marc.vic.max.elliot

Busy few days!

First of all I have received a formal job offer from Dell It’s only via email at the moment but the hard copy is being express posted as we speak.  Secondly we signed the paperwork on a new flat today!  It’s a nice little three bedroom house that’s only two years old and is on the right side of town to visit all the grandparents.  We move in a couple of weeks and it’ll be nice to be out of here…..

Lastly Max is really getting the hang of pulling himself up onto his feet now!  He started a couple of days ago but now has no problems getting upright whilst hanging on to the couch, the fridge, chairs, tables, dressers, Vic, me……………. this is what often greets us when we go into his room after he’s woken up

Compare it to the picture in this post of me when I was about the same age He doesn’t look as much like me as I thought!

Happy Birthday to my darling Victoria on this, the 30th anniversary of her birth.

I love you baby ::smooch::

We had a great time last night for Vic’s 30th birthday Our friends Jay and Larry were nice enough to let us have a get together at their place.  It was kept exclusive with Jay and Larry, me and Vic, Max, Ali and Al and their kids Abbey (14 months) and Jack (almost 3) attending.

Sushi, antipasto, pizza, birthday cake and chocolate fondue were on the menu and between the 6 adults and 3 kids we had a great time

Max and Abbey in the bath

click on the following link for some more shots….

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It seems that I may have a job! After 4 interviews and two reference checks they made me an offer yesterday. After a bit of negotiation (more money ) they made another offer today and I accepted!  This is, of course, conditional on receiving a written job offer and finding the terms and conditions acceptable.

If all goes well I will start my Systems Consultant role at Dell on Monday week.

Well it’s Saturday and I’m sitting at home all alone and damn it’s quiet.  Vic and Max are away for 4 days looking after Vic’s Mum after her second carpal tunnel operation.  I miss them 🙁 Here’s what I want to mention:

? Happy 40th birthday to Deb

? The neighbours upstairs had a party last night. The loud music until 1am wasn’t so bad – it was the yahooing at the side of the building and the fact that some bastard threw up on my car that pissed me off!!!  I was glad that Max and Vic were away………

? I seem to be getting closer to having a job (touch wood and fingers crossed) Employer #1 and I have now had four interviews and they have checked my references in the UK. We shall see………

anyway, have a nice weekend y’all

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I can’t believe it’s been two years since the twin towers were hit!

I remember that day like it was yesterday – I was at home that and just happened to turn on the news during my lunch to see what was going on. The TV showed coverage about 5 mins after the first tower was hit and they were talking about a mistake made by a pilot and how they were checking all of the instrument approach hardware.

A little while later I was sitting there watching and the second plane hit. My stomach lurched and I’m sure I just sat there with my mouth open – both myself and the commentators just couldn’t get our minds around what was going on in front of us.  I had called Vic when I first saw the news as she was working for a big US financial organisation at the time and I knew they had offices in NY.

I just sat in front of the TV for about 8 hours that day trying to take it all in.  Our flat was directly across the river from the tallest building in London and they evacuated it soon after they realised what was going on (plus it’s on the flight path for one of London’s airports) and for days after we looked into the sky at the slightest noise.

The world changed a lot that day.

Here in New Zealand it was Fathers Day yesterday. Max was very nice and popped out at some stage to buy me a card and some chocolate covered almonds While we were out visiting my Dad the flower fairy came visiting and left these flowers in our lounge! The card says “Happy 1st Fathers Day” and as only one other person has a key to our flat I’d like to thank Larry for the thought and flowers I’m not a big fan of Fathers Day and won’t be raising Max to do anything on that day – Mothers Day yes, but not Fathers.

While at my Dad’s he and I had great fun going through some old photos he had uncovered.  They were mainly from his time in the British paratroopers in the early sixties.  He spent time in the Middle East (Aden, Bahrain etc) and was working under the UN flag.  Interesting stuff seeing your Dad as an 18 year old in one of the world elite fighting forces.

I survived Saturday!

Now you may think this is no big deal but this Saturday was no ordinary one, no siree bob! Yesterday was my send-vic-off-for-12-hours-and-max-will-bloody-well-drink-formula-out-of-a-bottle-if-it-damn-well-kills-me Saturday

I’ve thought for a while that the only way to get Max to drink from a bottle/tippee cup/whatever is to send Vic out for a long time. Not days you understand but more than 3 or 4 hours that we’ve done in the past and we agreed that yesterday was to be that time.

Max awoke at about 07:00 and had his normal morning boobie feed (lucky!) Vic then was dressed and out of the house before 09:00 to meet her Mum in town while I gave Max his breakfast and it was just the two of us……..alone………….

Without going into all the details the day was great!  Max, even though he got pretty damn stroppy at times, took enough from a bottle so that I didn’t feel like he was going to get dehydrated.  Out of the 20oz (500ml) I made up during the day he had probably 15-16oz (400ml) of it.  Not a huge amount but that along with carrot and parsnip for lunch seemed to do the trick.  So much so that when Max and I drove out to the MIL’s place at 19:00 he wasn’t starving hungry. In fact he was with Vic for about 30 mins before he wanted a feed!

So all in all a very enjoyable day spent with my son

PS: Thanks to my Mum for popping in to make sure that we were OK and Larry for calling. Mum and I had a nice walk to a local cafe for a coffee which killed an hour and Max was fine until about 5 mins from home