Lots goes on, but meh, if it’s that important I’ll email you about it. Mostly, I play with kids and work lots and sometimes I even get to go to the park and fly a kite.

Then, occasionally I get my juice up and get createy. I get leather scraps and a stitcher and some scissors and a lumpish half-formed idea and I make something for my reenactment stuff. Latest, I made boots. And they’re actually kind of cool.

The Scottish Highland Fest in Armadale wanted us back again this year and was giving us timeslots for 3 shows, which was awesome, and then the club folks thought we should do a Dark Ages nod to Scotland and asked if anyone wanted to be King Macbeth. Much like the old Gomer Pyle shows, where the entire unit takes a step back and it looks like he’s just volunteered, I got picked.

I’m totally kidding, I poked my little patty up in the air straightaway and hopped up and down while shouting “Ooo! Ooo! Me! Meeeeeeeee!!” The gave my current Celtic outfit a once-over and were all “Um, you need to clean yourself up a bit, if you’re going to be a king. Maybe have a shower too.”

I’m kidding again. They figured that the leather armour and the new shield I made (yep, from scratch, ‘cept I didn’t cut down the tree for the wood - not that kind of scratch) would make me alright, but there’d need to be a new tunic to be all kingly and not the Celtic White Trash that I was previously. I figured I could knock something together, but with fancy braiding and such it might make me curse a lot and punch stationary things. That’s where my sis-in-law Roni stepped in and, once again, rocked so hard that I would offer to marry her, or at least lift heavy things for her, if I weren’t already married to and lifting heavy things for another.

(Photo courtesy of Leanne Petersohn)

Can’t see ‘em, but I made some leg armour too. Looks pretty slick, but when I drew the Celtic knotwork pattern on the leather I used the only Sharpie I could find, a red one. Then I carved out the design and went to wipe off the Sharpie with a scrubber. The resulting effect is a nice inlaid over-under knotwork, in pink. Took some extensive cleaning and a little bit of explaining to the other warrior types.

(Photo courtesy of Leanne Petersohn)

Here’s my brother-in-law Sam, as “Hamish” the dryly sarcastic and rebellious Highlander, who continually evades the law and anything resembling a good nature. During one of the shows, he and I argue about cattle thievery before fighting a bit and my kicking him squarely in the balls (not really, Ron would never forgive me).

(Photo courtesy of Leanne Petersohn)

I changed outfits between shows and became significantly more comfortable if not more stylish as well. Thems the boots I made this week too.

(Photo courtesy of Jax Telford)

This is yet another epic battle between the Scottish Highlanders and the hated English officers. I forget how it started, but winner got to be first in line at AJ’s Ice Cream truck and I got bubblegum flavoured.

(Photo courtesy of Jax Telford)

Me and “Hamish” disagreeing with the idea that he can use his sword to lop my head off only after I’ve put mine up his bum.

(Photo courtesy of Leanne Petersohn)

Matt (left) is “Captain Doyle”, an English officer and Bill (right) is “Roberts” another officer of a slightly higher rank (I forget). If you look close, you can see that on the white mantle around Matt’s neck there’s some lace, making it look quite fancy and earning him the nickname “Captain Doyl-ee” (and yeah, I gave it to him).

(Photo courtesy of Leanne Petersohn)

More of the Dapper Doc, being dry and sarcastic again. Highlight of the Show was him fighting an officer of the Crown (Bill) who was an old mate of Hamish’s. They swordfight while continually trading insults and threats until Hamish accidentally kills him. It was a beaut. My favourite line was Bill, after smacking away Sam’s weapon and in a perfect Northern English accent “Now Hay-mish, I doon’t went to hert ya!” To which Sam replied by screaming “You’re doin’ a bloody poor job of showin’ it!” and then charged at him angrily. Bill’s response, “I doon’t went ya to hert me aye-ther!” while Hamish pummeled him and took his sword.

Classic.

(Photo courtesy of Leanne Petersohn)

Me and Captain Doyle get into it. We clang and bang for a while and then he tried to headbutt me, only to injure himself. He stumbled away and punch-drunkenly announced, “Never headbutt a Scotsman!” The crowd liked this, so I played up the thickness of my skull for ‘em. Not that this needs played up…

(Photo courtesy of Leanne Petersohn)

One of the final fights of the show, where most of the English officers stumble upon us Jacobites at our camp. We fought well, though I can’t really vouch for that as I was clearly dead on the ground. So maybe Sam fought well. Maybe he ends up dead on the ground with me, I don’t remember, but that kind of thing happens a lot to he and I. I did kill the fella on the ground next to me, I think.

All up though, it was a great day. There were lots of stalls and some athletics and a “Bad Piper” in a leather kilt with a bleached mohawk. Not quite the Estes Park Highlands Fest that I’m used to, but it was still a blast to be a part of the performances.

And Yes, before you ask, I did NOT go commando under the kilt. Knowing I’d end up like I did in the picture above, I didn’t want to give the kids in the front row too much of an early education in anatomy.

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This is just a side bit, of cuteness and stuff that I haven’t had the time to put together from all the different cameras and phones and other image-capturing devices.

(Photo courtesy of me, and BOY am I courteous!)

Jadey loves cuddling fuzzy things and rubbing her face in them. She also likes random hugs. When George is wearing her fuzzy bathrobe, it’s win-win for the Bug.

This one I’d forgotten about, and is part of a series that I’d taken while we were babysitting Corbin. He’s Ron and Sam’s youngest, to refresh your memories, and NO he isn’t doing a Jay Leno impression, hiding softball-sized acorns or stung by mutant killer bees. Its a lymphangeoma, and blah blah medical-sounding crap. He’s beautiful and likes when I steal his nose.

This one is a video I just got in the back yard this evening and captured on my phone. Jadey has watched me blow bubles before, months ago, and worked the lid off the bottle herself. I saw her from across the yard going “pfft! pfft!” on the empty plastic rings, somehow remembering that was sort of what you do.

As you can see, she can’t quite keep from putting it sort of in her mouth, and then nods about the great taste of soap suds. She’s ever-enamoured with seeing herself in video, so once she notices she can see herself in the little display on the phone, she really starts to perform.

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That’s all for now. Take care of yourselves and do something interesting within the next few days. If it’s something that I would’ve done, and enjoyed, then write me and tell me about it. I love stories.

Smooches.

The next day at Balingup was more of a free-for-all with people fighting in Later Period stuff.  This show was “Dueling Through The Ages” with Dark Ages Vikings and 15th C. Armoured Knights duking it out one-on-one (in separate fights, of course).

Me and the Doc had been practicing our duelling with cutlasses to maybe do a Pirate Show (remember when I got my black eye?).  Turns out, we had enough to put two costumes together and even enough leftover tawdriness that we could gear up a buxom wench, that sis-in-law Roni so graciously volunteered my wife to be.

Dapper and pretending to be a bit drunk in a bar in Tortuga (is that even a real place?).

Buxom wenchage, my wife, bringing drinks to the Doc, who flirts a bit and riles me up.  I say something, he hits the mug out of my hand.  I take the tray off Jo and smack him with it while she hurries off (bystanders aren’t allowed while we’re being swordy).

Then, he headbutts me and ruins my headwear.

I try to be tough about it but that buzzard drunkenly weaves and taunts me while drinking his “rum”.

We fight intermittently while we’re trading insults.  I believe I called him a “Scurvy Scallywag” or even a “Poopyhead” or some such.

Weaving drunkenly helps explain why we so rarely actually sworded each other.

Until he hits me with his mug. Not all of it even spilled, so he threw that in my face.

And punched me.

And tries to cut my head off.

Then throws the mug into my groin (unintentional aim, but a perfect shot).  Stunned, I attempt to explain why that wasn’t cool and he HITS me.

…and hits me again.  And again.  And knocks me down.

Then taunts me, pours whats left of his “rum” and says, “That was fun! Same time next week!”

*********

Later in the day Doc and I were a couple of brigands beset upon by one of the King’s Men.  He was quite a dandy and we were drunkenly weaving again.  I’m sensing a trend.

I yell lots and make some jokes about his hat and his pants.

In response, he parries away my shot and slices me up the arm.

I politely tell him that it hurt.  And then tell him he should go after the guy that’s playing with his hat.

He does.  Whups the Doc’s buttocks a bit, and then I step over and kick Doc for drunkenly getting me in trouble again.

In all humility and sincerity, we’re awesome.

The crowd LOVES that kind of stuff, and it’s an absolute hoot to do.  We got some laughs and had a righteously good time.

*********

A candid shot.  We didn’t even know there were image-capturing machines nearby while she gives me my Kiss For Luck before our show.

Some poserific shots were taken.  More than this, but Wife doesn’t even know I’m posting this one, I better be good and not do the others until I ask her.

Isn’t she absolutely beautiful?

*********

These were a CLASSIC.  Uncle Shutterbug, Grey Company’s photographic artist extraordinaire, set these up with some of the older gals that were helping stitch a replica of the Bayeaux Tapestry.

Buxom wench being all buxomy and wenchy, showing she’ll have nun of that being pious nonsense.

Then the nuns show her what’s up underneath those habits.  HAHHAHHAHAHHA…

*********

Lots of the other pics are here on Flickr too.

All up, a great time, and it makes me kind of sad that’s its only once a year because there were so many pictures and stories over the weekend that it could’ve been a month long.

That’s all for now.  I have to go pick up a fridge in my newly purchased 4WD.

What’s that?  Oh, I’ll tell all about those things and how we were able to afford them later.

Smooches and hugs all.

A few weeks ago was the annual Balingup Medieval Faire, and The Grey Company nerds made it most excellently awesome once again. The fella that took most of these has them on copyright, so I’m going to say that here as well as show the first image on the CDs he put out to the club… just to show off a little too. Heh.

The two shows we put on on the Saturday were a nice little history lesson on England in the year 1066. First off was some Vikings coming in to try and take over because the Kingery was in some question.

That’s me starring as about the only Viking idiot not in chainmail. I grin because I’m so tough.

Then, I’m so tough that I let others run ahead of me.

Here I’m so damn tough that I let them fight and die too.

Then, they decided that I was so tough I had to fight too.

See? Tough.

Alright, all kidding aside. THIS is tough. This is my brother-in-law, the Doc, who spends most of his days being so nerdy that he nerds harder than any nerd that ever nerded. On his off-time, he’s about the biggest badass out there (fighting as Saxon against us Vikes).

And yeah, he killed me again.

But not before I kilt all these buggers.

Alright, no I didn’t, but I DID kill him too even if there’s no photographic evidence of this.

***********

The second show was about the invading Normans who went after the Kingness weeks after the Saxons whupped up on the Vikings. If you know your history, you’ll know they laid the whuppin’ this time.

The show opened with some nasty Norman Knights setting fire to villages and terrorising the wee folk in an effort to get King Harry to bring his Saxons out to fight.

That’s my nieces and sis-in-law pretending to be scared of me while I don’t really have to pretend at all to be a vicious brute.

A couple of the Saxon Fyrd cruised in to protect the innocent farmer types that I was busy poking with my sword.

So I poked him too, only really hard.

And then taunted his dying self. It was awesome.

There were lots of little fights, setting up the story, and then we had a big one, during which King ‘arold gets an arrow in ‘is eye.

I brutally slay another Fyrd and then helped hack up the body of Ol’ King ‘arold.

Who is dead on the ground at the NEW King’s feet. Doc got to play William, Duke of Normandy, and was proclaimed King of All England when we were done killing ‘arold lots.

Ham that he is, the Doc had me believing that he really was the New King, though that may have more to do with the fact that he’s always ordering me around anyway.

Awesome fun, and the rest of the pics are in the next installment - Balingup Part II.

The main culprit in bringing about this laptop-induced joy is growing healthier and naughtier by the day…

She attacks my toes and doesn’t seem afraid of my steel-cap boots either.  This cat is awesome, and I can’t believe that I just said that as I never thought that such words would ever fall from my mout… uh, keyboard.

So new laptop, and I’ve basically spent the last month or so catching up on all the work I wasn’t doing (or couldn’t do) from the other craptop.  Now I’m back in action and things are picking up again.  After I met with one client about their piece-o’-crap site and told them that they should get one from yet another client, I was told that if I did indeed sell them a website, I’d get a fat commission.  An hour-and-a-half meeting for just under $500 bucks?  I’ll take it, and may just ditch this whole SEO game.  Heh.

So how are things here?  At the risk of sounding like my brother, who gives the same reply every single time I query his happenings during our yearly birthday phone call*,”Same old, same old.”

*My birthday is at the beginning of September and his is the beginning of October.  I’ve found that if I call him a few weeks after mine, I can not only give him early birthday wishes but also lay some guilt on about how he’s forgotten mine.  Two Birds!

Work is going well enough that I’m actually going into some of my client’s offices and getting some contractor hours in their environments.  While I dig the work-at-home gig, it is nice to just sit and work and not be distracted by anything else.  It’s also nice making a guaranteed $50/hr for stuff that tends to be a piece of cake for me.  Go Hired Gun!

Kids, school, crazy baby.  The older two are a-rockin’ at school, despite the fact that they seem to catch every single ailment around, and tend to be good children to have around the home.  Meaning, they still occasionally ask if they can do dishes.  Seriously, how awesome is that?

The toddlecurl just gets funnier and funnier and I can’t say enough about the wonderful ways you can amuse yourself when you’ve got a child that loves to wear things.  She usually finds random bits of string or thread and throws them over her shoulders, prancing around and going “Ooooh-ooooh!” to entice you into complimenting her.  As long as it sounds like you’re impressed, you can do this:

And she eats it up.  As long as you tell her how pretty she is, you could probably put a live animal on her head.  It’s awesome.

Clever thing found some of my arm armour in my office and figured out where it goes.  While it may not fit to tell her how pretty armour is, neither does a cereal box really, and I figure I can get away with it.

Speaking of my armour and terribly geektastic news. Now that I’ve been cleared to fight in alternative weapons and run around without all of the protecty-don’t-hurt-yourself stuff like a helmet and gloves, I get to do some really cool stuff at my reenactment nerd sundays.

Bear with me, the setup for this is really quite exciting.  We had a ‘feast’ all Viking-style, I competed with the big boys in a dagger combat competition.  Of all the nerds that nerd quite medievally (and some of these nerds ARE pretty damn tough for being… nerds) there were only 4 that got to fight that night in front of the 50-odd other Viking folks, and I was one of them.  Then, I got awarded my ‘warrior’ status, which means I’m not a newbie noobington anymore, and can fight without supervision and can try new weapons and such, and even train noobs that are new like I was.  Then, of all the noobs of the last year, I noobed the best, so they awarded me the Noob of the Year award, which is not its actual name and I should mention that it was named after a member who was a great guy and passed away quite young.  I’m actually really quite proud to be the recipient of such an award.  Awesome night.

So, the buildup for this was really just to tell you that, on my first day of showfighting training without a helmet, I quite intelligently put my sword in the way of my opponent’s knee.  I went to absorb the hit (all stuntman-like), he hit my sword, and it hit my face.

Pretty cool, eh?  The bestest and blokiest moment didn’t even happen when I was walking back to the main area with blood running down my face, nor when brother-in-law Sam was attending to the wound while I was acting all “here’s blood in yer eye!  This doesn’t bother me at all!”  No, the best moment was when Bill (one of the tougher members, coincidentally winner of the Dagger Tournament too) came over with his camera phone and asked Sam if he could not only stop dabbing blood off my face, but give the wound a squeeze so that some ran down my face.  Sam hesitated just long enough to make me think that he took that Hyppocratic thing seriously, and Bill got all excited when some started dripping as he snapped away.

It was nice to feel all tough and all, except that it was a bit of minor stupididty in getting hurt and even now, weeks later, I’ve got this lumpy zit-looking scar area.  Not so cool anymore.

So, now that I’ve got a new laptop and am on it pretty much sunup until well after sundown, maybe I’ll actually be updating more often.  Think?

Yeah.  Hahahahahaaa…ahahhahahha…  ha.

Smooches all.

Alright. I’ve been crazy busy, but that’s really only my own fault because of my “idea” and the ensuing SEO tools I’ve been building. I won’t bore anybody here with details, but I’m fairly confident that NObody is doing the stuff that I’m doing. I can’t even think about how it may or may not translate into dollars right now, as I’m still working my butt off getting it working properly. I’ve got some folks helping me test it, but it’ll probably be ever-evolving and ever-eating-up-my-time.

It’s a good thing that the client work has been slow then, isn’t it? No, actually, no it’s not, because then that means we’re broke again. Heh.

Other BIG News, Jo has decided to start racing rats and winning bread again, so we’re not actually that broke any more. Except we are. Poo.

So, in lieu of writing and getting ALL the pics we’ve taken lately up online (mostly because I’m a bit hungover STILL and it’s 5 in the evening), I’ve written a little bit and put some of the pics up. And some videos, which are awesome. Awesome I tell you!

Enjoy.

One of the first images of Friday, our newest family member. I’ve never liked cats. Not because of anything personal, they just seem like creatures that think they’re above me and don’t care about me unless I’m picking up their shit or feeding them.

Not Friday. This kitten is awesome. He plays and chases my feet and lovebites my arm and hand and sleeps on my lap while I work and even likes the kids. Jo’s allergies haven’t flared terribly because of him either. I LOVE this cat. He loves me, so it works out well.

Just a shot of a typical meal with a child that is such an independent little poo that she insists on feeding herself these days. Bathtimes should be more frequent given how messy she gets, but as long as she keeps it out of her hair (so MUCH for a little thing!) I can usually get her clean with a rag. Which I then wring out to feed the poor.

Just for a bit of contrast, my “clean” child eating his favourite treat, Chocolate Soy Ice Cream. You have to catch him off-guard if you want him to pull a normal face. Otherwise, he looks like me to the camera, slightly ham-ish and uncomfortably superhero’ed.

This is just one of a series called “Places I Find My Kid Around The House”. This is a toy baby bath of Georgia’s, that Jade has emptied of toys in the middle of the front lounge, then climbed in. She LOVES baths, and you have to watch her when the kids are in the bath or she’ll climb in fully clothed.

A gift from a friend from Grey Company, a free fishtank that we’re going to rock with. We were cleaning it and it just seemed funny to put a baby in there. She’s lucky we don’t have footlockers and cubbyholes in this house.

Li’l Aussie is some sort of charity beauty pageant where you “donate” some money and they make your wife act weird… I mean, judge your child in categories like “Crowning Glory” and “Smiler” and such. The hair one (”Glory”) was won by a little girl in the 6 month - 2 year old category that looked like she’d driven to the competition by herself, making Jo and Roni get all Sandy JJ, which I always think is awesome.

Anyway, Jadey won “Smiler” because they shafted her in “Crowning Glory”. Now she’s forever marked as a Beauty Contest Winner, and I’m SO using this for blackmail later in life.

My boy fishing. He LOVES fishing. It was school holidays and the kids had been fairly good, well Damon had anyway, so I took him and his cousin Imogen to the river in the city.

Imo’s the only one who caught anything, a tree branch resembling an elk’s antlers, except for when I caught the jellyfish. It was fun until the mosquitos ate my entire right arm.

The young’uns hamming it up at the big, wet ball in Forrest Place.

We got a cute kid’s project mailed to us from a friend in South Carolina recently. His name is “Flat Stanley” and he’s apparently in a story about how he mails himself all over the place. Well, he made it to Perth, and we decided that a great excuse to get out of the house and go take pictures of stuff was to have Stanley at some of the landmarks here in Perth.

Here’s Ol’ Stan above the big, wet ball. Isn’t he cute?

Dames near an artist’s exhibit. They’d set up all of these really fun looking, bright and colourful objects of awesomeness, put it all on the ground making it completely accessible, and then walked around telling us not to touch. Poo. We didn’t stay there long, but Jo got some good shots anyway.

George at the same spot, both styling for mom’s camera.

Here’s Stanley with some Blu-tack on his back and the city behind him. We’ve got heaps more, but I’m already pushing the limits of your bandwidth with all the crap I’m posting today. Maybe later, eh?

Near the memorial at King’s Park. Behind us is the whisper wall, where we get 60 feet apart and can whisper against the stone and hear someone at the other end as if they’re IN your ear. It’s creepy and cool and we love it.

Beautiful city, I must say. Beautiful family… I don’t really have to say that, because it’s so clearly evident.

One of the proudest moments as a father I’ve ever had…

The kids ASKED me if they could do the dishes. Oh man, I thought I might’ve died and gone to heaven. Oh sure, the cute little Toddlecurl wandering around makes me proud too, but seriously… DISHES. I’m almost swooning here.

The house has since been cleaned too, and no longer looks like precocious children exploded all over it. Unlike the dishes, they didn’t help.

She goes through her phases, where she’ll learn something new and do it to everything. This week, was the phone. “Da-DOH!” she says to virtually everything with it pressed up against her ear. One evening she “answered” the stereo remote, the TV remote, a can of Red Bull and a shoe… in that order.

This one I just took yesterday. She’d woken from her nap with the kind of cry that tells me she’s probably had a bad dream or her new tooth is bothering her again. I’d picked her up and gone back to work, with Friday now joining us, and couldn’t resist capturing what I like to call “The Whole Reason I Love Working From Home”.

The business is actually keeping me quite busy. Clients that actually pay on time and new people that want to meet with me because they not only enjoy me but think that I’ll benefit their business and new people that just dig me. It’s all good. I tell you what though, sitting down with the owner/operators of web firms around town is a whole different ballgame when we’re talking business deals and how I can help them and their clients. Time was, the only time I got a chance to sit like that with them was to ask them for a job. That never really worked out as well as this is, to dribble out an extreme understatement.

The power and the freedom is exhilarating, provided I can recognise it, as I’m so used to being nervous and pandering a bit that I forget that I’M in charge here, and I call the shots on how this kind of deal will get handled from my end. I don’t have to cater purely to someone else’s desires to make my life actually happen. I can ease into things, I can give more or give less, I can politely extricate myself from a situation without losing the relationship.

At a meeting last week I realised that I was talking with someone who is so ambitious and confident that, as a potential employer, I would’ve let them talk me into anything just for a decent job. Instead, I got to say what it is that I can do, and how much I charge for it, especially what I wouldn’t do. And he respected me for it.

On top of all that, and I’ve got these ideas that are literally popping my eyes open at night and making me all kinds of charged up. Some are sort of re-inventing the wheel, but will save me time in the long run, and others are fairly revolutionary and exciting. I won’t go into too much detail here, but I’m working on a “tool” for other SEOs out there that will probably get fairly heavily used. It’s THAT cool. Once enough people are using it and I’m improving it and maybe I’ve got more stuff to offer I can start charging for it. Schweet. Passive income and all that. I’m stoked.

The kids are doing great. Both being gone all day at school means that the days are quieter, but now that Jadey’s walking everywhere and having less for naps she’s still keeping us mega-busy. She’s just about freakin’ everywhere. The days go too fast and then BAM houseful of childrens again, especially if we’ve got the nieces here because Ron’s got Uni or we just like ‘em. Gets crazy and the house somehow magically transforms into someplace dirty again. Weird.

Damon is muddling his way along in Year 2, likes most of his classmates but not his teacher so much. She yells too much, he tells us, and it stresses him a bit. Some of his classmates are raw shits, and she yells to keep them from destroying the classroom. He gets treated to a nicer teacher on Fridays, and though she’s vague and distracted and a bit out there, she’s nice. Plus, I go in an hour before school lets out and help teach the little yard apes math (”maths” here, not “math”) and we all have some fun. Combine that with the couple of hours I spend at the Canteen on Tuesday mornings, frying up pikelets (little pancakes, in essence, for snacks) and making sandwiches for lunches, and I think I should be on the payroll.

Georgia is as alien as ever, and loves school with her whole heart. They paint and have fun and sing songs and try and learn a few things, but mostly I think she just enjoys hanging out with children that don’t expect her to be good or make sense when she talks. She does prefer the easier path whether it’s forming a sentence explaining why she’s been eating crayons again or simply drawing on the table instead of the paper that’s just out of reach.

Jade has now gone exclusively to walking, and prefers to wander the house with something in either her hand, her mouth, or both. She’s into everything and has a certain sense of order to the place, usually involving everything scattered on the floor. I’ve watched her meticulously pull every CD off of the stand-up rack and throw them outward in an ever-expanding circle. Then, in the middle of doing this, she’s accidentally knocked over a foot-tall stone figurine. She’s stopped flinging CDs long enough to squat down, grab the figurine by it’s head, and stand it back up again exactly how it was. Then, she’s gone straight back to scattering CDs across the floor. Amazing what happens in her little head.

She’s not talking any “real” words terribly much, but has her little sayings and frequently tries to mimic things that we say. She’ll say “thank you” or “ta” when you give her something (and after you say it first) and bursts into “Hi! Hiiiiii!” when she hears the screen door open. One day she frantically flapped and squealed “Hi Daddy! Hi!” when she heard me come in. THAT kind of thing is what changes your life, and reminds you why you became a parent in the first place.

Lest I forget, the biggest news of all. We’ve got a kitten now. Yep, Jo’s allergic to cats, but not the kind that has this kind of fur, or not when they’re kittens or some such like that. Like most things that change our lives around here, it sort of just happened, and we move on with our lives forever adjusted.

It was last Friday, and we were sort of scrambling trying to get dinner ready and keep rambunctious children from breaking each other and valuables. They were just hyper and I can’t remember why, but all 3 where going apeshit and dinner was being sort of clooged, and there was stress in the air about something else that I don’t really remember and then “MEW.”

Jo says something about a kid’s toy or the TV or something and then “MEW” again. At the front door. I tend children and dinner as Jo investigates. Then, comes back about 10 minutes later with an emaciated furball that looks like he’s found heaven snuggled in her boobs. I remember thinking that I could certainly relate, but that I don’t make Jo sneeze uncontrollably and hive out. We talked about it, and though our next door neighbour Ross had tried to unload kittens on us a month or so previous and we’d turned him down because of Jo’s allergy and such, we decided to see what will happen this time.

What’s happened is, we’ve all fallen in love. Yes, even me. I couldn’t help it. He/She’s like a cat, only awesome. I get little visits on my shoulder while I type on the laptop and it purrs like a runaway tractor whenever you’re near it. I call it “it” because we don’t know it’s sex yet. Cats suck like that. I’ll post pictures as soon as he doesn’t look like he’s a flea-bitten poo-machine. Which he is.

We couldn’t figure out a name either. We both looked at the animal and, like we had most of our lives, just needed to look long enough to figure out their name. To have them “tell” us. I couldn’t place it. We wanted “Fletch” because we could both “hear” an “F” name, but it wasn’t working. Then, Jo called me while I was out and said the kitten told her his/her name was “Friday”. She allowed that she wasn’t crazy about the name, not as original or imposing as we’d wanted, but that was the cats name. I’d been sensing “Fr” names too, and that was surely it.

Welcome Friday to the Exley Clan.

This next bit is hard to talk about, but I want to get it out there to encourage people to do the right thing.

Some neighbour dogs, American Staffies (the kind that are bred to be stupid and kill other dogs) got loose the other night, and jumped on the kids and caused various mayhem while they were at the park across the street. Kids came home, Damon in tears because dogs scare him and one of them bashed into his face while “kissing” him. I went to round them up and find out whose they were, as our little circle of homes is fairly close-knit, and spotted one of Friday’s siblings wandering in Ross’s driveway. I didn’t get to him in time, as he ran away somewhat skittishly, and the bigger dog grabbed him.

I yelled, I screamed, and that goddamed dog ran playfully across the park, whipping it’s head around with that poor kitten in it’s mouth. By the time it stopped, I had my hand around a stick about the size of a broomstick. I swung with all my might right into the side of that beast’s head, a blow that snapped the stick, and it dropped the kitten. It barely blinked at me, backed up a few steps, and gave me a look like it genuinely didn’t know it was doing anything wrong.

I picked up the kitten and walked it over to Ross, telling him that it’s back is f***ed and that I was getting some rope. I tied the dogs up and went to check on the kids. Horrible, watching something like that, and some of our Asian neighbours had both boys, 4 and 6, outside watching the entire thing, the 4-year old crying inconsolably.

Dogs like that are built and bred for one thing, and are good for nothing else. The owners came before the Council Ranger got the dogs, and they felt awful about what happened, as you would. I told them though, that this kind of thing can’t be happening and, while it wasn’t my call, I was going to tell the Ranger exactly what happened and my opinion of where dogs like that belong. I didn’t tell them that, were this Montana, I’d have put a bullet right between the eyes of that bigger dog. In a heartbeat. And I hate killing. I haven’t killed anything in years and didn’t even have the stomach for hunting. I would’ve done it though, if that were my cat, and I wouldn’t have lost a wink of sleep over it’s death. I lost at least half a night’s over that kitten. I mean, what if that were one of my children? I get teary just thinking about it.

So, that’s the end of my little PSA, where I tell you not to own dogs that are built for killing. If you’re lonely and want some home protection, get a poodle or something like that. They’ll yap their heads off and wake everybody up. If you need a Staffie or a Pit Bull to chew on intruders, keep in mind that there is always the potential, nay the likelihood, that they’re going to chew on more innocents than guilties. It’s just not worth it.

Alright, I’ve got to get back to work. I just wanted to give everyone an update on life and all it’s assorted funs and happenings.

Things will be getting busier with the business and such, and hopefully a bit more structured, so that I can have more time to write and post pictures as well as have more inclination to keep in touch with you all because I’m not stressing over money and procuring clients.

Smooches kids, love and hugs to you and your pets if you got ‘em.

There are only a few kinds of poverty that seek to definitively sap your soul. Surviving them will never leave you unscathed, and the scars left behind will instinctively flare up within seconds of noticing that the bank account has dipped below a certain level while after thumbing through a stack of bills.

I’m scarred now. And it hurts.

The soothing balm of a promise of cash was short-lived, and in it’s place is a bitterness and numbness that seems to transcend the use of monetary devices of this common culture into a Utopian ideal. As a self-defence mechanism, my mind seems to drift off into a world of make-believe, where we don’t need money to be happy and good times are still readily available regardless of our lack of funds.

My underlying demeanour may betray it, but my mood is a good one this morning as I dance back and forth from the countertop to the stove, a toddling bucket of curls clinging to my only stationary leg. I whistle a nameless tune and eventually put lyrics to Beethoven’s Fifth that tell the story of the naughtiness contained in my small child. She humours me with an emphatic, “Gah GAH!” and then smiles up at me while a piece of egg-soaked bread flops limply into the frying pan. Breakfasts are my specialty.

Breakfast is also her least favourite meal, or at least the hardest to get her to eat.

I do what I can with the cheap white bread and our expansive spice rack, and even without butter (we’ve run out days ago) the French Toast turns out pretty good. I’ve made some of it sweet, with sugar and some syrup, and some of it savoury, sprinkled with a dash of nutmeg and some tomato sauce, to cater to the two drastically different palates in our household. I’m curious which the baby will prefer, as it took no fewer than 110 donuts and 13 eggnog banana milkshakes to keep her mother sated during the pregnancy, I assumed she’d have a sweet tooth.

Her mother may insist that the child has inherited her savoury tooth as she points out that her sweet preferences disappeared the instant the baby was born, but I find the child to be quite open to things such as chocolate and ice cream when offered. Of course, if one followed her small body about her day they would find her real love is bits of fluff off of the floor, typically found in corners or under furniture. She’ll quite happily chew a ball of dryer lint/random fuzz for as long as she can until you chase her down. Her resistance holds out until her mouth is forced open and is then redoubled in an effort to not only keep possession of the fluff but to bite my finger as a lesson not to try again. She’s quite resourceful.

My dance of the frying pan is given intermittent freedom while the toddlecurl discovers that I’ve accidentally left the pantry door open. As I check out the burning smell that turns out to be the spiced-half of the bread reacting badly to the margarine I’m frying it in (ah butter, how I long for thee) I can hear assorted bottles being shoved aside and something plastic clattering across the slate floor. I would worry that the perceived violence of the syrup bottle’s trip across the kitchen would indicate anger from the child, but she allays this with a squeal of delight and a loudly exhorted, “DaDAH… gah GAH! BAHBAH!” I take this to mean that she is telling me how pleased she is of her actions towards the syrup bottle.

I respond with something dry and sarcastic, and she repeats the same sentence as if to chastise me for not taking her seriously. I reply again with sarcasm, but feign apology as well, to which she plods the length of our 8-foot kitchen and yellingly smashes her face into my jeans. As I finish conducting my orchestra of slathering, spicing, flipping and syruping, I realise that I would have preferred her causing mischief in the pantry for a bit longer as I would have been able to finalise breakfast preparations unhindered by the squealing naughtiness gripping both of my legs and talking to the hole above my right knee of my jeans.

Breakfast is served. My wife, never really being much of a morning eater, dutifully trudges her way through a piece of French Toast before handing it over to me so that I can swap out the sweet half of the baby’s portion for the savoury and gauge scientifically the results. As I stir the oatmeal banana mush that I’ve prepared as a standby in the event of total French Toast Failure, I notice that the mass of lovely curls, that had mushed peas in them only last night, now have syrup in them as well. She appears to enjoy playing with her breakfast more than eating it. I divide a few pieces of the savoury French Toast and leave them on her tray rather surreptitiously for fear that she’ll rebel against things that I actually want her to eat, and throw them onto the floor for pure indignance. Some days, this one can be a real shit.

My attention turns from my own breakfast and the further stirring of the oatmeal concoction in time to see my child happily taking huge bites from a wad of bread in either fist. With balled-up syrup-covered fists on the ends of her spread arms, she looks as if she is challenging the World to provide something tastier to her, for what she’s holding would sure be hard to beat. She’s already eaten most of her mother’s uneaten breakfast. Just to muck with her a bit, I throw some eggs right in the middle of her tray. I’d fried up the leftover egg batter in the used cooking bits left in the pan, giving it a horribly grey colour that I prefer to think of as “seasoned to taste”.

As her thumbs become paintbrushes and the slightly runny and oddly coloured eggs become the paint, the canvas that is the tray of her high chair transforms into a masterpiece, complete with a collage of texture and flavour. “Less is More” she seems to believe, as she very purposely removes some of the leftover sweet toast with her fingers and then places it under her tray on the seat by her legs. I’m surprised to see such a deliberate act of removal when she is busy with wanton creation, but she’s always been a bit meticulous, and I will undoubtedly find at least half of her breakfast under her butt when I eventually lift her out of her chair.

With her creative juices flowing freely and her eating slowed significantly, I finally employ the use of the oatmeal mush. I get a few spoonfuls in before she concedes that her artwork may have to wait until after mealtime and decides to eat a bit more. As is her way though, her concessions are ever on her own terms, and she purses her lips and slaps at the spoon on it’s third trip in. I back it out and try again, only to be met with a shaking head and flailing arms. It’s becoming fairly evident to me that she may not be interested in my mushed backup plan.

Now I concede. She watches me put the spoon back into the small bowl before flinging her arms out across her painted tray, grabbing a handful of egg and toast, and shoving it gluttonously into her face. Her actions of hearty independence appear to be telling me that she may not enjoy the eggs and French Toast so much as dislike the mush and/or the idea of me feeding it to her. She almost giggles as she grabs a piece of egg-smeared crust and begins munching on it with fervour.

As I lean across the table and put my head in my hand, I realise how much fun she is. Not just to interact with, as I have been, but also just to watch, as I am now. So much of who she is going to be, is here already, and so much of who she is, is just wonderful. It boggles my mind to think that I have such an impact on this small person’s life, and therefore the rest of the World.

It is then that I realise that I haven’t been thinking about the rest of the World for at least an hour and a half, a new record for this stressful week I’m fairly sure, and I am once again humbled by the power that my child has over me.

Go away for a while World, I’m feeding my child.

I wasn’t sure it would fly with the Wife though, so I went in thinking that there was a solid likelihood that it wouldn’t happen, as there just isn’t enough space on our property, too much work, it’ll eat up all my “projecty” time, etc. I was prepared for any of these, so my heart pretty much leapt when she got as excited as I did and said something along the lines of, “Now we can tour the coast all Grey Nomad style!”

Even though I’m not ready to retire yet, we were stoked, and I towed the rotting and rusted hulk of mildew-smelling canvas home.It hadn’t been treated with the tenderest care of the past few years and, even though it was free to begin with, my ears immediately drowned out the excited cries of my children with the cha-chinging of a cash register.

Despite the cash needed to simply raise the beast’s societal rating from slightly above Gut-Churning Eyesore to Functional-Yet-WhyWouldYouDoThat, there was a buttload of manual labour involved too, and my back, knees, shoulders, even my upper spleen, were all crying out for a long holiday by the time the hulking monstrosity was ready for any attempt at accommodation.

Plus, it still smelled really bad.

Backbreaking efforts, combined with raw pains in the ass, combined with an almost militaristic strategic plan, had us ready to hit the road first thing on a Friday morning.Food was loaded, beds were made, we’d even fashioned a keep-baby-in area, and the kids had tested the structural integrity of every square inch of the inside through vigorous Climb-On-Bloody-Everything-While-Yelling tests.

As the sun set on the day, I sipped my beer and revelled in the idea that not more than a month ago, somebody said, “Hey, want a free caravan?” and I said, “That’s a real hunk of shit isn’t it?”I thought about when Wife were still in the midst of trying to pull off Christmas Miracles and, being armed with this weapon of relaxation, we felt compelled to plan a date and take that bad boy a-motorin.It was almost as if we simply had to by virtue of the fact that we were in possession of this… thing.

Morning came, kids happily and wonderfully chipped in with whatever task I could set them to, loading such necessities as the baby’s favourite toy, Giraffalopolous, and Jackie Chan DVDs (I told ‘em that the laptop could function as entertainment in the car ONLY as the 3-hour drive was quite daunting).Wife and I prepped children and each other, and we rolled out of the driveway.

32 feet later, I realised that when I bought a new jockey wheel (that little fella in the front of trailers that you can wind down and push the gooseneck up off your hitch with and then roll the trailer around) I had installed it according to where the old one had been.Since I am known for getting the cheapest item I can find and “making it work” I had missed the fact that two different sized wheels shouldn’t be installed in exactly the same way.I was alerted to this fact by the clunking and grinding noises, and by the fact that the entire car was shaking like an old dog shitting a peach pit.

One minute later, a wrench, a few curious yet forgiving neighbours cruising by, some cursing and then a smile, and we were on our way.Our jockey wheel’s pride was stinging a bit, not being able to show off as the only shiny new thing on the entire outside of the caravan any more, but he was game.We smoothly made our way to Nanny and Poppy’s to drop off the dog. Wife’s mum tends to overdo things a bit, but her intentions are good.She hooked us up with some interestingly well-suited cookware and we were off.

8 feet later, with the help of my father-in-law, we realised that none of the lights or signals were working.Driving may be a bit more of an adventure than we’d planned if we can’t actually tell others which way we’re turning, or that we’re stopping and that they may not wish to blend their car with our gigantic ass-end in an instantaneous fashion.

2 hours later, we were going to bop to the auto parts store and fork out some of the Holiday Cash on tail lights and indicators, when Poppy goes to turn the key in the ignition and says, “Hey!You can use those!” pointing to his dilapidated old 2-wheel trailer’s set of ugly, yet functional, lights.

1 hour later, slightly gunky from rotted worms that were once electric wires, and we were on our way for real.

Our destination was Jurien Bay, ~200 km North of Perth on the coast, and despite that there’s a highway about 30 km off the coast that goes straight there, we wanted to follow the coastline up, a la Route 66, and scout out some of the touristy hotspots.

This is WA though, and nothing ever seems to be as I expect it should be in my rational and logical little mind, so even the “coastal” route wasn’t really on the coast, and the multiple turnoffs for the beachside towns were too far for us to determine if those spots were indeed hot.By the time we reached Lancelin and went all the way into the town for gas and some directions (uh yeah, I managed to leave the map at home), we found out that there actually is no road that follows the coast between Lancelin and Jurien.

“You’ll hafta head back out past the construction and make for the Highway” I was told.After I asked if they sold maps, I was presented with a photocopied and hand-drawn sketch of the area with the twists and shimmies that would get me North in the most expeditious fashion.

“So, after the construction eh?”

“Yep, then onto KV and then Sappers, Orange Grove, SomeOtherRoad, MoreTurns, and then RULostYet.”

“Sheezus.I don’t suppose ‘the construction’ is for a road that actually connects us is it?”

A shrug and an empty-gazed smile told me that the bit of scrap paper was as good as it was going to get.

The kids were road-weary, the trailer was heavy, everyone including the car was tired, and my stress levels were rising as fast as I could witness the gas gauge dropping as Ex-mobile laboured with our portable house.

We rolled into Jurien ~6 minutes before the caravan park closed and checked in.The assurance that I was being given a prime spot was just short of a wink and a nudge, and I felt like we were getting a bit of a hookup, even if I had no idea what a “Bouncy Pillow” was.The children left little cartoon clouds of vapour the second we’d pulled to a stop, leading me to believe that at least they knew what it was.

Happily clambering about and setting up our bulky, awkward, and somewhat ridiculous-looking caravan, I realised that we’d paid for a site with electricity, yet I had… wait for it… forgot the extension cord.A quick trip to the IGA, ~6 minutes before THEY closed, a stop at the liquor store for something to wash away 3 and a half hours in our car, and we were all set to spend the night soothed by the easy sounds of late 70’s/early 80’s bogantastic rock and the intermittent screeching of yet another child bullied and bounced off of the infamous “Bouncy Pillow” (Damon made 3 trips to the caravan with reports of unfairness before I wandered over, flexed, and stated my preferences for his safety loudly and Americanly to several of the 20-odd children there).

4 hours later, it’s just past midnight and we (Wife and I) are awakened by the whoop-whooping of some happy-go-lucky teens, out for a late evening stroll and surely not up to trouble.At all.

3 hours later, in the wee hours of the AM, and our cleverly-dubbed “Magic Ship” has apparently hit some choppy waves.To keep worries down and excitement up, Wife has told the children that we’re setting sail at bedtime and will wake up somewhere after an exciting, if not bumpy, sleep-filled ride.Her promise did not disappoint, and the coastal winds have certainly made me feel like a genuine pirate alright.

2 and three-quarter hours later, and the poorly-compressioned V8 engine cranks to life, needing only constant revving and grinding gear changes to stay in idle.It stops, and in it’s place is a conversation between two gravelly inconsiderate men regarding certain personality traits of a mutual acquaintance.Not one for rash behaviour, I stayed in bed and simply fumed sleepily with Wife.The clincher, as it seems to be with me, is when the kids and the baby stir.

I popped my head out of the caravan like it was an audition for the show about meerkats on Channel Ten, with a terse and pointed, “You fellas gonna be long?”

If you’ll allow yourself to follow your instincts at this moment, then when I describe the fat and aging angler, you’ll see him perfectly as you have 100 times before.Balding, with the remaining more-salt-than-pepper hair close-cropped, thick glasses mounted on a bulging and veiny nose, ruddy and sunburned neck disappearing under a polo shirt embroidered with either a fishing company’s logo, HIS company’s logo, or the tavern where he plays darts, drinks too much, and thinks the waitress is adroitly hiding her secret and burning passion for him.Mount this on a distended belly that only beer can create, twist on a pair of khaki shorts, and plug in a couple of whitened and wiry sticklegs, fit for carrying this swollen caricature around.

There you go, you’ve got it.Multiply it by two, add a touch of facial hair and a hat, and subtract about 15 pounds and some shoulders, and you’ve got a couple of fellas that couldn’t have looked more matter-of-fact about disturbing me than if I had just been hit by their retardedly combusting bushbasher of a truck while standing in the middle of the road.

The intensity of my gaze lent seriousness to the situation, and they were cautious when the said, “Wazzat?”

“Oh,” I began again ever-so-politely, “I was just wondering how long you’re going to be, out here, so I can plan my day accordingly.”

The matter-of-factness circles their heads until they almost become puzzled when the fat one says to me, “It’s quarter of mate, all the boats are going out.”The latter half of his sentence was lilted towards the condescending end of the spectrum.

I mean, how could I NOT know that the boats went out at 5:45 AM?

“Okay super,” the bite in my voice was back in force, “well I’ve got two kids and a baby here trying to sleep.Should I just get ‘em up now?”I delivered this last bit quite sincerely, as if quarter-of-six boat-leavers were just part of The Experience, and I wouldn’t want to deprive my children of a second of it.

“No, no, mate, you’re alright!” he said, almost relieved that I wasn’t going to make too much of a fuss.

I nodded vigorously, gave him a hearty thumbs up (nearly swapping one digit for another, more convenient, one) and shut the door.Wife grumbled a bit about “fishing azzholes” and told me that I’d handled the situation well, if not bitingly smartassedly, and the fact that I can be quite imposing was a real turn-on, which was exactly what I needed to hear.

My undoubtedly subtle message was apparently received, and it was somehow managed that the boat was hooked up and hauled away without another word of conversation.Interestingly enough, even the shoddy V8 revving was slightly subdued.

12 minutes later, in one of those instances that leads you to believe that you just aren’t going to catch a break, the instant “the boats” left the seagulls came.The warm streaks in the sky, signalling dawn of a spectacular new day, were apparently too much for these majestic creatures to behold.They simply had to squawk about it.Loudly.

1 hour later, by the time that the morning activities were cleared to begin for all, or maybe possibly an hour before they were cleared, they began.Things like sleep and food were once again secondary for our 5 and nearly 7 year olds, for the Bouncy Pillow beckoned.Things like sleep and quiet were mere ghosts in our small world, and a slightly scowly baby and a giant cup of coffee were the new realities.

By the time we’d packed it all back up, chastised the ADD 5-year old for constantly wandering away and into strangers camping areas, released the excess pressure from our oldest’s Yippee Valve, and bid goodbye to the whitest trashiest of our neighbours, we were seriously looking forward to the beach.

While checking out, I contemplated how much to divulge about our nocturnal disturbances to the desk staff, instead deciding to simply keep my opinions to myself and rant about later.Here.On Teh Intraweb.Where I can tell everyone our experience with the Jurien Bay Caravan Park*.

*Watch out for how long it takes me to hit #3 in Google for that phrase.Hey, it’s what I DO fora living.

40 feet later, we’d reached the beachside carpark and docked our hideous beast, ready to venture out into what promised to be the first of many picturesque and idyllic beaches.After our rough night and our limited time to enjoy Jurien Bay before heading south to the Pinnacles, we had figured that we wouldn’t need more than a brief “fix” of the white sandy beach there, as there were surely a plethora more awaiting us.

As it turns out…

We were wrong.

This beautiful family has been stuck in a car for a while, sweating all over each other and trying not to drive each other nuts. Can you tell?

We rushed and rushed and hurried just to get… here. The Jurien Bay Caravan Park.

Not my favourite. But at least the Exmobile and the Excruzer look awesome together.

The Excruzer, in all it’s glory. Ain’t she a beaut?

On the jetty the morning after one of those nights that makes you want to actually kill people. Kill them. Seriously.

The jetty was gorgeous, and so was the beach. And yes, for some reason we decided we had to get going to Lake Thetis (stromatalites? What the hell are those?), The Pinnacles, and some notion that there were beaches in Ledge Point that weren’t made of wind. Can you tell which arm I hung out the window during the 3 hour drive?

Saw a guy from my smallish-market industry “retired” from IT and writes a travel blog and it was only after I saw him posing in this exact spot and saw his name that I recognised him. Here’s to you Akerz.

Happy family, minus one. I dropped the baby in the water while I was trying to get the timer to work on the camera. Ha, I’m kidding. Who you think took the picture?

I was kidding up above, I didn’t drop her, I hardly ever drop her. She was seepin’ while we were all Lake Thetising with the stromatahooyahs.

The kids at The Pinnacles. My morbid child, the boy, says a little too often about how the rocks “look like the dead people stones Dad.” Baby loved it, but the wind made her hat go all over her head. The kids loved posing on the ones that could be posed on, as opposed to those that should be climbed on, were climbing not discouraged.

My Jo posing next to some cool twin pinnacles.

Right by the beach, cool eh? What? You wanted me to talk about how they’re formed and how wickedawesomecool it is to see something that gets created like that over tens of thousands of years? Heh. It’s more fun to talk about how suggestively they’re shaped.

Ya know, cos they look like… all sticking up like that…

Hey, just be happy I’m not sharing the picture of the one that was a Perfect Example of what I’m talking about. And wife took it, not even me. So juvenile.

Happy family near some cool rocks. This is the stuff of Family Adventures.

There was a lot of this. Just this. Lots of it. And wind. Honestly though? Pretty damn cool.

This is our li’l sweet fat kid at the beach. I’m pretty sure this is her first actual beach trip, where she got to sit in the sand and scoop it down her pants. Which is good, good fun.

Jo looking quite awesome after who-knows-how-many years of not picking up a pole?

I look alright, but didn’t catch much more than kelp, a crapload of it, and the kids did their best to help out. By watching and asking every time that my line drooped, “You got something?!? You catching something Daddy!?!!?”

That’s why I made them climb a hill and run down it.

That’s it for about the first day, I’ll get Dia del Numero Dos sometime later. Then, if you’re lucky, I’ll get days 3 and 4 too.I just always forget how much work this is. Uffda.Aw, you’re worth it, aincha?

HaHA, a terrific trap, and one that the lazy man will often use to get out of doing something.

See how I did that?

Enough of that then, on to some pictures to catch my photolife up a bit.

This is just Jade. In my office, yet again. Sucking on something she’s probably not supposed to.

She’s cute though, and seems to somehow know when she is, and being so, and can therefore get away with things. A power that sometimes seems too great for one so small.

Exhibit B. She used to be pretty sure we didn’t want her doing this, but then decided that since we didn’t tell her “No” every time, that we didn’t mean it.

After hearing the first few bars of her initial masterpiece, we now openly encourage her to play as much as she likes and, while there isn’t a huge variation between the first few bars and then next few bars (or any of the notes for that matter), her masterpiece is coming along well.

It’s looks like that that I need to learn how to handle instead of turning to mush.

A random shot during last November’s Melbourne Cup Day (the race that stops a nation). She’d apparently decided it was time to nap and I’d apparently had too much champagne while cheering on my horse and it’s most unwinning ways.

This is at The Sizzler in celebration of her Uncle Danny’s birthday a few days after Christmas. See? She’s still got her Christmas Glow about her.

It hasn’t been a brutally hot Summer here (in my opinion) but it’s been warm enough to enjoy our little inflatable-sided pool in our backyard. I can barely keep the kids out of it and have probably skipped photos of them in there for fear of having my camera splashed riotously.

Jade loves it though, and gets wiggletastically excited when we ask her if she wants to get in.

This is just random cuteness. I forget where we were going (or if we were even going out) but sometimes you get there with the camera in time to capture the “aw”ness. Other times you just curse while digging for the camera in your wife’s purse and yell at the kids to keep being cute dammit. Haha.

Probably the first time that we’d realised that her hair is long enough to tie into a ponytail, and how incredibly much this would aid in feeding her.

With this in mind I gave up the dish and spoon and just let her at it with the resulting heavy amount of smearing with a happy mix of “Sharing with Daddy” thrown in.

“I shares with you Daddy”

She delights in this, and seems to be “at that age” as they say, when she’s into sharing her food and mimicking almost everything from shrugging to scrunching up her face as cutely as possible.

She’s also walking more on her own, which is to say that she’ll stand up next to something, let go, take a step, screech in excitement, and then put her hand back on the stable structure.

She’s also fixed the gearbox problem that she had preventing her from crawling forward and now zooms out of the room when you blink more than twice. I’ve got my office barricade fortified and we’ve got a full-sized babyjail playpen out in the open space of the house, both of which help immensely in keeping her from pulling ALL of the CDs off the rack and all the DVDs as well. Seems that she’s a bit of an anarchist and defies any semblance of order.

I keed, she’s not anywhere near as naughty as I make her out to be.

Unless we’ve left her hair down. That li’l moppethead with curly locks in her eyes couldn’t look naughtier if she was holding a black plaque with “County Jail” on it when she’s got her hair down.

Damonus Prime, showing off some of the most excellent of Christmas presents.

While I am experiencing major suckage in not having any photos of our holiday celebrations, I can share that the absolute highlight of the entire day was him opening up the box from Santa, seeing the voice-changing Optimus Prime helmet and yelling excitedly and disbelievingly, “It’s exactly what I wanted! HOW’D he know exactly what I wanted?!?!??!”

Santa Rocks, most definitely.

George is actually enjoying her Santa present (CD/Radio) as I sit and write this, singing and bopping along like the future Pop Star that she is. If we could get her to listen to anything other than the first 3 songs, or at least listen to them all the way through and not just the first 30 seconds 7 times in a row… well then we’d be happy. Ah, the joys of a distractarino for a child. I could go on and on about how much fun it is to get her to eat a meal in under 45 minutes.

The boy is obviously hamming at this point, but the awesomeness that is his armour gives me a nice segue into some pictures of me being warriortastically fighty at some shows in November.

Brother-in-law Sam is on the left, and is gutting me once again. He tends to be the underdog, dressed in slightly-above-peasant status garb and portraying a hard-done-by Celt, so slicing open an invading shiny-helmet Norman gets quite the reaction from the crowd (who were on the camera side of this fight, leaving only the hottie holding the beautiful baby girl on the windiest side of the ropes).

This is at the Highlands Fest in Armadale, and I finally got to win a fight or two. The Celts being the precursor of William Wallace and, eventually, the Kilt-clad Highlanders, made my Celtic helmet and armour quite popular and me a victor (most of the time).

Jo’s dad made it over for one fight and confided in me later that all the clanging, banging, and yelling made him a bit more afraid of me than he was. Which I thought was fine until I wondered what I could’ve done to make him afraid in the first place. Fiercely bake him that Pumpkin Pie? Ferociously buy him that beer? Give a battle cry during his birthday dinner?

Wait… mighta been that last one. Following it up by ripping a chicken in half with my teeth probably didn’t help either. It was KFC, but he’s obviously still scarred.

My other outfit, all hand-made just like the Celtic one, is of a sneering-whilst-invading Norman dog. Unlike the screaming-bloody-murder, blue-painted, stinkingdirty Celt, the Norman puffs around a bit more, is a bit more controlled with his movements and sword work, and dies quite violently. It’s great, except now my ribs hurt.

Me and Wifeage looking hot in our kilt action.  The Armadale Highlands Fest was a right good time, and we were dressed the part and lookin’ hot and bein’ hot and… have I mentioned how much I dig my wife in a kilt?  Yeah, as much as she digs me in mine baby, oh yeah!

Loves to all, and Best Wishes from the Australia Exley’s that not only Christmas treated you like you’d done nothing but save nuns and puppies from terrorists all year, but that 2008 promises to treat you like you secretly snuck it the Mars bar that you said you were saving for 2007.

Toodles.

Seriously. Uffda.

So, in lieu of telling you anything about all the stuff going on lately, I present to you the Official Video of Jade’s First Steps.

Yah haird meh.

We happened to have the video camera handy… which means that we thought she might be close to doing it so I’d hit “Record” about 8 times for nothing but faceplants and screaming raspberries. Then, the big moment, when she saw the camera and decided to stomp after it.

Classic.

Smooches, catch up wicha later.