Adventures in Cooperland

Vannes Eli Cooper

2012-01-11T21:31:00.001+11:00

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

2012-01-08T13:08:00.001+11:00

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

2011-12-10T21:49:00.000+11:00

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

2011-11-14T07:28:00.004+11:00

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

2011-10-27T07:31:00.000+11:00

It's cooking nicely at the moment ...

Winter

2011-10-02T23:15:00.003+11:00

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!

'And now, the news...'

2011-09-02T06:09:00.000+10:00

Right, some news for our family and friends.

So we're pregnant, at the moment. Yes, we know, yippee! But we can't 'yippee', as I've also been threatening miscarriage. My parents have been told already - before anyone worries that we've not told my mum and dad yet. It's bitter-sweet, as my parents realised when we called them. The excitement is very soon damped down... It's a very difficult situation, as we were truly excited - anyone with a Balin would want more! - but we're quite private anyway and wanted to keep it just between us for as long as I could hide it easily.

If I just explain, briefly... I started haemorrhaging badly while in the shops one day and Coop came immediately from work and took me to the ER. All they could say was I was having a miscarriage, that I had to go home, rest for at least two weeks, not lift things, (not even Balin, if at all possible) and see what happened. They did check the baby still had a heartbeat, that day, but were unwilling to give any idea as to if we'd keep it. I understand. They can't say things like that. They'd be wrong 50% of the time anyway and couples could be litigious. We have been back and forth to the hospital more times than I can remember.

We're not going to say how far along we are as the hospital has been constantly repeating that we have to take it day by day. Each day is a bonus. Basically, we could lose this baby any day. We are trying not to get attached, so haven't been talking about it much, aren't really willing to buy things yet, and certainly haven't been thinking of names. We won't find out the sex - we didn't do with Balin either, we like surprises, and what bigger surprise for us both not to know the end result to, than that?!

We are grateful that we've been blessed with another pregnancy. We'd been trying for quite a while, and if we hadn't gotten pregnant that time, it was going to be even harder, as we were down to our last month of fertility meds. So we just pray every day that we'll get further along and the baby will stay with us, get all the way to term, be born and be healthy. Apparently going to term has been very unlikely up until present time, but the longer we go, the better chance the baby has, of course. We'll go visit the NICU / Preemie unit at our local hospital, but if we are lucky/unlucky (lucky that it stays put that long, unlucky that it's still too early for comfort) and the baby does decide to arrive before 34 weeks, then it would have to be in the NICU at Townsville - 4 hours away.

We did ask one or two people, whom we knew wouldn't ask any further questions until we'd bring it up again, if they'd include me in their prayers, and we are grateful for them and what they did.

We have friends and family who have miscarried and we don't want to upset them. Hopefully people won't be offended that we've explained the situation in this way, but we didn't constantly want to be answering questions about it, as if we do lose this baby, it will be hard enough without having to deal with other people's awkwardness. (Because, what do you say to someone who was having a baby one minute, and not the next minute, really? 'I'm sorry' seems lame, and anything more just brings more pain. People feel awkward and then avoid you, and that's the last thing we'd want. Easier for people not to have known up until now when I can't really hide it very easily to the people who see us regularly, - definitely in my swim gear - at least, and not to have to feel awkward.)

So that is our nice/not so nice news.

Oh, and my cat has bad breath!

11 years and still adventuring

2011-07-03T23:59:00.001+10:00

On the 24th June Noëlle & I celebrated our 11th Wedding Anniversary. A few weeks before I called Noëlle from work, said I had a few ideas for our celebrations and asked if she wanted a surprise or wanted to input on the plans. She agreed that we would talk about if evening, but that she didn't really want to go on a boat anywhere. Fast forward to 22nd June, with a public holiday the next day, I had already booked our anniversary off work in order to make a long weekend of it. With no further ideas from Noëlle, I used spent my 20 minute lunch break on the phone organising a getaway to Hamilton Island - I know, she said no boats, but really, when you live in an area with over 72 islands to explore and winter temperatures better than an English Summer, really it had to be done ...

I will say, it wasn't the idea of an island that Noëlle was against, she just gets pretty sea sick, but first ride to the island actually went fine, if a little choppy.

I had decided to have a little more privacy on the island and opted for a bungalow/cabin rather than a hotel room - we both agreed that this was the perfect choice for us.

We got to explore the marina and have some great fish and chips, and rather than being bothered by pigeons for our left overs it was cockatoos and parrots who wanted some of the action!

After tiring ourselves out exploring the developed part of the island by foot, and with Balin asleep, there was some hammock time for us :D

Our second day involved a much longer boat ride out to the Outer Great Barrier Reef, where we spent the day at Hardy Reef on Reefworld, a permanent anchored dive platform with underwater viewing chamber, sun decks, and even a small amount of accommodation if you want to spend the extra $s.

So it was time to get on the scuba gear and do some real exploring. (A big thanks to Beth for getting our new underwater camera to us from the States)

I love the everything about being underwater.

Some time ago, Noëlle & I decided that we would try and cut back on luggage on trips, so now don't take our own wetsuits if we don't have to, the result on this particular trip was a particularly fetching look for Noëlle complete with pink stinger suit and dive shorty ...

... yeh, you can pull even this look off Noëlle ;p

At least she was easy to find underwater :)

Balin had a great time, making use of the free child care so Noëlle and I could go out together for a while, as well as getting to ride a semi-submersible to hunt down Nemo.

The winter water temperatures were a little off putting for him, but he had a great time running around the decks, pointing at the fish and trying to feed himself to a 3 metre Groper!

Balin continues to get an early start at everything, we will soon have him fully enjoying all the great reefs we have to explore in this part of the world.

All that energy needs some down time though too.

Breakfast with the Koalas was a fun experience, and Balin thought these bears were much more interesting than his bears at home.

Balin is also convinced that everything that we do or have is for him too, so he is already working on his photography skills, especially when he saw this snake at breakfast too.

No I haven't taken up the devils game (golf), but this is the only independent transport on the island and gave us a family adventure.

It also gave us the chance to ride to the top of the island for both sunrise and sunset (that's right I continue to get us up early even on holiday)

Of course there was pool time too, though even I found this unheated pool a little on the chilly side, but Balin is a tough kid, we have bred him that way.

With glorious beaches to explore around the island and plenty of sand for Balin to eat ...

... as well as lots of fun games to play, Balin was full of giggles.

Again, anything we can do, so can he ...

Our final day I woke up extra early to do a candy gram for Noëlle (Thanks to Brittney for reminding me of this idea), before we headed up to see our final sunrise over the island.

Amongst our final days adventures Balin also tested his spider-man skills ...

... and made it to the top of his first wall.

We all had a great time, plenty of adventure with a decent amount of relaxation mixed in. With another 71 islands to explore Noëlle may have to put up with quite a few more boat rides while we live in this area :D

I also have to say that the customer service experience we received on every part of the weekend was the best we have had since moving to Australia, and the attention and facilities provided to Balin made it even better - This really was incredibly family friendly, even with a very young child, I would highly recommend Hamilton Island to those who think that holidaying with a young child is hard, this place made it so easy!

First Weekend of Winter

2011-06-05T20:10:00.001+10:00

For those readers who follow our lives since moving Down-Under, many of you expressed surprise at our winter activities over the last 2 years - well life has changed again since moving 5 months ago, but the seasons still change and it's turned rather chilly the last few weeks.

Saturday we headed out for our first weekend of winter. The ocean wind made for a particularly cold 22°C/72°F! Brrrrr!

We decided it was time for Balin to get more actively involved in our hiking trips, so found a nice 2km boardwalk and trail hike through the coastal mangroves of Cape Hillsborough.

Balin found a big rock to take a break on and re-apply his insect repellent.

After that exhausting hike Balin was actually a little reluctant to head to the beach, until he discovered he could dig.

We took the back-pack carrier for the next hike to find some pretty-face Wallabies, and even a snake, but Balin decided he would tough it out some more and was soon hiking again.

Balin loves shadow chasing and digging ...

It's a good job we like it here ...

2011-03-23T19:07:00.001+11:00

... because it doesn't look like we will be leaving for quite some time!

On March 15th our Visas expired. At the end of December I met all the requirements for our next Visa, as due to rule changes last year we are still not eligible for permanent residency. However, as we moved to Queensland, it took a while to get all the paperwork sorted out - add to that the new job, apprentices, a work experience kid and our business manager all keeping me on my toes (a couple of weeks ago, our business manager grabbed me towards the end of the day and said he'd like me to go to a site visit for a new project. He said we'd take his vehicle. When we got there he looked around at some of the other contractors that had been asked to tender, didn't introduce me to anyone including the primary project manager, handed me a wad of paperwork about an inch thick of schematics, work schedules and specifications and said to call him when I was done, and drove off! Talk about being dropped in the deep end on a very large high end apartment and hotel complex on the water front, that is a massive rectification contract), you could say life has a way of keeping one step ahead of me.

Noëlle had got most of the paperwork ready for our Visas, and we were just waiting for my Australian Federal Police check to come back clear. When I collected our post on the 10th March, there it was, so we had planned a final check through of everything that evening - unfortunately that day I ended up finishing work at 10.30pm. So after an all nighter all too reminiscent of student days, by 4am we had finally submitted and printed all the forms on line (when printed this was again an inch worth of paperwork for our applications) - Then we had to scan and upload all the supporting documentation. I rolled into bed just after 5am and my alarm went off about 45mins later.

On Friday 11th March, about 11am Noëlle sent me a text saying that our bridging Visas had been granted :D

However, it is not over yet. It takes about 12 months to process our next visa, and we still have to fill some very complex background forms in covering exact dates of every different country we have been to in the last 10 years, every job I have had since leaving secondary school and dates, and every address we have lived in, as well as getting police checks complete in the UK and USA.

We will be eligible for our permanent residency Visas towards the end of this year (unless they change any more rules) so this Visa will probably never even get issued, but they have a 2-3 year processing time.

What does all this mean, well they will continue to extend our bridging visas indefinitely unless they find a reason we are no longer eligible. Once we have a total combination of 4 years residency in Australia with at least 1 year on permanent residency Visas, we can and will apply for Citizenship.

The slight problem ... after all this work to be able to stay in the country, our current bridging Visa does not allow us to leave the country and re-enter. So if we do want to leave we have to apply for a Visa that allows us to leave for a set period and re-enter. The only easy justification for getting this kind of Visa granted is if someone dies, or it is required as part of Australian employment by an Australian employer. It costs each time and any other reason has to be carefully justified and questioned unless it had already been booked before the bridging Visa was issued.

So basically don't expect to see us for the next few years unless you come to us.

On the plus side we love life here, even more so now we finally moved into our own place in Mackay a month ago :D

Gorged Sunday

2011-03-06T23:14:00.003+11:00

Last Sunday, we went to church organised with a change of clothes and picnic lunch so we could head straight out to enjoy the trails, river-crossings and waterfalls of Finch Hatton Gorge through the rainforests of the Eungella National Park.

As the last part of the drive was unsealed roads and involved us driving through 5 river crossings before we could start the trail, we guessed that the 'walk' might be slightly more challenging than Noëlle and I had anticipated - the ladies resorted to removing their shoes and steadying themselves on rocks on river crossings.

The blokes just went straight ahead freestyle, it's all in the balance ...

... even when you're carrying the precious cargos :D

Jumping into freezing cold swimming holes took some building up for Noëlle, so after some waiting, this was her first jump.

Noëlle was very proud of herself ...

... so followed up her first achievement with this next rock

There was lots of arm flapping at this 2nd water hole and jump. Even though there was a higher jump on the right hand side of the fall, I immediately vetoed it on Noëlle's behalf, hoping that seeing she'd been let-off the challenge of the higher jump she would do this one more easily - 1,2,3 didn't work the first time.

At least 50 photos later, and after lots of cheering and encouragement -

Noëlle still looked hesitant when informed she needed to do it again in tandem.

At least this time she knew what '3' meant, and only a slight delay.

Don't worry, I am not mean enough to throw Balin off waterfalls (yet).

He gets the more gentle introduction to cold water, seeing as he has long forgotten the cold water of Melbourne.

He'll soon be jumping in ...

Dam Saturday

2011-02-27T08:15:00.001+11:00

5.40am - Alarm
6.30am - All three of us at the early morning market to get fresh fruit and veg
8.00am - Arrive on site at work (yes another 55+ hour/6 day week)
4.00pm - Get home from work.

Quick shower and drive up to the lake at Kinchant Dam as a surprise for Noëlle.

What can top a great meal overlooking the lake at sunset?

Maybe the live band that was playing after ...

Balin just taking in the atmosphere while throwing back a 'cold one'.

Here's to living life for every moment, rather than just sleeping (although I was the only one awake on the drive back home).

Church Holiday

2011-02-19T07:29:00.002+11:00

Over the years I have known many people who have seen Stake Conference (and often even General Conference) as the Church's version of a Public/Bank Holiday and either have the day at home with family or make other plans.

Now that we have moved to a regional area of Australia, we are in a good size Branch in a District, and a LONG way away from any other units. So last weekend when it was District Conference (which is held in Rockhampton, a 4 hour drive south of Mackay and 4 1/2 hours from where we are currently living north of Mackay), and I had worked for 13 days straight - we figured if anyone could justify a 'Church Holiday' it was us?

So, while I worked until 3pm on Saturday, Noëlle got our camping gear together and collected a rental car (yes we are still having ongoing car problems with our poorly x-trail, so it is banned from long drives at the moment). I rushed home from work, grabbed a quick shower, and we were soon on our 4 1/2 hour drive down to Rockhampton. We found a camp site just around the corner from the Chapel and were soon set up.

We didn't get down in time for the Saturday night session of Conference, but loved Sunday's meetings, we got to meet some more new people and I even got to make use of my French.

We had planned a leisurely drive back up to Mackay Sunday afternoon, enjoying the scenery and taking a walk near some local caves. The caves were closed, including the access roads, and then about 4pm I got a priority call out for work. Even 2 hours away, I was the closest to the job, but still had to go home and get my work vehicle. I guess I was destined to not have a day off yet!

With Saturday officially off this week, and my contract only requiring me to work Sundays for priority call outs, fingers crossed I might actually get some real down time this weekend ...

Of homelessness & cyclonic action

2011-02-03T21:04:00.001+11:00

Issue 1:

How renting works everywhere we have lived in Australia so far ...

a) Find a whole load of properties you like/are in the right area/are the right price etc.
b) Drive past each property and make sure it isn't a dive (photos and descriptions lie a lot and you can halve your list this way).
c) Find out when the viewing is (normally a 15 minute window in the middle of the day).
d) Register for the viewing.
e) Turn up for the viewing with a ton of other people and look round the property (in some cases walk in, walk out - you can't always judge a book by it's cover).
f) If you like it fill out between 4-7 page application (depending on agent), and rush back to real estate office to show ID, proof of income and hand in application. (At this point you are apparently legally obliged to take that property if you are accepted.)
g) Wait between 3-7 days (the longest wait was almost 2 weeks to hear) to discover if your application has been accepted. (At this stage all sorts can go on, the real-estate agent decides if they have enough applications, normally waiting until they have at least 3. Then they decide who looks like a good bet on paper and start checking all their references, once they have done this, they decide who to put through for consideration by the property owner, again usually at least 3. Owner looks through application and references and picks one applicant, or sometimes rejects them all - we were told after submitting one 7 page application that the owner of that particular property never accepts anyone with children, or old people, that particular property is still vacant?)
h) Forget the fact that you have multiple applications in, keep viewing properties and keep applying for properties. It's a numbers game.

Other rules and complications, some agents will only let you have one pending application in at once due to 'f' above, so if you find a better property, you have to withdraw the previous application and submit a new one. Every real estate has different ID requirements, requires different kinds and numbers of references (business, work, personal), has different questions etc. There is no first come first served, though it does help.

Things to note, all real estate companies we lodged applications with passed our application checks and submitted our applications to owners (even the one that never accepts kids, as the agents aren't allowed to discriminate even if the owners do).

Finally last Tuesday, after 4 weeks of following the rules above (and probably much more) - I got two calls from the same agent (even they seemed excited) saying we had been accepted by one of our preferred property applications - we immediately accepted. Two days later another owner 'accepted' us ... too late :P

So after almost 2 months in Mackay, we will move into a permanent place on the 22nd February :D

Issue 2:

Cyclones (in some other parts of the world also known as Typhoons or Hurricanes)

Yes, we have been through our first 2 cyclone warnings in less than 4 days. I almost blogged last night, but as the worst was predicted, and we fully expected multiple deaths (it appears that there have been none), and power out for several days at least - I decided that it was best not to blog, as it may well have been several days before I could confirm to those who care that we were fine.

To put it in perspective 'Severe Tropical Cyclone Yasi' looked like this yesterday (although it has been moved further south to show it's scale to Australia as well as the UK and America)

To show I am not exaggerating, below is where Yasi actually was, and to scale

Now as I know that some of our readers struggle with geography, here it is in relation to where we live ;p

We live in Mackay (said Mackye), so while we were on the edge of the warning, we apparently took as much impact as Cairns did.

Yasi was a Cat 5 Cyclone when it hit land, this is the most severe rating that there is, and the first time that a Cat 5 has had landfall in Australia, and the strongest cyclone since at least 1908.

Again I like this final map to show that to some scale, particularly to Hurricane Katrina - it hit at high tide and caused both tide and storm surge. (This is the one worth clicking on and enlarging)

Seriously, this thing was massive!

We were as prepared as we could be, everything was charged up, we had cool boxes full of ice, containers of water, tinned food and powdered milk all boxed and ready to go, plenty of torches and my work vehicle had ropes and tarps ready to secure any small damage. We also had another vehicle loaded at work for any of us to use with wet weather gear, petrol and a generator, more ice boxes, chainsaw, more rope and tarps, big lights etc.

One good thing about not having found a permanent place to live yet ... most of our stuff is in a 'water tight' shipping container near the airport, we had been in and made sure boxes with books and all electrical items were raised off the floor and had tried to raise our insurance coverage for our possessions (as a cyclone watch was in place, we couldn't increase cover, but managed to increase our car coverage). We also collected our camp stove and sleeping bags from storage as well as water filtration device in case of evacuation or being trapped for several days.

I worked a normal day and was glad to find the roads virtually empty as I drove home, and everything else closed up. Noëlle was just finishing taping up the windows when I got home.

We had done everything we could to prepare, so all I could do was watch the news as the weather came in

And yes, in case you are wondering, that is the ocean you can see in the background, we currently live on top of a hill a short walk from the beach ...

While the destruction up and down the coastline has been horrific, we are blessed to have not had anything of ours damaged. Overall, while much has been destroyed, again luck, good planning and warning appears to have meant no loss of life - Of course this part of Australia is significantly less populated than Louisiana, but people listened and acted, and the authorities seemed to be on the ball.

As we expect to live in this area for some time, cyclones will now become part of our lives - having gone through such a major one so soon I hope we don't become complacent with future warnings - I think we did everything right this time, even if none of our emergency plans were needed or supplies used.

Sorry for such a long blog post, but that's what happens when you hear nothing from me for more than a month!

Where are we now?

2010-12-29T22:03:00.000+11:00

With graduation comes lots of new opportunities and adventures, so over the last few months I have been weighing up what comes next, then a few weeks ago everything started to fall into place very quickly, and I can confirm that we are no longer in Melbourne.

We both finished work last week, then spent Christmas weekend consolidating all our worldly goods into a 10x6 trailer. This is jam packed and represents our lives, it also weighs over 2 1/2 tonnes, which is about 1/2 a tonne more than the trailer and car are rated for, so fingers crossed it gets us all the way there!

So we are now on the road to our new lives, and all I'll say at this stage is that geographically we are moving the same distance as from London to the southern toe of Italy, or for our North American friends, the same distance as going from Montreal, Canada to Miami, Florida.

We set off 26 hours ago and despite our slow towing speed we have passed the half way mark, and driven over 1,444km so far. The weather has been great, and as always we have found lots of obscure sights on our road trip thus far. A few of the highlights have been:

Finding somewhere to get a quality education

A Hotel for Cows

Travelling the entire Solar System along one road (we only stopped at Saturn).

And an often confused GPS.

For all those who promised to come visit us in Melbourne, well, you missed your chance - we might be a little pre-occupied over the next few weeks, but we'll do our best to update again soon ...

Vanuatuan Adventure

2010-12-20T17:19:00.000+11:00

Our most recent trip took us to Vanuatu (formerly the New Hebrides) in the South Pacific; more specifically the island of Efate, where we stayed a short walk from the Capital, Port Vila.

This was a Holiday a long time in the waiting, and became a combined late 10th Anniversary trip, we celebrated Noëlle's Birthday while we were away, it was our Christmas, and a celebration of the end of my studies and Graduation.

The people of Vanuatu are a wonderful and friendly people. I have to say that out of all the different places I have travelled, that the trips we have done to developing nations have been the most eye opening and humbling to me. Like many tourist locations, Vanuatu tries to keep the poverty that so many live in hidden from the average tourist. But take a few steps off the beaten path, a look a little further into the rainforests and you will see happy children living in conditions where we would not even consider keeping animals in the 'West'. It makes me appreciate more fully how much I have, but also what we may be missing by not just slowing down and enjoying the simple things in life.

Noëlle & I love to use local public transport, shop in local markets, eat food made by locals where they profit, and get out of the hotel and resort locations. It makes us happy when we can't see any other tourists, as it means we are seeing the country.

We had great fun exploring the parts of the island and local areas. The whole week there was 'Krismas' (Bislama spelling) in the park - there was live reggae on stage, local families everywhere sitting on the grass and enjoying it all, Christmas lights in the palm trees, stalls and food tents all run by the locals. We went their most evenings and ate at various food tents where we knew the food was good, local home made food, and where we knew all the money went straight back in to the locals pockets. We would walk back to our hotel each night past all the other tourists eating in the overpriced and foreign owned restaurants, knowing we'd soaked in the real atmosphere of the island.

One of the highlights of the trip were our dives off Mosa Island/Tranquility Island. Noëlle loves diving, but last summer wasn't able to do any diving due to Balin cooking. You could see her huge smile a few minutes into our first dive through the regulator. We hired a local nanny called Esther to come to the island and look after Balin while we were diving. Esther didn't speak much English, but Balin doesn't either, so they got on fine :D

Oh, and Noëlle was especially happy to make friends with the hotel kitten, especially as someone stole our kitten a few weeks ago :(

There are more photos from our trip on Balin's page here, and also different ones on facebook here.

Oh, and swimming seems to have this effect on both Balin & I ...

I may be a little slow, but I get there in the end

2010-12-16T06:11:00.006+11:00

Yesterday I became the most recent graduate in the family (and I am guessing the last for a little while)

Unfortunately Noëlle couldn't take any more time off work after our holiday, so Balin came into the city with me on the train for the ceremony.

He had a slightly different idea of how to put a Diploma to use ...

That's all - I'm off to work

Movember 2010

2010-12-02T06:15:00.002+11:00

Apparently at least Ilana & Ryan were keen to see the results of my moustache growing attempt for Movember.

Sadly I do not grow great facial hair, and as it is fair, it does not show up that well either :(

Balin decided to go for the French look this year, while I stuck to the same safe handle bar style that I used last year.

In memory of my Dad, the facial hair has remained into early December. As I have a job interview on Saturday, it will go by then. You can get away with any type of Mo during Movember, the cause is very well supported over here with many TV presenters and celebrities growing in the hair, but come December they all disappear. I was going to dye the tache this year to make it stand out more for the last week, Noëlle told me I couldn't dye it as my skin would still be coloured even after I shave, so maybe next year ...

Adelaide & back ... just for fun

2010-11-26T18:48:00.000+11:00

Victorian weather, and Melbourne weather in particular can be more than a little temperamental to say the least. With the wettest September on record and the 3rd wettest October, this Spring has finally brought the State out of a 14 year drought. Good news for Victoria, not such good news for our weekends. :(

So with several camping trips foiled, we finally got away for a 3 day break 2 weeks ago, despite forecasts for major thunderstorms across the State, we decided it was finally time to put up the family tent ...

I had looked at the weather maps more than the geographical maps, and our sole attempt was to get away from the worst of the weather. So we headed North West to our first stop in Ararat, probably the largest country town we travelled through all weekend, even calling itself a city - we managed to find a great little National Park just on the outskirts to do a bit of 'softroading' - Why 'softroading' you ask? Well they were pretty good trails, that didn't need any major clearance so I can accept that this isn't 'real' offroading/4WDing/4x4ing (pick your own name preference). It was a fun diversion, with some great views of approaching rain clouds, and enough to make Noëlle close her eyes when we couldn't see over the top of steep ridges, and make strange noises and occasional requests for me to slow down ;p

We finally made it out of the state, setting up camp for our first night in a place called Keith (we were informed later that we were probably better off camping in Keith than trusting ourselves to local accommodation).

Balin loved the new space to explore, and was very excited by his very own camp chair.

One of the things I love about road trips are the strange things you find along the way, and attempts by small rural towns to get passing traffic to stop for something. There were a fair few of these 'attractions' along the way - This 'Landrover on a Pole' was one such thing that was clearly signposted from the main road, and an attempt to educate those who stopped as to the agricultural efforts in what was once largely desert.

Noëlle also found herself a friend along the way

We managed to escape much of the overnight rain as hoped, but didn't quite miss it all as we packed up the tent, so that went away wet. So, what to do on a wet Saturday? Keep heading North West away from the rain and towards an afternoon at the Adelaide Temple. We were lucky enough to find a kindly couple to watch Balin so we could go in together, as this was the first time either of us had been to the Adelaide Temple. Also thanks to a very friendly and kind Temple President, our early evening was sorted with his family for a casual pizza meal before we headed first into the city and then to the beautiful raw beaches of Adelaide's coastal suburbs.

Noëlle & I haven't been to Adelaide for almost 6 years, and even then it was only for a couple of days on our way to the NT. Our lack of local knowledge, and the unplanned nature of our trip found us driving through the centre of the city and right into a 'Pride' march. Maybe it was best that we didn't take any photos of those interesting sites!

Our 2nd night was spent in Coonawarra - stopping at these tree carvings in the middle of nowhere, plus slow internet, meant we arrived at the small church building in Mt Gambier just as they were playing in the sacrament hymn, with no time to change, and no seats at the back, we ended up in our camping gear walking right past everyone to the front, I think they were glad of the visitors anyway.

After lunch we were soon back on the road, via a couple of coastal towns before heading back inland.

Some people may think that as this is only the 3rd time we have been out of state since moving to Australia that travelling has become much less significant in our lives. Well to put it in perspective, with detours, this trip was a 2000km/1250mile + trip in 3 days, and barely got us into the neighbouring state, even though we live in the smallest mainland state.

If you look at the map above, below, left and right, you'll get more of an idea of how little of Australia our round trip covered. For those of you with limited Australian knowledge, it is a country that is about the same size as the US, and bigger than Europe, but with a population of 22 million with 85% of it's population living in about 6 coastal urban cities and their suburbs, almost half of that urban population lives in Melbourne or Sydney. It takes a long time to get places without much in between. It is a very different travelling experience to any other country I have been too. We are excited to still have so much more to explore and hopefully many more years to do that exploring ...

Oh, and in the last 21 months Noëlle & I have driven or riden more than 60,000km/37,300miles

More Paintball

2010-11-17T12:55:00.000+11:00

Despite what some people may think, I do not like to be in charge, be the leader, be the boss, or organise things! It is a lot of hard work, and stress. I much prefer it when I can just join a well organised group or activity and just follow along.

Nevertheless, I often find myself in these positions, as others are either too disorganised, or without someone taking charge nothing would ever get done.

What is the result of being an unwilling leader? The other weekend I ended up playing paintball for over 8 hours straight! That's right after retelling the adventures of my last game and making sure not too many people saw my bruises, it seems everyone wanted to play paintball (or at least everyone did until it came time to had over the cash)! I tried to organise just one group of everyone together, but as that didn't work, I ended up co-organiser of a work group at 8am in the morning, then after a quick stop and change into fresh overalls at midday, I then had a group from college in the afternoon for another 4 hours.

Some of the morning group, guess which one is me?

After sending Balin off to the beach, Noëlle joined us for the afternoon too :D

The afternoon team, I am the one roughly centre pointing my gun at Albert's head,
Noëlle is on the right

I am pleased to report that through more strategic playing, I ended up with significantly less bruises than last time, and had a blast :D

The tache is back

2010-11-02T17:53:00.003+11:00

In a study published last week in Australia, 54% of women polled preferred a man with facial hair, 14% didn't mind either way and only 32% preferred clean shaven. Of the women who preferred facial hair, 76% said a man with facial hair was more masculine and subsequently more attractive. 63% preferred all over stubble, 19% a moustache, 12% a beard with just 6% preferring goatees.

Now if all these reasons aren't enough to gain me some Mo Bros for the month of Movember. Depending who's statistics you use, either more men die per year from prostate cancer than breast cancer, or at least as many. There is however very little fund raising or profile awareness for prostate cancer. In addition 1 in 8 men will suffer from some form of depression in their lives, again with very little talk about this subject. Don't misunderstand me, I am not saying that all the work that is done for breast cancer and post-natal depression etc is not important - these are very important causes.

What I am saying is that this month 'Movember' is all about men's health issues. The Movember Foundation founded in Australia in 2004 does a lot to raise awareness of both of these issues. Movember is now a worldwide organisation/event where men grow and maintain a moustache for the entire month of November, and raise awareness and funds for the Movember Foundation (who in Australia direct those funds to beyondblue for male depression and the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia) or people donate directly to their men's health charity of preference.

As most of my readers know my Dad died on December 10th 2006 of Prostate Cancer, so this cause, while fun in nature, is particularly close to my heart. I also don't mind admitting that I have suffered from depression in my life.

So calling all Mo Bros (& any Mo Sistas) out there and, join me in growing a moustache this Movember and share your results with me in form a pictures to post, and raise awareness for Men's Health issues. I will post my resulting moustache at the end of the month (you may spot if before then in other posts).

It is already styled and causing Balin some concern ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movember

http://www.movember.com/

http://au.movember.com/

http://uk.movember.com/

Back on water

2010-10-24T19:58:00.000+11:00

This week has been one of those weeks that I have just been crying for time to get to the beach, only to get to the weekend and be let down by the weather. I am not a big fan of the 'inbetween' seasons. I love winter (as long as snow is involved), and I love summer, even when extreme temperatures are involved. So early Spring & late Autumn are often frustrating for me. So this week has been getting warmer and warmer with plenty of clear blue skies and average winds. Wednesday and Thursday topped out at a comfy 25°C /77°F, I though, was stuck at work. Friday peaked at a fantastic 29°C /85°F. Friday AM I was stuck in college filling in for our missing teacher (& yes fortunately I am pretty much guaranteed a top grade in this class), and in the PM I was stuck dealing with paperwork I had already put off dealing with for too long.

That was OK I thought; Saturday was all mine. Wake up Saturday AM 12°C /53°F drizzle and rain and more forecast throughout the day, and a top of only 18°C /64°F.

Stuff it, I decided it had been way too long since I had been on a board (on the water), so kitesurfing it was ...

I wasn't really looking forward to getting in the cold water - when I did walk in I decided that living in Australia has turned my mind at least into a wuss. It wasn't cold at all, at least not when I compare it to kitesurfing in Poole harbour in England all throughout the winter.

The winds were great, and despite being pretty rusty, I was straight up and blowing out the cobwebs.

Fortunately the rains kept away, and I only ditched the kite in the sea once in an early wipeout

This time Balin stayed wrapped up warm on the beach, I decided I would't take him in the sea after his last protests.

So just one request Melbourne, keep the winds up, but please hold off on the rain and bring back the warm sun at least on weekends - I'm all for an early summer :D

Sandboarding

2010-10-03T20:22:00.001+11:00

Last weekend was my birthday, and traditionally I like to try something new for my birthday. However, this year it fell on a Sunday, and a weekend that we were moving, so it went unmentioned really. Yesterday I made up for it doing something that has been on my list for several years now.

We really wanted to do a long weekend down to South Australia and Kangaroo Island to try sandboarding out for the first time, but life is just too hectic for that at the moment. There are some good sand dunes in Victoria, but someone at church suggested that we try the dunes at the Powlett River near Kilcunda which is only about an hour drive away.

On an absolutely gorgeous Spring day, this is what greeted us

I know the runs don't look that long, but they were plenty steep.

And remember I had to hike back up the dunes after each run (good fitness training for my big hiking adventure next year).

I did pick up a little too much speed on one run, which landed me in the river

I can confirm I have found a new hobby :D. Officially this weekend was the last weekend of the snow season, and we had contemplated one last trip up to make use of the cheap lift tickets and empty slopes, but I am so glad that we went and did this instead.

I will be ordering some sandboard specific wax, and looking into bare foot bindings similar to kite surfing or wakeboard bindings, so I don't have to use snowboard boots and bindings as the weather continues to get hotter here. Don't worry neither my new Burton Custom, or my old Fury snowboards were sacrificed for this, they will remain snow only boards - I have an old Heli snowboard that has been designated my Duneboard. I'll be on the look out for more great dunes, but we'll definitely be back here :D

Oh, and Balin had a great time watching me try my latest board sport, maybe we'll try him on a sand toboggan next time ;)

Balin's Page

2010-09-22T21:23:00.000+10:00

Balin now has his own page for those of you who are more interested in him than me; you can now just follow his updates. Photos, videos and significant milestones will be added to his pages - that doesn't mean he won't feature here too, but there will be more added to his own pages for those of you who just can't get enough of him :D

It will be updated to the top right of the main blog, or you can follow any updates directly here

www.allbalin.blogspot.com

Hopefully you'll enjoy his updates.

Remember though, don't mess with the Balin

Snow with a Furbank

2010-09-19T15:18:00.001+10:00

About a week and a half ago I got a message from Josh Furbank saying that he was going to be in Melbourne for about a week in a few days and would love to catch up.

We gave him a few options of what we could do, and when we were free, and despite initially commenting 'snow boarding in Australia crazy!!!', that was what he decided he wanted to learn to do with us. (Of course his initial thought may have just been to go out for a meal, but that just isn't us)

So Wednesday evening I met up with Josh to collect some gear for him - admittedly equipping the 'Gigantor' (as Noëlle refers to the Furbank species) was a bit of a challenge, but we did manage it. Josh shared Balin's room Wednesday night, and early Thursday morning we all headed up to Mt Buller for the day.

Josh just makes everything else look small, including our car.

Josh riding the conveyor belt up the bunny slope - (Noëlle is only 5cm taller than the board we got for Josh)

Josh was soon cruising down the slopes like a pro

We ended our day with some sledding

It's a tough life being a Balin

Balin is much more interactive on the sled now than at the start of the season.

I almost can't wait until next winter to hear more of his giggles as he flies down the slopes :D

Race, race, race

I hope Josh had a great time, we did. He is the first person to visit us since we moved to Australia. The long drive up to and back from the mountains gave us lots of chance to chat and catch up on news from the Furbank Family and other goings on back in England

I'll admit weather on the mountain was the harshest I have been out in during two seasons of Australian snow. It was very cloudy and windy at times, and I had zero visibility on a few of the summit runs I did. The snow was in good shape considering a) it is spring and b) all the rain and floods that happened a week and a half before. This was helped by 5cm of fresh snowfall during the day. It was good to have another day on the slopes, I am almost ready for the season to be over, and the summer sun to arrive ...

Mountains covered in snow may not be something typically associated with Australia, but hopefully Josh's first snowboarding experience (in a country he came to surf in), will remain a memorable one?

If you want to see a few more photos from our day, I have posted some additional photos to facebook, which you can see by clicking here.

Leisurely Sunday Afternoon

2010-09-13T21:36:00.002+10:00

Alright, so my definition of a leisurely bike ride, is a little different to that of some others ...

Noëlle, mentioned in her last blog pos t that we had been having some sunny weather; to be fair, we have had rain most days for the last 30 days, with some sunny spells, and some pretty serious floods across the State. This meant plenty of fun in the mud for the second day in a row. I love slippy single track and boggy fire trails :D

Fortunately Balin doesn't mind me being covered in mud after my ride

The 'slight' improvement in weather means we got to have our first BBQ of Spring.

Balin is happy as long as he gets fed, like I said mud and all :D

I hope everyone else had a great weekend, I am very sore :D

Paintball

2010-09-11T21:13:00.004+10:00

Hi, Noelle here. Well, it's been quite sunny these last few days and Coop was invited to do something with one of the guys from work, Henri. I received a phone call on Friday afternoon asking if I fancied going paint balling. Was he kidding? Absolutely I did!! So here I am raring to go! (That's Dean looking over my shoulder.)

Dean and I ready to pick up our paintball guns. I must have looked hot enough in the camo gear, as a couple of the guys kept calling me 'Babe'... (it still throws me off when people do that when I'm around Coop.)

Coop and I were on the same side (blue) and Dean and Henri were on the red side, so this was the calm before the storm.

The manager of the place was a little overboard at telling people to keep their masks on at all times, as were their signs that you can see in the background. Although I guess he was only doing his job though, as the paint pellets come at you at 200km/h, and people have lost eyes in Europe and the U.S., but apparently not in Oz. (Yet...)

Does my bum look big in this? ;p

I - being of the female persuasion - received extra padding, which saved me from all the hideous welts that I saw on everyone else. :)

Dean pointing to just one of the many welts that Coop had already got by first break.

Coop gets right in the thick of things and heads an assault to capture the flag.

Coop chucked the other team's flag off the barrel about 6 times, but as the rules for this part of the game meant that he was immortal, he was allowed to be hit as many times as possible, yet still live.

So he ended up a little bit colourful...

I took a defensive position and stayed low behind the tyres. This is one instance I was glad not to be a few inches taller! :)

Coop doesn't have the starting symptoms of leprosy, these were simply some of the battles wounds he bravely took for the team!

I, on the other hand, was pounced on by the mosquitoes, kept being checked that I was ok by the nice chaps who called me 'Babe', and shouted 'DAMN YOU!!' when someone got my ankle bone once! Still, I love being the only girl in the figurative room, it's so much more fun! I had a total blast!! Next time we're all together on a holiday, we HAVE to do this, guys!!

Balin is Mad for Max

2010-09-03T11:02:00.001+10:00

Amongst many other things I could be described as a bit of a petrol head, so I couldn't have been more excited when last year it was finally confirmed that a new Mad Max film was going into pre-production here is Australia (see the video below)

Production was due to start in August, but even more exciting news means that, even though there will be a slight delay now, it will mean two new Mad Max films being made back to back.

Mad Max was probably my first introduction to Australia as a child, forget Crocodile Dundee and Neighbours - these were the films that made me fall in love with Australia. Back in June we took the kids Noëlle nannies to The Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) in the city. They had Tim Burton's Batmobile on display, which was instantly recognised by Kye, but much to my disappointment, not Mad Max's black Interceptor (1974 V8 Ford Falcon XB) that they also had on display. Somehow I have misplaced the photos of the kids with those cars.

Well on our way back from 3 days at the snow last weekend, imagine my joy when this pulled into the petrol station

I can reassure you all that Balin is being fully educated on the importance of Max

These are the standard colours of the 3 MFP cars driven in the first film, with this being identical to what Max drove before he became Mad and took off in the black Interceptor.

Personally I hope Mel Gibson does make a cameo role in the new films, his recent demeanour means that he is more akin to Mad Max than ever ...

Back to the actual weekend away - We had perfect conditions with our friend Dean joining us in a caravan at Mt Hotham for 3 days. Below the snow line, the weather provided perfect end of winter sun, and fun for Noëlle to adventure in while she wasn't on the slope with us.

Balin got to do his own version of 4WD with Dean

He also got to learn about Ogres who live under wooden bridges

I know everyone who isn't a fan of the snow is well and truly bored of all the snow talk, but I can't not mention it. This was the drive up to Hotham's lifts on the 2nd day, after a week of the heaviest Victorian August snowfalls in 18 years and over a metre of fresh powder to play in on Friday. Saturday provided perfect blue skies, not a cloud in site and no wind. On Friday even SUVs/4WDs on the mountain were completely buried in snow, with everyone having to dig out. I haven't seen so much snow in Australia.

There was nowhere on the mountain that you couldn't go and crash through the powder.

I personally had my best snowboarding in several years, and far better conditions than I have had in Austria & Germany in recent years. When the snow is great here, it is really great - light dry powder, is just what I ordered.

Even though the fog rolled in Saturday night as I headed back out to do some boarding by floodlight, it really was a perfect snow weekend. Our only complaint was at the poor organisation of the on mountain child care for Balin - Falls Creek definitely wins out for child care for both price and quality.

Sadly heavy rain is forecast for tomorrow, so we have cancelled our day trip to Buller :(

Why I love Mt Baw Baw

2010-08-27T00:51:00.001+10:00

I just want to say that despite only being served by t-bars and poma drag lifts and the limited terrain, I love Mt Baw Baw - here are some of the reasons why. We were back at Baw Baw for the day last Saturday. Firstly I have to say a huge thanks to Jen & Ryan Hamilton for completing my new snowboard package. After way too many demo boards and research over the last 18 months -ish, I finally got my new snowboard mid July (if any one is interested I ended up with the Burton 158 Custom V-Rocker Ltd & Burton Exile EST bindings). Everything came from the USA to save money, and last Wednesday the bindings to complete the new board arrived from Utah via the Hamiltons - Thank you so much :D My new Dakine stomp pad arrived Monday last week too (also from the US) which was perfect timing for the fresh powder and drag lifts of Baw Baw.

That's right, although my new board has been hitting the slopes most weekends since I debuted it (and injured myself pretty badly on my first day on it on the 17th July at Falls doing a 180) - I felt it finally deserved a solo photo shoot now that it is fully dressed.

OK, back to the subject - Why I love Baw Baw - 1st, it is close; 2nd, the lift tickets are sooo much cheaper than everywhere else; 3rd even with fresh powder there were no crowds on the slope.

However, I have to say that one of my favourite things is being able to dive in and out amongst the trees.

Especially laying fresh tracks amongst those trees where no one else has been :D

Of course I also love how family friendly Baw Baw is, which makes it just perfect for Balin to hang out with me in between runs back to the village.

Oh, and did I mention all the deep powder, or how much I love my new board? (The board would have sunk even deeper in the snow if it wasn't for the bindings stopping it)

Well I have to catch some Z's as we'll be up again in a few hours as we head to Mt Hotham for another 3 day weekend, with over 50cm of fresh snow in the last 24 hours and more falling, looks like it is going to be another great weekend :D

Is it still camping if you stay in a cabin?

2010-08-21T05:27:00.000+10:00

Just a quick update as we haven't posted for a few weeks again. Last weekend we managed to organise ourselves a 3 day weekend, so we packed up and headed to the mountains. This time we ended up in a little more comfort and went for a cabin (does that still count as camping?) - We worked out we have probably done more camping trips since Balin was born than in the 12 months before he was born and they have all been Autumn and Winter trips!

Noëlle showing Balin around the small country town of Omeo - you wouldn't believe that less than thirty minutes away there is over a metre of snow and that it was falling fresh :D

So after a full day on the slopes of Falls and then Hotham, and I even headed back up the mountain for some windy and icy night boarding and had a great time. We then added something slightly different to the mix for our 3rd day and headed to Dinner Plain for the 'Sled Dog Challenge'. Teams had even come over from New Zealand for this event as well as all over Australia.

There were several dog teams staying in the same camp site as us, so Noëlle and Balin just had to go and meet them

We got to watch these beautiful dogs doing the 8 dog 10km event.

After all the teams passed the 1km mark where we had found a good spot, we pushed the buggy uphill and battled through the woods to get ahead of them, then I heard a shout from behind as the first team came through - turns out I was pushing Balin along the race trail - oops

Then we pushed through the trees again to the finish line. We had great fun and the sleet/rain that was falling lower down the mountain held off from the time we got out of the car until we headed back to it again.

It seems some family couldn't view the little clip we put of Balin on facebook a few weeks ago. We have put a new one below of Balin who seems to love to pull himself onto his feet and jiggle and dance, (just click on the image below to view) - This was taken 2 weeks ago when we were at Mt Buller for the day - he had a huge smile on his face doing this until the camera came out them he just stared at the camera :(

Balin & I hanging out while I take a break from the slopes of Mt Buller 2 weeks ago

Just one more fun photo - Balin loves to stand so much, I figured it was time to introduce him to skateboarding a few weeks ago - he still likes to go slow at the moment (7th August 2010)

It is 5.30am and the snow has been falling all week so we are off to Mt Baw Baw for the day - Hope everyone else has a great weekend, we will :D

More snow and the ensuing events

2010-07-28T23:22:00.000+10:00

From a lack of blog posts to an influx. Some people were missing our blog presence over the last month, so this is the last catch up. In case it isn't already clear, I love the snow (without it winter is pretty miserable in my opinion). Contrary to popular belief, Australia does get a decent amount. Australia managed 2 Gold medals and 1 Silver in the recent Vancouver Winter Olympics earlier this year (placing them 18th in the medal tally, beating 6 other nations including Team GB, excluding those who got no medals). So when people ask us what we have been up to on the weekends this time of year, the most likely answer is that we have been somewhere in the snow. So here are some of our pictures from a couple of our recent family

snow trips.

Mt Baw Baw, 3rd July 2010 - This is our closest downhill resort, and is serviced by 7 poma/t-bar drag lifts, no chair lifts here. The tickets are cheap, it is a great village, with plenty of places to warm up when not on the snow. It is has the least reliable snow coverage - this day though, there had been 20cm fresh natural snowfall the day before, which made for pretty great conditions.

Noëlle don't eat that snow, I stopped for a pee on my last run ;p

Dean took a spot in our car, but this was his first time using drag lifts, and like Noëlle, he is not a fan - he said to me half way through the day that he didn't mind paying more and driving further next time to a mountain with chair lifts.

There were some visibility issues during the day (and on the drive back down the mountain at the end of the day) - We headed to the other side of the mountain where the visibility was slightly better - Fortunately as the weather closed in, the slopes became quieter = more space for us to play :D

Thanks to Dean joining us, and happily looking after Balin for us for a while, this was the first chance Noëlle & I got to do some runs and take some turns together. This season has been a learning experience of how we can still do things even with a newborn in tow. Other trips to the snow, we have switched out with each other, but we miss doing the runs and playing snowboard tag together. After about 45 minutes we got one panicked call from Dean, as Balin was due a feed and a nappy change simultaneously. Luckily with Baw Baw being a small resort, we were never far away, so a quick run down the mountain, I left Noëlle still powering down the slopes while I ran to relieve Dean - the 5 minutes it took me to get there, and Dean had everything under control - thanks again Dean :D

When Noëlle felt she'd had enough, she was more than happy to curl up in the sofa next to an open fire with Balin and a book (this is probably Noëlle's favourite thing to do on a snowy winter day, just add hot chocolate).

I managed to accidentally lose Dean for a while while I hit some of the limited black runs at Baw Baw - Signs like those below mean nothing to me when there has been decent fresh snow - I hit this and several other 'closed' black runs and had a blast in the trees, tight turns and powder stashes that the resort management thought they could keep me from. Dean finally caught up with me again to finish off the day.

Balin wrapped up snuggly warm with Dean and I ready for the drive home - he was as always the perfect bubba :D

Our little snow family :D

Falls Creek, 17th July 2010 - I wanted to include the trip below to show there are beautiful blue bird days in the mountains too. The perfect follow up to a day bringing 35cms of fresh, dry snowfall.

Views of some of the empty and extensive terrain offered by the largest resort in Victoria

Noëlle enjoying the morning sun while Balin takes a nap after an early start.

First glimpse of my new snowboard (that I have been saving very hard for), that I collected on the Wednesday before this trip, ordered in specially from the US to save money :D

This time it really was just the 3 of us for the weekend - Falls Creek however have a great day-care facility, which only charges $40 for the afternoon session, which is pretty good for professional child care anywhere, and fantastic for on mountain care, located at the foot of the main express quad lift. This meant Noëlle & I got the whole afternoon to enjoy the great fresh snow and warm sun - also a bit more of a view of my incredibly fast new board!

Noëlle the snow-bunny

Just a shadow

After the picture and update on facebook last week, there were a few questions as to what my latest injury is and the cause. Saturday afternoon was the cause, I was still getting the feel for my new board and just chilling, doing little pops and 180s which were all going fine until at higher speed, with Noëlle following me, I caught an edge doing a reverse 180, and slammed down on my face and left side. I recovered from the winding, and although I couldn't lift my left arm on it's own, with assistance from my right arm could raise it above my head so knew my collar bone was OK, and could move my shoulder enough to lean and steer my board. I figured I wouldn't let it spoil the rest of the day. Towards the end of the afternoon, I tried a couple more small easy jumps and ollies, but the landings were really jarring my shoulder. It was a pretty hard fall ...

We had to collect Balin at 4pm, so we both headed back down the mountain for that. I then had one more hour on some more technical runs (still taking it easy so no jumps), until the lifts closed. Falls Creek then reopens a quad lift at 6pm and flood lights a 2.2km run. I managed to get a free courtesy lift ticket so with my shoulder starting to stiffen up headed out for some fun in the dark.

I didn't stay for the whole of night riding, about 2 hours, then it was time to hit the road and head to our camp site, or it would have been if we didn't have a puncture in one of our tires. With that repaired, we had choice of about 65km over the top of the mountain which is an unsealed road and not always fully cleared after heavy snowfall, or drive 115km around and over the sealed road, both would take about the same time, and with foggy icy conditions we chose the long way and drove about 30 minutes through a cloud. With the pain and the conditions, it was the toughest drive I have done in years - If you want to know why Noëlle doesn't drive, maybe her parents can fill you in - she loved to fall asleep to the motion of long drives as a baby, and it seems that habit stuck with her in adult life. Add darkness to that and Noëlle just cannot keep her eyes open after a long day. She also is not a fan of technically challenging, snowy and icy mountain roads.

We did eventually make it to our camp site. This time of year we opt for a caravan and love this site. I was in agony during the night but with the drive over, could finally take some serious painkillers :D

Balin loved his 2nd camping trip, and we had a real nice relaxing Sunday in the mountains.

As we had taken a weekend trip we had been able to go to the furthest Victorian ski resort which had the best snow that weekend. This meant we had a long 5 hour drive back home. The Great Alpine Road is a beautiful drive with all sorts of interesting places to stop and fantastic views down to the Tambo River along long stretches.

There was to be one more adventure to the weekend though. Just under 2 hours from Melbourne, we were chatting to Noëlle's parents on speaker phone as we drove, when there was a thud as the rear left tire blew out. We quickly ended the call without letting Noëlle's parents know the reason so they wouldn't worry. Having already dealt with one puncture in the mountain, we had no way of dealing with this (incidentally this was our 3rd puncture in 4 days, as when the car was in for a service on the Thursday, they discovered a nail in one of the front tires). We had no breakdown cover, but had just passed the large town of Morwell. We looked up several garages on the GPS and called them to see if we could just get a tow truck. In the end we had to call RACV and join them. They sent a van out, and we had to call ourselves a taxi back into town while they towed the car to a lock-up for the night. Thanks again to the GPS we found a cheap motel to go to for the night. In the morning they couldn't get hold of the tires I wanted, or any in the end, so they put a second hand tire on to get us home. We needed new tires anyway, and I had just been holding off with careful rotations trying to wear them all out at once. With 3 punctures in 4 days though we bit the bullet and now have 4 new tires on, and the best of the rest as our spare.

We still had a great weekend, with an additional adventure - as we were already away for the weekend, we at least had Balin's travel cot with us. He as usual wasn't phased by any of the adventures.

I finally went to the hospital about my shoulder on Monday evening. I could barely lift my arm 30 degrees by then. It turns out I did some light damage to my rotator cuff and more serious to my upper left deltoid. I am still excitedly awaiting my new board bindings to arrive from the US to complete my new board, and weather permitting will be back on the slopes this Saturday :D

I'm glad it's not multiple husbands...

2010-07-26T05:40:00.001+10:00

...they'd have a lot to live up to!

Let me explain a tad - back for our 10th anniversary, Coop surprised me with tickets to the Melbourne production of Mary Poppins! I got to choose the seats and date that we were to go, and everything! So Saturday night after a hectic half hour of dropping Balin off with one of my friends to babysit him, we set off into the city on the train to celebrate enjoying 10 exciting years together!

On the train in, we encountered some random bloke who decided to hold up the train by standing in between the doors, so that was nice(!) ;-/, and talked to himself the whole time. I thought he was on bluetooth, which makes people look a bit schitz anyhow, but it soon became apparent that he wasn't - but just talking to himself rather a lot, loudly and quite excitedly - he was just having a party in his head!

We got to the theatre with a few minutes for a quick photo that we then got told off for taking, but hey, it's all good... :)

You can just see the Mary Poppins logo on the curtain there. Pretty much as soon as it went up, I had a huge smile on my face that lasted the entire show! Wasn't sure if they'd manage to translate the book and film onto the stage well, but that blonde woman in front of me tried to compete with my whistle at the end, by 'whoop-whoop'-ing... no chance, love! Hah haa! It was BRILLIANT! Especially the Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious song and dance!! Fantastic!!

So there we are outside the theatre, and this last one is just me, having really enjoyed our night out. Maybe I'd best make the connection for anyone reading this who isn't aware: my work name is Nanny Noelle, and my bosses call me their Mary Poppins, plus I've always loved the Disney movie... so as I said - there'd be a lot to live up to if someone had to compete with Coop...! He's pretty thoughtful and good to me, ya know!! Thanks Coop - love ya xox :D

Party of Six

2010-07-23T19:24:00.000+10:00

Back in June Noëlle & I were live in surrogate parents for the family Noëlle works for while the parents were away sailing in Greece. Of course Noëlle looks after 4 children (3 of theirs and Balin) every day. For me this was a 2 1/2 week experience of the impact of being responsible for 4 children had on my life. We tried to have them form part of what would be our normal lives. So I already covered our trip to the snow the first weekend.

For my part of the experience, this is how it went ...

As I get up so early each day for work, no one else is up before me, so I didn't see any of the children in the morning, just the cat and dog. When I get home in the evening, they would normally be finishing dinner. There was a bit of play time with the kids and animals, then the youngest two go to bed. I have my dinner and shower, and some nights was in bed before Hannah the 11 year old, but mostly we had about the same bed time. Living further out also added at least another 30 minutes to my commute each way.

Really the weekend was the time I got involved in things, it was also my job to plan what we did when everyone was together. So here are a few more of the adventures that we had ...

Above, we took a trip to the city, which involved tram rides (and me nearly breaking Balin's buggy), street entertainers, and a great free exhibition at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI). They also had a Tim Burton exhibition showing, Kye loved the Batmobile that was on display. I had to explain the Mad Max car to him - what are they teaching Australian kids?

Most fun was had with the timeslice video clips (you can see 2 of them below), where we tried out our version of Matrix style moves - it seems that mostly Kye and Lani wanted to beat up Noëlle & I.

The surprise trip to the Drive-in to see Marmaduke went down very well, despite a little rain towards the end of the showing. As the film is about a Great Dane and we went on opening night, there was a group of Great Danes for the kids to play with and get photos with.

Balin, as usual wasn't phased by the size of the dog that just wanted to sniff him! He also happily fell asleep in the back of the car and was no trouble all night.

Hannah, Kye & Lani enjoying the flick, in what I think is the best way :D

Work Hard, Play Hard aaaaand Relax

2010-07-21T17:01:00.006+10:00

For those who have been checking regularly, sorry for the recent lack of blog posts - we have been doing plenty (as always), and I will try and catch up with some of our recent adventures soon.

I just wanted to add a few pictures quickly now and say how much I love where we live and our life here in Australia.

I am not saying it is all roses. I work long hours, earning less money than I could in the UK right now while I am back in college. Noëlle has to work part time, as much of my income goes in paying tuition, and I don't get to spend as much time with Balin and Noëlle as I would like.

However for us at least the grass is greener on the other side.

My alarm went off at 5am this morning, so I was falling asleep trying to read on my way home from work on the train this evening. As I walked from the train station to our house, I was ready to just head in and crash. Instead I decided I would take you on a walk down our road to show you one of the things I love about our life here ...

Just a few minutes along our road, the mid winter sun was bursting through the trees, and bouncing off the glassy flat sea.

Looking back along our road from the west end

The view from the end of our road

Beach access from the end of our road, less than a 5 minute gentle stroll from our front door

View from the stairs at the end of our road looking along the coastline towards the city.

In some ways I wish there was the wind (and that I had the energy after a hard days work) to head out on my kite board, but sometimes it is good to just relax.

Check back for an update on the 'play hard' part of our lives in a few days :D

10 Years

2010-06-24T16:24:00.005+10:00

That's right 10 years ago today this happened.

Noëlle has been putting up with my crazy ideas and dreams ever since.

It has been an adventurous 10 years, and while many things have not gone exactly as planned, we are where we expected to be 10 years ago. Life brings us many new adventures and I look forward to what the next 10 years bring.

Thanks for putting up with me Noëlle - I'm sure no one else would.

Love you :D oxo

Boarding with the boys

2010-06-23T22:42:00.000+10:00

After fulfilling my fatherly duties last Monday, and with more fresh snowfall and still half price lift tickets; Saturday was time for the boys to hit the snow (Noëlle and Balin would have joined us, but work duties called).

So Mayank and Dean arrived at our place about midnight, and after sorting out all the gear, I managed about 2 hours sleep. We were soon on our way to conquer the slopes.

For Mayank (originally from India) and Adrien (from Mauritius) this was the first time either of them had seen the snow other than in films/TV/pictures, let alone walked on it, or tried to navigate down a mountain on it - they were pretty excited!

I had managed to borrow a Lib Tech Skate Banana demo board for free, and also borrow a Burton Custom from one of the guys in the snowboard shop for the weekend (both with bindings). I rented one more board and Adrien used my old Fury, we added 3 pairs of rental boots to the mix (although Mayank ended up in Noëlle's boots in the end). We got Mayank & Adrien sorted with a 2 hour 'discover' lesson for the morning on the lower slopes.

Dean and I headed of for a couple of refresher runs for Dean. (Dean is Korean and did quite a bit of snowboarding while travelling in Canada a few years ago; he also taught little kids to ski in Korea). We were soon on the back side of the mountain playing around.

By 11am we joined back up to see how far Mayank and Adrien had progressed. With a few more tips and lessons from me, they were soon cruising away and doing great on their own as we all rode together. Everyone except me stopped for an early lunch (I took the opportunity to switch from the Custom I had been riding all morning, to the Lib Tech).

After lunch there was plenty of time for playing and hitting the parks. I think Dean & I were both catching bigger air in the morning when we were less tired, but it was a lot of fun (and I was still being cautious with my recently recovered knee).

Then it was time to get Mayank & Dean off the green cruisers and onto the shaky blues.

Just to prove everyone had a great day and that there were smiles still left from the morning ...

We were really lucky with the weather so early in the season. There was drizzle as we neared the mountain, but this fell as a little sleet and snow during the day. There was some heavy cloud and fog cover over parts of the mountain for much of the day, but the sun did make occasional appearances and the bitter winds kept away. There had definitely been a fair amount of snow cover lost since Monday, especially on the back side of the mountain. Now I just need to wait for the first real powder dump of the season.

Oh, and driving 3 hours each way with the boys isn't really that different to driving with young kids. Mayank and Dean sleeping on the way up, Mayank & Adrien exhausted on the way back - good job I kept my eyes open ;p Snow boarding is more tiring than it looks :D

A 5 year old, a 4 year old, a 2 month old and Noëlle & I ...

2010-06-17T07:30:00.014+10:00

So after our Sydney trip, there were several observations and comments that travelling with a baby is easy. So we decided to try something a little more challenging on Monday, thanks to the Queen providing Australia with a day off to celebrate her birthday.

Since last Friday we have become surrogate parents to an 11 year old, a 5 year old and a 4 year old. The family that Noëlle works for have us living in for the next 2 1/2 weeks while the parents are somewhere sailing around the Greek islands. (Incidentally this also requires careful co-ordination to keep our new kitten separated from their puppy).

If you hadn't gathered from my last post, I got rather excited last week about the snow finally arriving in sufficient quantities. The long weekend gave the perfect excuse for an adventure to the mountains.

Balin was well prepared for the trip with his new snow suit :D

We were 30 minutes further from the chosen resort than if we were at home, but our closest resort did not have as much snow and had chosen not to start their lifts this weekend. This meant a 3.30am alarm clock for me and a 3 1/2 hour drive to the best snow of the weekend.

The lower mountain was busy as always, but the upper mountain had plenty of space for me to take first turn at some early turns and jumps ...

After my stint, I was relegated to child entertainment, as Noëlle queued for her first lift of the season.

We had set up camp in Cattleman's right next to the base of the Blue Bullet chair lift, and in the corner next to the fire place. This meant we could go out for some snowball fights. Kye took great pleasure in throwing snowballs at Noëlle each time she came back to the bottom.

Balin enjoying the white stuff

Lani loved playing amongst the trees

In between snow play, there was plenty of space by the fire to warm up.

After our second tag off, it was time for some toboggan fun

Once Kye and Lani were sufficiently exhausted from me running around with the sledge with them - they got to head back to the fire place while I headed back up the mountain.

I was just getting ready to do my last couple of runs across the far side of the mountain, when, just before I got on it, the Emirates lift ground to a stop. There was no snow lower down the mountain, and no other lifts to head for. After about 5 minutes they said they weren't going to be able to get it going again. Before I had chance to look up the mountain and think about the hike back, they announced they would ferry the 40 or so of us that had collected at the bottom by now back by snow mobile. I managed to catch the second Skidoo that arrived for my first ever snowmobile ride. It was a blast once we got up the initial climb.

I still had time for a couple more runs on the Holden lift, before heading back (while those who had got on the Emirates lift before me were still sat swinging in the air) ...

... back for more tobogganing, this time Balin even got to join in for a few runs.

As the sun began to set, the day was almost over.

But there was still time for Lani to get some more snow in the face as she joined Kye and I for a few more blasts down the slope

Hannah (the oldest) decided to hang out with her cousins for the day - she missed out on a beautiful blue skied day, with fresh snow, lots of laughs, and 3 other brilliantly behaved children.

As we headed back to the car in the dark, we got Kye and Lani in their PJs so they could have their bed time routine in the car. Soon we were on our 3 1/2 drive back home with the whole car asleep from the long day except me :D

City of lights

2010-06-15T19:29:00.001+10:00

Since I've not really posted much myself lately, but have been taking photos like crazy, I guess it's time to say 'Hi' from Mrs Coops again...

So obviously we've gotten a few new things recently: a baby, a new address, a new kitten... well, I couldn't resist taking a photo of another new thing - look at that beanie! My boss says Balin looks like a dock worker in it! I think he looks ready for his first outing to the mountains, minus the new snow suit that we've just purchased. :) The kitten on the other hand just looks amazed by the laces on bubba's new boots! (I'm surprised he/she isn't biting them!) Oh, yes, we can't decide if it's a male or female - I guess we'll just take it to the vet and say, 'Please de-sex it and by the way, what is it?' :)

If you look closely, you'll see the reason why Balin is ignoring the ladybirds - usually he's taking out all his pent-up aggression on them and beating them with tiny fists - the kitten about to leap on him!

Our trip into Melbourne city last week had us taking a little break at an art installation. Coop and Balin taking it easy looking at Solar Equation that is being shown for a while here.

Balin wanted to be independent and spend some time chillaxin' by himself... :)

(I seem to have something about to fall on my head...)

On another note, at what stage does it become inappropriate to be really pleased and say 'Good boy!!' each time your child burps and have to change it to 'Stop that, please!' ?!

Oh, and has anyone else noticed that Van Morrison's 'Bright Side of the Road' is the perfect length for a short shower? I'm just sayin'... :D

Snow, Snow, Snow :D

2010-06-09T18:38:00.001+10:00

The white stuff has arrived and I am very excited. To say I have been feeling a little antsy for the last few weeks is an understatement. It had been a very mild Autumn this year, and with the 1st of June hailing the first day of winter, it wasn't looking like there was any significant snow on the way. The ski season officially starts this long weekend, but by this time last year we had already spent 3 days on the slopes on different weekends.

Above Mt Hotham and below Falls Creek, have both had the best snowfall so far, these captures both from this evening before it got dark.

Our second closest resort Mt Buller confirmed a few hours ago that they will be opening at least 1 lift this weekend, with more to be confirmed if conditions continue.

All those stares last weekend as I picked up our boards in the city after a free wax, grind and service on both of them seems like pretty perfect timing to me.

Winter, bring it on ... that's all :D

I'll admit, I'm slightly hugaphobic ...

2010-06-02T17:27:00.016+10:00

... but I am completely handshakeaphobic and shoulderslapaphobic

I try to keep a low profile at church, and the handshakes are the main reason. Honestly, I have never really understood the handshake. Now, due to numerous injuries, and the LDS penchant for shaking hands, Sundays have become loathsome for me. Seriously; handshake everyone at the door, handshake later as you enter a class, handshake before starting a casual conversation, handshake as you hand over your tithing, handshake to say good-bye, and it goes on. Before I attempted to give up Sunday handshaking, I counted almost 200 handshakes at a stake conference, and averaged over 50 handshakes on any given Sunday and that was while still trying to avoid this ludicrous tradition. Honestly my body just cannot handle this, especially when it is accompanied by a slap on the (usually right) shoulder at the same time!

Well, although we have been in our current ward for over a year, I have managed to generally keep away from people. However, babies attract people, and seem to necessitate a good slap on the shoulder? Then this Sunday I gave a talk in Sacrament meeting, and the handshakes came a rolling. If, I leave people hanging, I am rude, if I try and explain that I don't shake hands, people go for my left hand, wanting to crush my already shattered and overly sensitive metacarpals, or slap me on the shoulder - seriously some days I am in so much pain I just want to punch these people, so they understand how much pain they are causing me!

According to Wikipedia in Anglophone countries, "It is considered to be in poor taste to show dominance with too strong a handshake;conversely, too weak a handshake (sometimes referred to as a "limp fish" or "dead fish" handshake) is also considered unseemly due to people perceiving it as a sign of weakness. Because a first impression can last a lifetime, the handshake is actually very important when meeting people for the first time and a weak handshake can instantly make people form negative opinions of you."

As a missionary in France, there was a lot of mocking of the French "wet fish" handshake, or the tapping of wrists or elbows if hands were wet or dirty as a greeting; would that I could have these offered to me now. I think many members need reminding that overly solid handshakes are in poor taste, particularly American missionaries. I also remember when President Hinckley visited the Paris missionaries, we were requested to not attempt a handshake due to his arthritic hands and many over enthusiastic missionaries.

I don't know what the solution is for me? I can handle a few solid handshakes and save these for business meetings, or where I value first impressions enough to risk the potential pain. My increased exposure this Sunday is still causing me massive amounts of pain 3 days later - I think that this Sunday I will wear a sling and hand splint just to keep people from this uninvited personal contact ...

In other news. Balin is doing great, he sleeps well and we are getting plenty of sleep. It seems many people expect our lives to be massively changed instantly from having him. I am not saying our lives aren't changed for the better, but our day to day lives are back to normal. Balin is having fun learning what we expect of him in life, he tells me he loves chasing seagulls on the beach and flying kites with me.

Also not content with being back to her normal schedule of basically being a paid housewife. Yes, I am a bad husband who sends my wife out to work as I cannot earn enough to pay my college tuition, and all the other bills. At at least Noëlle loves her job (I'm glad one of us does). She cares daily for a moderate size family looking after 3 children, a rapidly growing puppy and our own newborn, and of course looking after me. Still, life without a cat was too much to bear! So on the weekend we gained a black 4 1/2 week old kitten, (if only to stop Noëlle from catnapping all the other cats she keeps feeding).

I think wherever possible pets are great for kids, both Noëlle & I grew up with pets, so Balin now has his first pet, and they seem to love each other already. Balin is quite a fidgeter and even when he is wiggling and kicking and punching the kitten, it just moves and snuggles back up next to him :D

We were a little worried about the kitten the first few days as really it left it's Mum far too soon (we weren't expecting to have it for at least another couple of weeks). It wasn't eating or going to the toilet. There was quite a surreal moment on Monday evening where Noëlle was sat feeding Balin while I had the kitten sat on me being fed milk from a syringe.

All our cats have spent time in my hoodie pockets, this one has needed the warmth most of all

Things seem much better now, so hopefully it is well on the road to survival.

Now there is the issue of name again. Most know that as big fans of Red Dwarf, a requirement our cats is that they be black and (the first one in each country at least) has been named Cat. We had American Cat, English Cat (now living with Noëlle's parents along with Houdini our long haired black cat). Should we now have Australian Cat, or come up with a new name? Feel free to voice you thoughts, or simply vote in our poll?

It's all in the name

2010-05-24T20:29:00.002+10:00

Origins and meaning of the name Balin …

Latin origin meaning strong & healthy

English origin; Sir Balin, one of King Arthur’s Knights

Sanskrit origin meaning, powerful, strong, robust

Indian origin meaning mighty warrior

Hindu origin meaning soldier, one able to weaken enemies with a wish
Other places you may have heard Balin

Sir Balin le Savage, Knight of the Round Table (though technically the round table was not formed until after his death). Aka the Knight with the Two Swords after he recovers a sword in a much more unique way than Arthur’s stone …this sword eventually curses him to kill his own brother Sir Balan.

Balin, brother of Dwalin and second dwarf that Bilbo met in the Hobbit, Balin is Lord of Moria, becomes Bilbo’s closest friend amongst the dwarfs. He is the 2nd cousin of Gimli who joins Frodo’s adventures.

Balin in Hindu Mythology Balin was the Monkey King of Kishkindhya who could weaken enemies with a wish, and son of Indra.

Balin, an Australian surf brand started on the peninsula where we now live. Originally Bali Industries.

Balin, a small town in North Central Poland

Jowett origins

Jowett Dawson, or Grandpa Jo to Noëlle’s Dad (Noelle’s Great Grandad), is Balin’s Great Great Grandad. He was born in Queensbury, Nr Halifax, West Yorkshire in March 1867. He died in 1923. He was a coal miner.

The origins of Jowett are distinctly Yorkshire and North West England based, consolidating, even today, in Bradford in what was the West Riding of Yorkshire. There are two possible origins for the name dating back to the 11th century. A Henri De Juatt at that time came from a small village near Caen in Normandy named Jouette. It is alleged that he was given lands in Cheshire by William the Conqueror. I have found vague references that Henri was knighted and was part of the First Crusade's assault on Jerusalem from 1096-1099. From this same line of Jowetts a single family emigrated from Bradford to the New World in 1639. The Americans being what they are claimed a noble lineage through Henri De Juatt and with it his apparent coat of arms. There is no record of this existing prior to this in the UK. The Americans misunderstanding the broad Yorkshire accent of the 1600s also soon changed the spelling from Jowett to Jewett …

The other possible origin of the UK name is as a diminutive of Juliana, or more simply a Jowett being the son of Juliana.

Jowett is probably most famous as a car manufacturer based in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, from 1906 to 1954.

Cooper, or Barrel Maker is common enough, but my particular family line is somewhat tougher to trace back. I have only been able to get back to my Great, Great Grandfather, Charles Cooper who was born in Melbourne, Derbyshire in 1816. He had 2 sons & 2 daughters, one had no children and the other son (Frederick Joseph Cooper) had 1 son, (Frederick Arthur Cooper) and 4 daughters. My Grandad Arthur had 2 sons, my Dad had one son (me) and 5 daughters, his brother, my Uncle had 5 daughters. You get the trend, it ended up being down to me to carry on the family name.

So, although at this stage in our lives, and after the fun and games of fertility clinics, we would have been happy with any healthy baby, we are especially excited to have a boy, and that Balin can carry on the Cooper family name.

As to pronunciation, we have heard and seen many different ways, but we say

Bay-lin Jow-et(t) Coope(r)

Now for what quite a few people have been waiting for, a whole album dedicated to Balin - just click on the main picture below to see over 40 photos (for those who think this is overkill, sorry, this is more for family)

Balin Jowett Cooper

And yes we researched all this before finally choosing a name. From someone who is not happy with their given name and no longer uses it, we hope Balin loves his name as he grows up. I think it is very hard to pick a name, maybe I find it particularly hard as I have been seriously considering changing mine legally for some time now.

Oh and just for Leigh (Noëlle's sister), here are a couple of the kind of pregnancy photos I suspect that you wanted to see? These were taken 2 weeks before he was born.

Planes, Trains & Automobiles

2010-05-12T20:10:00.000+10:00

I know this isn't the next post that I promised, sorry still working on that one, soon ...

In the mean time, I thought that I would add Balin's first adventure. It didn't start exactly as planned as on Friday night Balin was introduced to the Accident & Emergency department for the first time (and I had nothing to do with the incident) - all is fine and after several hours, Balin & Noëlle returned to get a little bit of sleep before a very early start to our Saturday.

I had to go to Sydney to collect a company vehicle and bring it down to Melbourne. We decided to use the opportunity to see how well Balin would travel, and how we might adapt our normal travel routine.

To the right Balin checking in for the flight to Sydney at 5.30am. Oblivious to the mad rush to the airport after spending much of the night at A&E. There were absolutely no complaints from Balin with the initial delay in boarding due to a missing member of flight crew.

Balin sat patiently as we then had to wait for an ill-passenger to leave the plane before we finally took off over an hour late for a 1 1/2 hour flight.

Balin seemed to enjoy the flight with no issues during take off or landing, and managing an in flight meal along the way. Noëlle showed Balin the views as we flew, seems there is no fear of heights.

After collecting the car seat and travel cot it was time for a train ride into central Sydney. I tried to get Balin excited about riding a double decker train to no avail.

Then it was time for a quick taxi ride to the office to find the car with a flat battery. Balin sat taking it all in while we got things sorted.

Soon we were on our way to the Sydney Temple. It has been almost 5 1/2 years since Noëlle & I have been into Sydney, and then it was all on public transport. I have to say, crazy as Melbourne drivers are, Sydney drivers are even worse, and the roads are an absolute nightmare, you can't turn right, you can't make u-turns, I am not sure if there is much you can do! Eventually after having to drive past the Temple (because of no right turns or u-turns), we found somewhere to turn round.

We were both able to go into the Temple and do work for my family. We used the same system as we did a couple of weeks ago at the Melbourne Temple. Noëlle went in first while I walked round the grounds with Balin, then Noëlle came out to feed and take over while I went in and did some work. As a full size Temple, Sydney has some very handy additional facilities including a baby 'crib' room, and changing facilities for us and the baby, all attached to the back of the Temple. (2 weeks ago in Melbourne, they allowed us to wait in the Temple foyer as the weather was not so nice, and it doesn't take much time to wander around the small grounds - there Balin was able to exercise and entertain the Temple workers and waiting patrons).

The weather in Sydney was beautiful (a 27 degrees Celsius autumn day with clear blue skies), so Balin and I were able to enjoy the sun as we sat in the Temple grounds waiting for Noëlle. The weather was so nice, that after we had both been in the Temple, we decided to get some supplies from the supermarket just down the road and picnic at the Temple.

Soon it was time to make some tracks on the total drive of 1,270km back to Melbourne (we took a meandering route), via Australia's capital Canberra, passing through in the dark on Saturday (so no decent pictures). But Balin has now been to the capital and I had to wake both Noëlle and Balin up to show them parliament and central Canberra. Canberra sort of springs up on you out of the bush, then even quicker, disappears into the rear view mirror, it is a very strange place ...

Balin waiting for us to eat our chicken just outside the capital.

After camping out Saturday night we worked our way through New South Wales' mountains. We had beautiful winding driving roads, passing through small country towns - even better for a motorcycle trip??

We found a small detour to make to 'Mt Cooper' - We thought we had to get some family shots as best we could ...

... though I am not sure that 'Mt Cooper's' status has not been over exaggerated!

We eventually got home about 10pm Sunday night (after first picking up our own car from the airport on the other side of the city). It was a whirlwind trip of about 2,300km by 2 cars, a plane, a train and a taxi in under 42 hours with a newborn in tow. Balin travelled brilliantly through the whole weekend. It has proven a very good test run for all of us for viability of future bigger trips ...

Introducing ...

2010-05-03T15:27:00.001+10:00

Balin Jowett Cooper

Honestly, we weren't dragging this one out. We just got the birth certificate on Friday (births need to be registered within 60 days in Australia, so still plenty of time).

More pics to follow later this week :D

Pregnancy Photos

2010-04-27T19:46:00.003+10:00

Noëlle's sister requested some pregnancy photos of her. I'll be honest, life did not change that much for us with pregnancy. What Leigh didn't know was that if she looked back on the blog, it was full of pregnant Noëlle ...

When Noëlle's Dad saw the 12 week scan, he gave quite strict instructions that she was to 'give up rock climbing' - errr, that hadn't happen.

Week 1 - Plenty of watersports, wakeboarding, jetskiing, tubing, tombstoning :D

Week 8 - Noëlle couldn't miss out on her winter sports.

Week 12, more snowboarding, last weekend of the season, if it had lasted longer Noëlle would have still been out there :D

Week 13 - White Water Rafting - we like our babies shaken, not stirred.

16 weeks - a little more leisurely time on the river kayaking

Week 18 - Motorbike Road Trip
& Camping (over 1000km in 3 days on the back of a bike and sleeping on the floor)

Week 19 - Rock Climbing, sorry Noëlle's Dad ...

Week 20 - Plenty of kiting over the summer

23 weeks - The road trips continue, and the bump is getting harder to hide ... and don't think when we do motorbike trips they are just short rides down the road, this was a 450km round trip in one day ...

Week 25 - Sailing anyone, all part of the working day for Noëlle, whilst looking after 2 nippers and proving she's 'afraid of no shark', by being first in the water on the day sailing :D

Week 27 - Snorkelling - There were only a few things that we were told Noëlle could absolutely not do, scuba diving (maybe Noëlle's current favourite hobby along with climbing), horseriding and amusement park rides. Snorkelling had to do over the summer to replace the planned diving trip to Northern Queensland.

Week 28 - 12km trail ride - Noëlle continued to join me on rides until 7 1/2 months. She was still jogging up to 6 months, and would ride along side me for my trail run training to help pace me.

Week 30 - 24km 'gentle' coastal ride. I know she's walking here, but that is a pretty tough hill, and she rode the rest :)

Week 33 - Noëlle joined me as support crew for all my races over the summer and early Autumn. My toughest race, the Otway Odyssey, we both got prizes, as she waited for me to come in while she kept hearing reports of more and more injuries to riders. When I eventually arrived at the 65km check point almost 3 hours late, she was pretty distressed. (I didn't realise, as the first thing I did when I got off my bike was check my cycle computer, a big no-no with a heavily pregnant wife!)
Noëlle and I also camped out the night before this race, right next to the beach.

Week 38 - and last of all, a week before giving birth Noëlle walked over 10km around the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix race at Albert Park. Her 'condition' did get us some pretty good disabled seating for the last 20 laps or so :D Look closely at the shadow ...

Well that was a small bit of our lives over the last 9 months. Were those the sort of pictures you were meaning Leigh?

For anyone who wasn't sure, clicking directly on any of the photos will allow you to see larger versions and anything blue and underlined, you can click on for more info from previous blog posts in case you missed them :D

Just the one thanks

2010-04-20T18:34:00.000+10:00

5 days old, Noëlle & Baby Cooper leaving the hospital to come home :D

A few more details about Baby Cooper:

Noëlle finished work at 10pm 3 days before delivering (delivered at 39 weeks and 2 days). We were out on the Saturday evening just getting a few more things done, and had planned to have our last date night without having to find a babysitter for the next decade+.

Noëlle was having some uncomfortable 'fake' contractions, and didn't feel she could sit for dinner and a movie, so we picked up some groceries and headed home instead. By 11pm Saturday night regular contractions started. I slept much of the night while Noëlle got some sleep, took a 4 hour bath and phoned the hospital a few times with questions (the hospital she delivered at was only 5 minutes away). After her last phone call her contractions were just over 2 minutes apart, so we slowly made our way to the car. We got to the hospital just after 8.30am.

Noëlle walked in, rolling her own luggage, and we had some issues getting someone to open the maternity wing doors for us! The buzzer wasn't working on the intercom, so eventually Noëlle banged on the glass doors. A voice came over the intercom saying,

"Yes, how can I help you?" (They can see through the one way glass, so a rather stupid question really).

Noëlle's response, "I'm having a baby, please let me in!"

A slight pause, then "There is a buzzer ..."

Before the nurse could continue, Noëlle confirms "I've pressed it three times!"

To which the door opens!

After a quick check in, we were told Noëlle was 9.75cm dilated and ready to go. I should just mention, Noëlle had a total of just 4 panadol (tylenol/paracetamol) during the night at home, and took nothing once she arrived at the hospital. Noëlle had planned a water birth, so walked to the water birth room, which they had ready for her after her last phone call. Unfortunately the midwife on was not certified for full water birth, so Noëlle got to spend another 45 minutes or so in the bath before she had to come out to deliver.

Baby Cooper was born 2hrs 45 minutes after arriving at the hospital with about 1hr 15 mins of pushing and only gas and air (no pain killers other than those few at home during the night) at

11.46am EST (Eastern Standard Time, Australia) 4th April (Easter Sunday)
2.46 am BST (British Summer Time) 4th April
3.46 am CET (Central European Summer Time) 4th April
9.46pm EDT (New York, DC, Pennsylvania, Florida) 3rd April
7.46 pm MDT (Utah) 3rd April
6.46pm PDT (California, Oregon) 3rd April

Weighing in at 7lbs 8.5 ounces/3.57 kilos , 50cm/19.7 inches long, 34.5cm/13.6 inch head (apparently causing the only real delay in a perfect birth).

They both stayed at the delivery hospital until Tuesday evening, then I transferred them to a smaller hospital down on the peninsula until Friday when they both came home - this was just to give Noëlle a chance to get used to everything, as I was unable to take any time off work. I was actually back at work for the first time on the Tuesday having had a week off after my motorbike accident, and was still on crutches and in a leg splint. (Incidentally I had more, and stronger pain killers in my system than Noëlle did during the delivery...)

Made in America from English parts for end use in Australia

2010-04-17T19:26:00.000+10:00

Introducing the first new Cooper since 1984

Yes Noëlle has delivered at 39 weeks, but that is all we are going to add at the moment, all is well and we are back home.

We now want real guesses as to sex (don’t let the clothing deceive you). No names have been chosen so feel free to add suggestions; we will not reveal the sex until we think enough people have guessed either in the comments or by messaging us. So even if you have guessed already, now there is a photo, time to guess again.

Check back for more updates soon …

That’s it – the game’s up!

2010-04-11T15:18:00.003+10:00

So I’m in RS and ask if I can just mention something, it’ll take all of 10 seconds...? No problem, I’m told.

Couple of minutes into opening exercises, “And Sister Cooper wants to just speak to you all for a moment…”

So I stand up and just say, “For those of you who haven’t noticed, I’m six months pregnant! I just thought I’d let you all know that it’s not that I’ve been piling on the pounds! :) ”

Apparently no-one had noticed! - Apart from the one lady who had bent down and asked me if I was pregnant just before RS started. I tried to ignore her, but she asked again, so I said ‘shhhh’ and told her that I wasn’t telling people yet. She then said she wouldn’t say anything, but proceeded to ask if everything was going well, etc. I asked her what she’d have done if I’d have said, ‘No, I’m just fat!’? She nicely said that I’m too slim to be fat. (I think she was just covering her back there, seeing as I’ve hardly spoken to her before this!)

It’s a good thing that Coop and I had already decided to let people at our ward know today, as there wasn’t much chance of hiding it anymore, or I’d have been a bit annoyed that someone had asked me. –

At least now I can get my good posture back, and Coop can stop having to check that no-one can see my bump!

Pretty chuffed I kept the bump hidden for 26 weeks and 2 days :D Now the world can see it ;p

Do you think we’ve gotten away with it?!

2010-04-09T12:21:00.003+10:00

Alright, so I’m 24 weeks pregnant, and we still haven’t told anyone. It’s kind of nice having this little secret between the two of us, and to be honest, most people who know us, have probably realised by now that we tend to not give much notice when we announce things (the wedding – 5 weeks; the move to Utah – that morning, to the Furbanks! The move to Oz – 3 weeks to family, you get the picture…).

Well, we haven’t felt any different about this, it’s our news and we want to announce it when and where we want.

The only thing is well, church. Each week we have a dilemma of what to wear so that no-one figures it out. Or at least if they notice, they don’t dare say anything, because they don’t know if I’m just getting fat, or pregnant, and seeing as we have been quite open with people, if we liked them enough, that they know we can’t have kids, then the obvious answer is that I’m just pigging out! :)

I usually have pretty great posture, even if I do say so myself, but I’ve had to learn to stoop, to sit forward and to forget about being proud of how flat my tum is. (Which to anyone who knows me, has always been something that I’ve loved about myself, even when I’ve had to contend with growing up a red-head etc.) I haven’t got ‘fat clothes’ as I term them. All my stuff is fitted! Arrgh! So we went shopping for a few things that hopefully give a few weeks more secrecy and comfort. So each Sunday morning it is like a little modelling session as to what covers the growing bump more. I’ve had to resort to body warmers over the top of the fat clothes, these past few weeks, which must make people wonder, considering it is still pretty warm down here right now!

Each Sunday, though, we come back and no-one has asked, so that is one more week where it is our secret, still. I love it. We’ll see how far I can get…

Alright, settle down all of you!

2010-04-08T16:27:00.001+10:00

Noëlle checking in again :D I wrote this before we officially announced our news. After the 20 weeks scan I thought I better tell my boss the situation and was amazed that she hadn't guessed, it might not have been wise to tell the kids though, as we still hadn't told anyone else ...

You know the old rule, never work with animals or children? So I’ve got both where I work… a brand new lab/retriever puppy and of course the kids I look after, not to mention a Tae-Bo happy baby in my tum.

How do you stop a very excited pup jumping up on a 3yr old who is trying to tell the dog that this teddy is hers, not the dog’s? The kid doesn’t seem to understand that the more she waves this teddy in front of the pup, the more the pup will try jump and get it!

The other thing is that this baby seems to react to Dr Seuss books, music and Coop talking. If it moves, I let the kids know, and then the baby won’t move again! Of course, kids have the attention span of a gnat, so if it hasn’t moved within 2-3 seconds, they are gone! I wouldn’t even bother telling them, but they keep asking, “Is your baby moving?” sometimes in the most inappropriate places, like when we’ve just sat down in the kids’ story-time group at the library! When you are trying to keep it quiet that you’re having one, this kind of stuffs that one up. I just looked at the next person, smiled apologetically and said, “He just says random things every now and again, kind of like Tourettes…”!

Closer than you think ...

2010-04-08T06:51:00.001+10:00

That’s right, due to Noelle having no morning sickness; we have been able to keep our news to ourselves a little longer than most.

One of the biggest questions we have had is when the baby is due, and if we are going to find out the sex.

Well those guesses of September are a little off as you can tell from the 20 weeks scans from below.

After such a good early scan, this thing just didn’t want to stay still for a decent 3D scan, and just looks plain freaky to me.

The regular ultra-sound of the head is nice and clear at least – what do you think, a Cooper nose?

As to sex, no we have chosen to not find out, and this is our last scan.

Guesses below please, (and no, Jeff’s rather stunning incorrect identification of the cord in the first scan doesn’t count, but had Noelle in hysterics)

And for those who didn’t know, or weren’t sure, it’s not just that we have selfishly decided to put off children while we played and travelled (alright, maybe a little bit) – There have been ongoing and confusing fertility issues. It wasn’t just me that was broken too; Noelle gave the doctors even more problems. We might explain some of the process we have been through, but for the moment let’s just say, something worked in the end :D

and now a few words from Noëlle

2010-04-07T12:19:00.004+10:00

From that…

So I’d had a chest infection for the last while, which wasn’t getting better. “Boo hoo, big deal”, I hear you shout over my walrus-like coughing, yeah, yeah…

So I end up at the doctors’ surgery, at Coop’s insistence, and the dr decides to give me antibiotics. First though, he’ll just do some tests, get the results and call me back. Okay.

Phone call next morning, “Please can you come to the surgery, Mrs Cooper?”

Can’t make it until the weekend, so Coop and I arrive, wait our turn, go in to see a different dr to get the results. After we sit down, he says my results have all come back fine, “…and yes, congratulations…” to which we look at each other, and say “Congratulations… what?”

“You’re ten weeks pregnant; you need to book in a scan in 2 weeks, start taking folic acid supplements and book in to see me again once you’ve had your scan.”

Well, there goes the lifetime membership to the infertility club!

…to this!

You can see the results of my surprise 12 weeks scan in the previous post :D

A picture is worth a thousand words (apparently)

2010-04-06T13:13:00.000+10:00

What do you think this picture says?

Check back soon for more details :D

Australian Grand Prix - 28th March 2010

2010-04-04T21:20:00.003+10:00

Last year I had a pair of tickets for the entire race weekend for the Australian Grand Prix here in Melbourne, but as Noëlle arrived here a week after the race, and I couldn't find anyone else to go with me, I sold the tickets.

This year we had tickets for race day only, but what a race it was!

It has been a long time since I was trackside at a race, and those cars are LOUD. I love the Albert Park race as it is a road race, you can get right up close to the action and tracks on a general admission ticket. There are plenty of berms to get a reasonable view of the race and large screens so you can actually follow what goes on in the 1 min 30 seconds it takes for the cars to get back round to you again. The rain made for some additional excitement to the race, it looked a lot wetter on the tracks than it felt on the grass where we were sat for the first 20 laps.

Below is the Red Bull of Vettel that really should have won this race (and the Bahrain race a couple of weeks ago). I was rooting for both the Red Bull cars and with Webber also performing well originally, and it being is home race, so were most of the crowd. Although I was pleased to see Button win as a true Englishman, Red Bull deserved a much better result. I've just watched this weekends Malaysian GP, I gave a loud cheer for the Red Bull 1-2 finish, but this time, Webber deserved the win in my opinion.

At the end of the race (to add to the 10km we'd walked around the track during the afternoon), along with everyone else, Noëlle & I walked onto the track and walked our way up to the start/finish line - again an aspect I love of this race. We hung around a little longer eventually finding the main stage with Simple Minds performing, before getting the tram and train back out of the city. (Still sad I missed The Who last year)

Also, for those wondering, yes the race is a Sunday race, but I can live with myself, the local race start time of 5pm at Albert Park meant that we could still go to church in the morning and head to the track in the afternoon. There was plenty to do around the track and plenty of other entertainment. The other race that we got to watch was the GT race which was red flagged 1 lap before the end because of the cars below ...

Love racing :D

Summer was over ...

2010-04-03T17:14:00.008+11:00

... about a month ago, but here are some of the things we got up to (just to ensure a blog post features Noëlle)

To me one of the things I love about summers are drive-in cinemas (actually we'll go pretty much year round, we saw the last Harry Potter film at the drive-in in the middle of our winter). At one of the first real jobs I had after I passed my driving test, there were some guys who ran the old drive-in on Bournemouth beach front (more as a hobby more than a viable business). So even though drive-ins are seen as typically American (Noëlle also fell in love with them there), they have always been a part of my driving experience. Fortunately Australia has always been popular for this outdoor experience, and the weather lends itself to them much more favourably than the UK.

Below we are enjoying some end of day relaxation with our usual friends (I think this was 2012)

There have been some questions about Noëlle's whereabouts in recent blog posts, well she comes to each of my races (and is usually behind the camera, and helps me train for them too). I started running with Noëlle, but as I do longer distances than her, and run faster, she normally cycles along side me to pace me and let me know my distance. We also both cycle together, she joins me on the cross country MTB trails, but not the downhill or technical tracks - we also both love to cycle along the beautiful coast line where we live. I also manage to get her into a kayak occasionally, as well as snorkelling the local waters.

Below is Noëlle not quite making her way up the last part of Oliver's Hill (a particularly challenging hill climb a couple of kms from us) - This ride on the 30th January was a leisurly 25km coastal ride.

I got some free cinema tickets from work, so we broke our drive-in tradition and (like everyone else in the world) went to see Avatar in luxury and our first non-theme park 3D film - Noëlle didn't think she wanted to see it when I told her what it was about - How wrong she was; we both loved it.

We both had compulsory (but unfortunately unpaid) time off work between Christmas and New Years. We had planned to do a road trip up to Southern Queensland, camping and enjoying the beaches and Theme Parks on the Sunshine Coast (Australia's equivalent of Southern California or Florida). However there were severe storms forecast during Christmas week. We had plenty of local beaches to pick from with great weather, so decided we would do a 'Staycation' instead. We spent plenty of time at the beaches, lakes and forests , BBQing both Christmas Day and New Years Day (they have great free BBQ's at many of the beaches and parks here).

Noëlle getting our Christmas lunch ready, with no-one else to bother us in the picnic area just behind the sand-dunes of one of our local beaches (just 3km from our house)

New Years Eve, the angry storm clouds finally reaching us from Queensland - in the end this made for a spectacular lightening display for New Year rather than the fireworks that we were expecting.

The stormy weather didn't stop me jumping from the pier on Christmas and New Years, much more pleasant than the December and January sea dips I would usually take in England at this time of year.

Noëlle still misses our cats, which means regular trips to pet shops and animal rescue centres to befriend the local felines - we even managed to find a parking spot just for Noëlle below.

Noëlle has also been getting out on the water in a different way to my kitesurfing - she got to bring the boat below around to a closer marina whilst being paid as Nanny to play with the kids as they sailed, and take regular dives from the deck on a beautiful day. I spent the next day crawling around the yachts belly doing some electrical work on it for her boss. Who do you think has the better job?

Noëlle loves seeing Australia's unique wild life in the the wild. Lysterfield Park where I do a lot of my cycling has proven one of the best places for kangaroos and the wallabies below (I have had a couple of close encounters coming round fast single track corners to suprise some rather angry kangaroos, a couple of which have made a move for me). Noëlle did think one of our neighbours had a 'giant rat' problem, only to be informed they were possums.

We have also spotted plenty of koalas and wombats on our road trips.

Talking of road trips, fortunately considering my recent totalling of our motorbike, we were able to enjoy a lot of motorbike road trips over the Spring, Summer and early Autumn. We have particularly loved the coastal roads, visiting some of Western Victoria's famous beaches and breaks alone the surf coast including Bells Beach (on a calm day) below.

Noëlle and I take it in turns to ride. Some people (especially Noëlle's bosses) find it funny when we turn up places with me happily sat on the back - I have no problem riding pillion aka 'the b***h seat'

We love the Great Ocean Road, built after World War 1 by unemployed returning soldiers under a government program to rival America's Pacific Coast Highway (I've ridden both; not sure they succeeded, but a great winding ride non the less). I truly admire the work ethic of those soldiers and that time. I wish more was done to ensure that those unemployed people collecting government pay cheques in the world today were made to do something for their money that would benefit them, the tax payer and local communities.

So the lack of posts this year and lack of Noëlle has hopefully be somewhat rectified in this post. This is just a small sample of our life - the lack of posts doesn't reflect a lack of activities to blog about; rather the fact that we are so busy enjoying ourselves (when we are not working hard), there isn't much time to collect our thoughts and get them blogged :D

Just another dent in the body work

2010-04-02T19:46:00.000+11:00

You know when you get something new, especially a vehicle, or something quite expensive there is that day when you get the first scratch?

Then over time, another small scratch or dent is added ...

Then maybe you have a small argument with a shopping trolley in the supermarket car park?

Then there is the fence post you don't see after a long drive when you are reversing into a drive-way?

Maybe you have a small 'fender bender', and the insurance company preferred repair shop just doesn't get that paintwork quite right?

You get back to your vehicle parked in the long term airport parking after a week away to discover a couple of extra dents in the car door with a different colour paint mark?

Then as the years go by little bits of rust start to set in?

There are some funny noises or stubborn starts, especially those early winter mornings?

You finally understand where all those marks come from on the walls of those tight turns in the multi-story car park?

Really though after those first few scratches and marks, it isn't such a big deal?

My body is my vehicle for life, I actually don't know when I got my first permanent scar on the corner of my left eye, I know I was climbing a bookcase when I did it, and I think I was no older than 3. I know the next scar across my forehead I was 4. When my hair is short you can see the numerous scars on my head, 75% of which were added before I turned 10. I am sure that my Mother was not so excited about those first marks. For those who know me well, you will know those were just the start of my 'life souvenirs', and the causes of many scars have been long forgotten, or even 'overwritten'.

Well on Monday I added 'just another dent'. That is what it is like these days, my old rusting truck of a body hardly reacts these days.

Monday at 6.50am in the dark and in heavy rain I had my first motorbike accident about 2 minutes from work.

I know that bike doesn't actually look that bad right?

What can I say? Yeh, that's me, 4 days later, still coughing up blood, 25% mobility in my right leg, zero mobility in my left leg, and I am out shopping for a replacement bike (we are still waiting for confirmation, but the GS500 sounds like it is a write-off). I am actually fine, I will be in a splint for another couple of weeks, and physically out of action for about 6 weeks, that means I will miss my last 2 planned races for the Autumn, but will be right for the snowboard just in time for first snow mid May :D

Super D

2010-03-17T17:06:00.007+11:00

What is the best thing to do after spending the long weekend moving to a new place (during Melbourne's major weekend thunder and hail storms), and then sitting (and fortunately passing) my Australian Electricians License during the week ...

... throw myself down a mountain with nothing but gravity and pedal power taking me up to speeds of 6okph (38mph for the metrically challenged), while dodging rocks, fishtailing round sharp gravel turns, flying over log jumps, chasing through the snow gums on flowing single track, and battling through river crossings - that was just some of the fun of my first Super D (Downhill Descent), at Mount Buller in the Australian Alps on the 13th March.

Yes, that's me under there heading onto the much flatter single track after holding it together on the steep gravel start

Those who care about my body will be pleased to know that we had my ambulance cover sorted for this race (unlike my last event).

Those sadistic friends will be disappointed that, despite bucking the bike at the 4km mark and getting some cheers from a the few spectators on an early gravel bend for recovering, and then actually throwing myself off at the 5km mark (fortunately with no onlookers to laugh at my amateur mistake) - I sustained no major injuries. I was however glad that I was wearing upper body armour to save me from skinning myself from the lethal loose stuff that did have a go at my unprotected left leg.

I was luckier than some with with my bike reliability, as I passed a fair few riders changing inner tubes within a few kms of the start, and as I headed into the technical snow gums to the right saw my first rider walking back up the mountain with a broken chain. However, as I took one jump in the first few kms, I very nearly had an interesting experience with my saddle as it become very lose. I rode on a little further before deciding I had to fix it. I had my spare tube and CO2 cylinder taped to my saddle stem (I had used a saddle bag in my last race which kept coming open and had lead to several spares and tools being lost). This proved to be a real access issue for re-tightening the saddle. I blame the whole thing on Ryan, who after my last race suggested I adjust my saddle height, which also lead to me adjusting the overall saddle position. (Just kidding, Ryan gave me some really great tips, and is both a far better cyclist than I am, as well as being much more technically knowledgeable). A few jumps later, and another stop for a jammed chain, then it became mostly smooth sailing until the river crossings ...

It seems I caught the eye of the official photographers much more on this race than my last race, with 8 being identified of me in total, and the one below of the final of 12 river crossings being put in the official 'Hot Shots' category.

Gunning it for the finish line - As a Super D, we set off on the race in heats of 5 at 20 second intervals, after my 2 mechanical stops I had no idea where I was, but I was racing the clock. I had retaken several spots on early river crossings, choosing to stay on my bike for as much as possible on each of them.

I lost 8 minutes with my mechanicals and fall, not to mention losing momentum, this meant I lost over 30 places overall, and instead of finishing firmly in the middle of the pack, I was at the top of the bottom 3rd. It was a great race and a great day.

This wasn't the race I had planned for, or that I had initially entered, it was supposed to be a 4 hour enduro course of a 4km downhill loop before riding the ski lift back up to start again with the most laps winning. Victoria's major storms the weekend before had damaged the chair lift planned for the race, and another had been hit by lightening. So this was a replacement race, with a full length non-stop mountain descent. I loved it and could have done the entire course again. I hope they keep the Super-D race at next years Bike Buller Festival and get the Downhill Brake-Burner Enduro I was entered for. If they do I will be back again next year doing both events; even if you can't see it, there will be a HUGE smile fixed to my face :D

tried ... failed :(

2010-02-28T18:30:00.001+11:00

Saturday 20th February 7.10am - Apollo Bay, Victoria, Australia - 5 minutes before the start of the Otway Odyssey 100km Extreme Mountain Bike Marathon

To the right - approx 2km in on the initial road stretch of the race, just before the 8km hill climb. (I apologise that there are not any real decent photos, there may be some official ones, but there are 241 pages of official pages with 25 thumbnails per page to look through or 6025 total official photos - my dark colours are not that easy to pick out in big groups)

I could write pages about the race, but that would just bore my few loyal readers - so I will try and keep it short. At 7.15am, 1006 riders set off on a 100km race, the Elite women started 30 minutes earlier, but everyone else, including the elite men started at the same time. I was placed as a middler, and for the first 20km sat somewhere near the front of the middle.

After the road hill climb we entered some fast downhill double-track, where I managed to regain some of the places I had lost on the last 1km of the of the hill climb. As we transitioned into single track there was still a little space for me to keep squeezing by those more cautious downhill riders as we started to bottleneck. Just after the 20km mark, we entered the beautiful Otway forests, and bottlenecked as we hit wet muddy tracks, and came to our first creek crossing. Most riders had dismounted, and were crossing a sort of rock ford to the right. A few of us squeezed past to the left, and one cyclist waded through to his knees, the next cyclist took a run up and made it through - I did the same and just made it to the quagmire that had been left on the other side that had been created 30 minutes earlier by the lead cyclists. I was not quite sure of the etiquette of this, but I made up more than 5o places by doing this, and I knew I just had to keep moving.

The 10km mark to the 40km mark is some of the toughest cycling I have ever done - much of it was a blur as I hit speeds of over 50kph with my rear wheel fishtailing wildly as I hit slopes named 'Suicide Slide' (I thought they were just being dramatic with the names, but more than half the cyclists around me walked down this one, guess what ... I didn't). But every adrenalin pumping descent meant an energy sapping and near impossible climb. 'Hell's Escalator', sticks in my mind as a particularly evil climb that I thought I could keep the momentum up on; how wrong I was, as it, like many of the other torn apart off-road climbs, became instead a hike. Much of the climbs I was lucky if I could maintain a speed of 4kph!

It took me over 4 hours to reach the 40km mark and first official hydration station. I had hoped to be closer to the 60km mark by this time. The next 25km was the technical riding that I had trained for, but it was 35 degrees and I was frying.

2.35pm - 7hrs and 20mins in reaching the 65km mark, 5 minutes after the cut-off time for reaching this point and continuing the race ... Between the 5okm mark and here, I had initially pushed my body to the max knowing about the cut-off time. I don't throw-up, the best I get is dry-heaving, which in many ways is worse. At the 57km mark I had pushed my body to this, as I sat under a tree wishing something would come up, my hamstrings were killing me, my spine was killing me, but I was still loving it ... I knew I had to rest as my body was seriously overheated.

At the 40km mark I had been sitting around 800th, as I sat under the tree for 15 minutes, odd cyclists came past me. I finally got myself going again, but even little climbs were causing me to battle with cramps. I put a final sprint in at the 60km mark heading in to Forrest, and my shoulder finally couldn't take the undulating surface anymore of the rock hard double-track I was on - I battled through the tears of pain, and composed myself as I came in to Forrest knowing I had failed.

Even if I had been able to carry on I doubt I had more than an hour left in me, and definitely not 35km. In my defense this is the first ever MTB race I have done, and it is rated as the hardest 100km MTB race in the country, even the elites (of whom some are olympians), take 45 - 55 minutes longer for this course than the average 100km MTB race. One of the guys from the ward I was in when I first arrived in Australia last year had just done it last year - he came back again this year; better trained and more prepared, he took more than an hour longer this year coming in after 8.5 hours. I had been on a wait list for the race and only had my place confirmed 3 weeks before, so had been kind of slack with my training.

Noelle was rather distressed at my late arrival, as there had been several accidents on the race being radioed back, some of which I had seen - Although I have medical cover, we had failed to renew my ambulance cover before the race started. I managed to pick up almost $300 in prizes despite not finishing (I'll save the story for another time).

100km MTB Marathan - Withdrawn (DNF) at 65km for not meeting 7 hour 15 minute deadline for this distance marker - My time = 7hrs 20 minutes = FAIL

I took in 11.6 litres of fluids total for the day, and was still dehydrated the next day - fortunately I could walk.

I think I can say that of all the things I have done, this has been (to date) both the most physically challenging and mentally tough thing I have ever done!

Now it is time to get the bike cleaned and serviced, get back on the saddle and working towards my next race in less than 2 weeks on the 13th March. Hopefully I'll finish this time ...

Danger 1000

2010-01-25T17:42:00.004+11:00

I entered this race because I thought the name sounded cool and I liked all the flags that advertised it - however it wasn't to be my day ...

This was part 2 of a 2-day event by the Jan Juc Surf Life Saving Club, so having completed the 8km Bells Bash the night before, Saturday 17th, was a return, this time to Torquay Beach for a 1000m ocean swim race. There was some purpose to entering 2 events on subsequent days; it was to see if I had the stamina to complete both, to see if my protein intake was sufficient for recovery from the night before. (It was also part of an overall training program for bigger and longer races I am hoping to take part in later in the year.)

Everything looks fine right, there I am, looking ready to go with my distinctive orange and black shorty ...

And soon we were off - so your all thinking, this'll be fine, after all my last ocean race was 1.2km, so I can do this easy right? Well let me just add, we got stuck in awful road works crossing the city and arrived just as my category was about to start, so I ran and grabbed my race-pack and changed my category to the 'open' race (18-29 years), and my cap colour along with it. Not really a big deal, but long distance sea swimming isn't real my strength, I can do the distances, but I am slow, and it is painful for me.
Again, you can spot me in the center with the orange armpits - after my last race (where I was quickly overtaken by the majority of swimmers), I knew to start further back, especially as I had taken quite a few kicks in my last race, and didn't want to wreck my newly repaired smile.

To be honest, I regretted this race from the start - I started OK, and my start position was right, so in the outward 500m I plodded along at my pace, slowly moving past a few other swimmers, and still with plenty behind. Unlike my last race, both the men and women started at the same time (150 swimmers total). But I found myself looking across at the kite surfers wondering why I was swimming, and not just playing around on my board?

So as we reached the turn around buoy, the sea conditions had picked up and there was quite a strong current to swim against. I was still doing OK, and had the same few swimmers around me jostling for each others positions, and plenty still behind. Then about 150m from the shore my right calf started to cramp, I tried to relax and keep it from cramping further then about 75 meters out my left calf started to cramp. I tried to keep moving as I was still out of my depth and had passed all the paddle board life savers. As other swimmers passed me I was gutted, knowing that I was losing my hard fought positions. I rolled onto my back and thought I'd give up, I was certain I would collapse as soon as I reached the beach.

I waved my right arm, to indicate I needed assistance, and my legs just cramped more, and I disappeared underwater - more to the point, no-one noticed! I came up again and was a bit more concerned, 50 meters from the shore and I was really in trouble! I raised my arm again, but the paddle boarders were way behind me, and the lifeguard in the water waste deep directing everyone else passing me towards the finish line, just wasn't looking in my direction. I gave one more attempt raising both my arms and sinking underwater again, still no one coming towards me ...

I laughed at myself, stayed on my back in agony and just started sculling backwards towards the shore, deciding I would have to finish after all, even if everyone else passed me. As I reached a point where I could stand (about 15m out), a life guard finally came to me, and asked if I was OK - now though I was going to finish, even if I had to crawl up the beach, so I waved him away. I couldn't wade forwards, as the cramping was so bad, so I made my way in backwards, finally turning and making a limping run towards the finish line.

As it happened I still wasn't last, 4 men came in slower than me in my official category, and 2 in the open category I raced in (and fortunately I still managed to beat several women) :D. However my time was 47 seconds slower than my last race which was 200m longer (but calmer conditions). So I had completely miscalculated my hydration requirements before the race, the power gel that I had 15 minutes before only acted to dehydrate me further - there was also some observation that I was overheating in my shorty ...

Noëlle had noticed my waving for help, but struggled to get anyone else to notice - thanks Noëlle, at least someone cared ;p - Still more work to do ...

My first Bash ...

2010-01-23T16:41:00.001+11:00

Last Friday (16th January) I entered my first Bash - no I don't really know why it is called that either, but it was the Bells Bash, 8km cliff run on Victoria's Surf Coast. Noëlle picked me up from work and we drove straight there. I hadn't run for a week and really had been quite slack on my training, but as I was only doing it for fun and as part of a bigger training program I wasn't too worried.

Every category started together (571 of us), and we were asked to place ourselves according to pace in the start line up - I had no idea really so put myself somewhere in the back third, not wanting to hold faster runners up (this turned out to be the wrong choice).

The gun fired, and nothing seemed to happen, then there was a surge forward, we jogged a few paces and then stopped again, then walked, then jogged, then some more walking before everyone on the middle managed to sustain a slow jog - then came the bottleneck as we came up to the clifftop single-track, and everyone from the middle back slowed to a walk again. I found my place on the track, and was still frustrated with the slow pace, so after about half a km, decided on my own meaning for 'bash', and started to make my way past people by bashing through the bush on the side of the trail. I kept to this method throughout the first 4 km, half choked at the first water station (it was 29 degrees). I came across the first elite on his way back from the turn around just after the second water station (just over 3 kms in). At the turn around we entered the road for almost 1km, we lost both the breeze of the coast, and the shade of the bush, and I hate running on tarmac. I was still working my way slowly past other runners coming up to the 3rd drink station, and back on the trail with runners still heading to the turn around, but it meant I also had the hills to deal with again.

Other than my starting position, the other mistake that I made was not bothering with the final drink station - as I headed to the finish line, my knee was hurting and I didn't really feel like going for any kind of additional acceleration, but when I saw an old guy next to me, a young kid in front of me, and far too many women around for my liking, I put in the extra effort and took another 5 people as I came over the line.

I will get past the old guy ...

... and I can take those women before the line too!

It was a lot of fun, I am not in shape for running at all. I lost at least a few minutes in the slow start - Beautiful views and run, everyone was really friendly, just a great fun atmosphere. I came somewhere in the middle of all runners, unfortunately I was 71 out of 99 in my category :(

Thanks for cheering me on Noëlle