Sunshine coast to stay with Christine, Robbie and
the girls. It was a great relaxing trip and good to catch up with
friends up there too! Cheers to Ja, Cass, Mick, Clare, Tina and Aron

On the trip up and down we thought we'd see how many 'Big things'
we past en route. As you can see Oz still loves it's "Big Stuff"!