Christmas in Buderim 2011

On the 16th December 2011 we set off at 4:30am on another road trip up to Queensland to visit Chris and Robbie.  It had been 3 years since we last did this trip and the obvious difference, apart from the fact that we have a different new car, was we obviously now have a two year old to contend with!  This, as you'd expect, filled us with excited anticipation and had comments of "I'll fly up with Elke and meet you there?!" on numerous occasions on the week leading up to the trip.
Day one of the drive we decided to travel about 500km and were booked into a nice camp ground in Nambucca Heads (50km south of Coffs Harbour) called The White Albatross - leaving Sydney so early we arrived there at around 11:30am so had the rest of the day to relax and enjoy the place:

It was a fantastic little park with great facilities, Elke had forgotten about the drive that morning, which was good because we had another 400 kms to do the next day to Tina and Aaron's place on the Gold Coast.  It was also Karen's 35th Birthday so when we arrived we found out that they had arranged a little party at there place.    We had a great evening in Narrang and although we woke a little too early, with a few sore heads, it was time to move on up to the final destination for our Christmas break.  Chris and Robbie's house in Buderim
The next few days were spent  with early morning runs and swims for Robbie and G on Mooloolaba beach, dog walking afternoons on another beach and visiting some of the attractions on the Sunshine coast (such as Under Water World, Eumundi Markets and Buderim Ginger factory).  Plus there was the odd last minute shopping and socialising to be done.

Chris and Robbie's house is beautiful and big!  So they hosted a lavish Christmas party for 11 kids and 10 adults.  There was apparently 16 bubbly corks that flew off the balcony, according to Robbie the following day :)
We also managed to get the old FaceTime working with the likes of Don and Matt back home, not that I remember much of the conversations had on our Christmas night mind, as it's unlikely that they remember the ones on our Boxing day morning!

As is always the case with Christmas, the days just flew by and although we had a few showery days leading up to Christmas, on the whole it was very nice weather for our 10 nights with Chris Robbie and the girls.

Elke had an absolute ball with her three cousins, Keira, Ava and Olivia.  On the morning of the 28th December 2011 it was time to embark on the journey home.  We left Buderim at 5:30am QLD time and were back home in Five Dock by 8pm that night.  We had intended on making a one night stop but as Elke was travelling so well and we were making good progress (despite my slight indiscretion with the cops at going a little over the limit on a duel carriageway, but we won't go into that) we decided just to blitz it straight through.
New Years was held at our place with some of our local friends.  It was a lovely Christmas break and start to 2012!  Happy New Year.

 Foamy beach dog walking arvo with the kids after the Christmas king tides and swell had slightly subsided.

Some pics of out and about on the Sunshine Coast (Aussie World, Under Water World, Noosa and Mooloolaba Beaches)

Spring and Summer 2011

Here's a few more recent pics of Elke being a little monkey and having fun, and on Cockatoo Island with her cousins Charlotte and Madeline on a recent camping weekend.

Elke's 2nd Birthday

Elke turned 2 on the 6th November 2011.  We had a party at home the day before and invited all her friends. They had a ball! and luckily it wasn't raining so the carnage was mainly contained to the backyard!  Elke is thriving, talking lots and even in little sentences now.  She's currently 91cm and 13.7kgs... she's tall for a 2 year old, must have the Mowbray genes there :)

RIP Pete - 16/09/11

Top bloke. You'll be missed!

Citizen G

I have become a dual citizen in this year of our lord 2011 :)

Elke inspecting the flowers at the Five Dock Ferragosto Festival 11/08/2011

Elke had Mummy and Daddy running around after her this afternoon, and it was tough as this was the same day we'd both completed the City2Surf 2011 (Daddy's 4th and Mummy's 2nd)

Elke and her bubbles

January - Shellharbour Beach

Popped down to Grandad Frank and Nana Sue's for the weekend - it was a lovely hot one so we went to the beach and Elke loved it this time. On Sunday cousin's Charlotte Mads and Zac were there doing nippers so she got to have a paddle with them too. Got to love Sydney in January!

Christmas 2010 - UK

We had a great trip back to the UK for Christmas, and for Don and Anne's wedding in Tetbury - the Cotswolds. Plenty of snow the first week made it fun. We spent Christmas in Bristol with temperatures not getting above freezing - then back to Watford for some catch ups with friends and even managed a little trip on the Eurostar to Antwerp with Matt and Tash and were shown around by our friends Ivan and Annika - it was a fun holiday!

What's been going on lately

Elke has been keeping us busy, she's now nearly 10 months old and changing a lot - shuffling around on her bum, rather than crawling yet, making lots of different sounds that are getting close to words - mummum and dada and ta are about the limit of the recognisable ones. But I was impressed the other day when I said "Elke clap" and she did - so she understands more than we realised already - so can follow simple commands like that or wave. She still has a tendency to wake in the early morning around 3-4am and chat away to herself - but K assures me she is sleeping better than the rest of the kids in her mothers group.

What else - we've been unsuccessfully, so far, trying to sell our flat in London, we did find an investment place that was going to buy it and they pulled out a week from completion *sigh* So we're giving it six more weeks then looks like we'll have to rent it out again until the market in the UK improves so we can sell the bloody thing!

K and I both did the City2Surf 2010 - where I managed to put in my PB at 70:10 (5 minute K's booya~!) and K managed a respectable 2hrs7mins in her inaugural City2Surf race.

Work wise - I'm three months into my new role in the Engineering Workplace Services team and K's doing 2 days a week at her new investment job - with one from home, meaning Elke only needs to go to childcare 2 days a week.

That's about it for now - I'll leave this post with a Wordle I created from plugging in my Blog url (Wordle.net):

Elke - The First 6 Months

A collage of 0ur little girl over the last six months! She's now sitting up and interacting with everyone and everything. We're still working on the sleeping through the night part - just don't seem to be able to get enough milk in Elke during the day to keep her asleep all night - there's just too much going on that needs her full attention! :)

I've been uploading pics to fb for people to see her development over the months - here's a link to the album Elke Laureen Mowbray - Pics

Well she'll be 6 months in 4 days and K is off back to work, just two days a week, so it's off to childcare Monday-Tuesday's for the little one - lots of people to meet and toys to play with there so we're sure she'll be fine - it's in the city and costing a small fortune so I hope she likes it.

Christmas 2009

Big Sis, Christine, Robbie and the girls came to visit for Christmas with us this year. We had some lovely weather the first week and made a trip to Taronga Zoo and Chris and Rob managed to catch up with some friends. We had a lovely Christmas day down in Shellharbour with the rest of the family then a quiet New Year (as Chris had gone back up to Queensland with her brood by then :))

Elke is now 8 weeks old and is continuing to thrive, lots of smiles and gooing going on lately and she's managed a number of sleep through's from 9pm-6am which has been great! Looking forward to her development over 2010 - Happy New Year!!

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"!

Super Dude

Thanks Kumar,this is gold!

http://www.makemesuper.com/r.php?i=3_8cd34-165221-m-Dude

The Finishing Touches

Vine to hide the fence. It'll all get oiled the same colour once it's a nice weekend again with no threats of rain.

The Finished Deck

Well she needs a good oiling, we've done all the jokes about coming around and giving my big deck a good oiling etc.. but it needs to stop raining for more than 3 days, lucky we built it last weekend is all I can say.

I also need to get an electrician around to wire the deck lights to the other outside light, they're all working though.

Job done, she turned out pretty good I think!