Does this make me a good Dad or a bad Dad?

As soon as Balin & I got back from swimming Saturday morning we decided the 32 degree Autumn weather was still best appreciated first thing in the morning ...

As my skateboards are still in our storage locker since our move, I figured I would introduce Balin to the scooter.

He got the idea of it straight away, as he kept saying 'more' as we headed up and down the hill with a huge smile on his face.

Really he just wants to be like the 'big' boys

Out of sight on my scooter

Can you say CHICKEN!!!

Eventually Balin was persuaded to get on his bike for a while

That scooter just proved to be too tempting though, forget it Balin, the scooter is mine, my toy box is still bigger than yours ... but only just!

Vannes Eli Cooper

Name: Vannes Eli Cooper (Pronounced Van)
DOB: Sunday 8th January 2012
Time: 1.44 am EST/Queensland (Saturday 7th January 3.44pm GMT/UK - 8.44am MST/Utah - 7.44am PST/California - 10.44am EST/New York - 5.44pm CAT/Central Africa - 4.44pm CET/Central Europe)
Weight: 3.46kg (7.63lbs)
Height: 51cm (20 inches)
Head: 34cm (13.4 inches)
Hair Colour Currently: Brown
Eye Colour Currently: Steel Blue
Gestation: 38 weeks
Special skills: Already sleeping through more than 5 hours at night

#2

Saturday 7th January

6.00am ish - Noelle lets me know that she thinks her waters have broken

8.46am - Work call out about an hour out of town to a country retreat motel with very poor phone reception

4pm ish - Get home having done a quick shop along the way - Noelle is having regular soft contractions about 7 to 10 minutes apart.  We have kept in touch throughout the day by text message.

4pm to 8pm ish - We get the last few things sorted, both car seats in the car, bits of tidying around the house, some more baby things down from the loft.  The power in the house goes out twice and we can't find out what is causing it.  As we get ready to go to bed early (knowing it will likely be a disturbed night), and Noelle tries to get a hot water bottle to help with the pain, we discover it is the kettle tripping the power.

Sunday 8th January 2012

1am Noelle wakes me, tells me that she is ready to go to the birthing centre, they have got the bath ready and are expecting her.  I get Balin up, give him some food, jump in the shower, and we all head to the Hospital.

1.22am - We arrive at the Hospital A&E entrance, I was hoping to get Noelle out quickly and then move the car, but she struggles to get out so we have to move again to let an ambulance out while they get a wheel chair organised.  As it is night, we have to wiggle our way around locked hospital hallways to get out to the back of the hospital, and through to the birthing centre.

1.32am - Still struggling to get out of the wheel chair, the midwife gets a heart beat reading, as Balin and I move from the delivery room to the lounge to watch The Lion King, I go back to check Noelle has everything she needs.

1.44am - #2 arrives, a boy, healthy and no problems.

3am - Balin and I head back home to bed.

10.30am - After an extra feed we all leave hospital and head home, with a quick stop off at church first.

A 12 minute delivery is still clearly exhausting ...

In my family we had a tradition that the new baby brought each of the existing children a gift when they arrived which they received at the hospital.  I have very few early childhood memories, so only remember the Penny Racer toy car that my youngest sister Selima brought me when she was born.  #2 brought Balin a Bumblebee Transformer crash car that transforms when you pull it back, let it go and it crashes into things - this seemed to be more than acceptable to Balin - #2 has already made a good first impression on Balin, smart kid!

Cooper boys all together just before we left the hospital this morning.

 More info and better photos when we have all had a bit more sleep ...

Movember 2011

This is my third year of participating in Movember, and although my 'Mo' is really quite disappointing, this year's attempt has gained the most attention of any year - I think that the glasses helped the look this year?

Although the Movember Foundation raises awareness of various men's health issues and supports different charities in different countries, in Australia the primary charity that is supported is the the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia.  In memory of my Dad, who died 5 years ago today from what started as prostate cancer, my 'Mo' was kept until about 30 minutes ago.

Thinking of you Dad.

Lake Time

I worked Saturday morning, but that didn't stop us heading straight to the Lake for a great afternoon as soon as I was done.

Balin has grown out of last years life jacket, but he seems to approve of his new one, and it has a handy handle for lifting him onto the boat.

How could anyone not love it here?

Even with wipe outs ...

We took it a LOT slower for Noëlle and Balin

Can you spot this year's 'Mo' attempt?

Balin was perfectly behaved on the boat, although, like the snow, he doesn't like it when water sprays in his face when on the tube ... we'll keep working on that one.

Jeff getting a bumpy ride.

Coop

Keeping the entertainment going with flamboyant wipeouts

Apparently Balin finds those quite amusing

Nap time even happens on boats ...

but the fun continues for the rest of us :D

Although I am not sure sure Karon was fully convinced of the 'fun' here?

Thank you Peays for a great afternoon

Number 2

It's cooking nicely at the moment ...

Winter

I am always a little sad when I have to concede that winter is over, but as the last ski lifts stopped turning today, I figured I had better do a bit of a blog update and catch up on our winter.

As we now live in the tropics, winter this year has been a little different.  I have been described by other snow goers as ‘hard core’ this winter, that may be something to do with driving over 2000km each way to get to our closest snow, or fly.

Of course we make it all worthwhile with our luxury 5 star accommodation below the snow line once we get there …

Seriously though, as I ride up lifts on days like this …

… and get clear empty runs like this, it really is worthwhile.

Balin was also much more interactive with the snow this year and loved stomping around in the white stuff

Snot Face?

I even get hugs in the snow :D

Perisher Base

Balin was the smallest/youngest solo toboggan rider on the hill, and definitely seemed to impress a lot of people with his smiles and giggles.

And of course he had to get an early start on the snowboard.

I am sure that these photos are more than enough for most, but just in case they weren’t and you want to see some of our other favourite snow photos just click on the link below.

Winter 2011 - Thredbo & Perisher, NSW

Staying more locally the rest of the winter, we got up to some other adventures too ...

Now before anyone asks, Noëlle avoided any snow activities, she threw a few snowballs and I pulled her on the sled – If she hadn’t had the threatened miscarriage then she would have snowboarded, she did with Balin and further along in the pregnancy.  As for our activities below, Noëlle was already pregnant, but when we did them there had been no problems and she was still in her first trimester, and neither of these activities presented any significant risks.  Also none of these activities were the cause of Noëlle’s threatened miscarriage.  I know some people would choose not to do them, and would think that we are not sensible for doing them, especially considering how long it has taken us to have successful pregnancies.  In the end we are who we are.  Noëlle was very active all the way through Balin’s pregnancy, we have always done plenty of research on the risks of any activity we do, and since the haemorrhage and threatened miscarriage Noëlle has been very limited in her activities -  I think that she is quite keen to get more active again after this pregnancy.

So back to the catch up – one of the great things about where we live right now is access to great diving locations.  A while back we decided to do our first autonomous paired dive, no dive master, just us.  We rented our gear and headed to what we hoped would be a more protected bay, as the sea conditions were pretty choppy and we were doing a shore dive.

The location was beautiful.  We have really struggled to find climbing spots since moving up here, and while there is no serious climbing at this spot there are some great bouldering rocks to perfect skills and just have fun on without the hassle of having to set up any ropes.

The visibility was really low, as we had been warned, this meant compass navigation once we were under water and having to keep very close to each other. 

Despite the visibility issues, as long as we stayed very close to reef outcrops and bommies, we actually saw a lot of coral formations and fishlife.

We had a total underwater time of 1hour 5 mins as we were both on large tanks and shallow diving, but when we surfaced, the currents were pretty strong and the tide was on it’s way out, making swimming back to shore pretty tough, we decided to swim in submerged with our remaining air, but after Noëlle lost sight of me twice, we decided to head straight in to the rocks on the surface.

Noëlle will tell you I saved her life at this point (of course many would say that to save it, I first had to put it in danger, however, Noëlle chose/arranged the dive location and chose to do a shore dive with no dive master, not me).  Anyway, I saw how tired Noëlle was in the strong currents, and decided to head in to rocks rather than use the extra energy to aim for the more distant sandy shores.  Exiting by rocks on a changing tide is pretty rough, especially in full dive gear.  After helping Noëlle swim against the tide and current, I went in first, and made it up the rocks, where I signalled Noëlle to come in, and then pulled her up on to the rocks.  It was a long walk back over all the rocks.

We have both been back in the water since, with a dive master, I am glad we did this dive, and we will do another autonomous dive after this next bub arrives.  It did shake Noëlle up and reminded her how powerful the ocean is, but I think it is healthy to have a little bit of fear, it helps to prepare better for the unknowns of this sport.

One of our other winter highlights was doing a flying fox through the rainforests near us.

I will admit that, as it was just the 2 of us doing the course, it went pretty fast and therefore seemed quite expensive for what was really just 2 zip lines.  There was a reasonable hike through the rainforest to each zip line, and flying through the tree tops with bats flying around, and rivers and waterfalls below us was pretty cool.  It is great that it is just a short drive for us.  If we do get visitors while we still live in this area I would definitely do it again.  It would be great in a big group.  Otherwise I would love to do one of the bigger trails further north.  I think part of the reason that it went so fast was that we wanted to do the zip lines as fast as possible, whereas our guide said we should just cruise slowly along and even stop to take it all in.

I guess we are just adrenalin junkies and need the speed!