marc.vic.max.elliot

I know, I know, it’s been more than a week and y’all probably expect me to say that nothing’s happened – not so!

The main thing is that in the last week we’ve had both the boys sleep right through for six of the seven nights!  The first night was last Friday and Elliot had been up almost all day so when it got to 19:30 he was absolutely shattered.  We put Max to bed at seven and Elliot at seven thirty and Max was the first to wake up at 06:30 while Elliot slept through to 07:30 – twelve hours!  Almost every night since they have slept through – the only exception being Tuesday (I think) Elliot sometimes won’t go to bed until 21:30 or so but once he’s down he’s OK until the morning.  The funny thing is that I felt better getting less sleep!

A funny thing happened the other day too.  My brother Jason and his wife Selena left for London over a year ago now so Max will have been about 18 months old at the time.  We were lying in bed the other day and he was trying to peel my tattoo off (as he does sometimes ) and I asked him who had drawn it – Uncle Jason he said after a slight hesitation which was quite cool.  Not only did he do that but two days ago he was having his first horsey ride on Daddy’s back and I thought I would teach him something of his family so asked who owned a horse.  Aunty ‘elena he said after a little while!  I guess we must have been talking about but we certainly hadn’t discussed it with him!  The boy’s a sponge!

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It’s been a while but I got out my D30 last night.  It’s so much more responsive than my digicam (which is 3 years newer!) and it was like visiting an old friend.

Here’s a couple of shots – D30, 100mm F2.8 macro, EX420 bounced off the ceiling.  My Mum says that all my photos are too dark – what do you guys see?  The joys of the net is that if my monitor is way out then they’ll look like crap to everyone else.

Where the hell does the time go! What’s happened in the last week or so?

• Elliot has moved out of his moses basket and into his cot.  He looks so little in the massive cot *sniff* I can’t believe he’s over 3 months old now and is smiling and gurgling away……

• Max has periods of being a right little shit!  He is a two year old and damn, he’s annoying sometimes!  Most of the time though he is a little angel and has taken to getting all the soft toys off his shelves and jumping all over them on his bed

• Other than that not a lot has happened in the last six days – sad huh?

Tuesday night at 20:30 and I’m knackered – what a lightweight!  Off to bed for a bit of Harry Potter 6 I think…..

Hi all, I’m back!

The trip to Shanghai was fairly uneventful and it was good to get back on Friday afternoon and see the family again. Here’s a brief rundown of my week:

Saturday:  Left Wellington at 07:00 and was told at check-in that my requested airpoints upgrade to business class had come through – yay!  Got to Auckland to find that my colleague had also got an upgrade!  Too bad Air New Zealand business class is shite on a 767 (but better than cattle class!) An eleven hour flight later and we’re in Hong Kong where we get a cab to our hotel.

The evening is spent wandering around the night markets with some Australian based colleagues and the whole next day is taken up with looking around markets and computer fairs until 16:00 when we have to be in a cab to the airport for our 2 hour flight to Shanghai. Items of note bought – one small USB SC card reader for about 15

Sunday night to Wednesday is spent at the technical summit in Shanghai being scanned whenever we enter or leave a session (even to go to the loo!) Talk about control!  We also went to the night markets.  Items bought – Matching fake Rolexes for 60 NZD the pair.

Pete and I decided when we got to Shanghai that we would rather spend some extra time in HK so we changed our flights and left Shanghai at 16:15 on Wednesday where that evening and Thursday were spent in a similar fashion to our trip up.  Items bought – Cases for my ipod and x50v, in-line remote for the ipod, some clothes for Vic and I from Esprit.

Our flight was at 19:00 and again my upgrade came through! Six hours sleep on the flight was brilliant and after a quick flight from Auckland to Wellington I was home at last!

Highlights of the trip?

Coming back and after I’d been home a few hours I met Max on the stairs and asked him for a hug. He gives me a big hug and says “I love you Daddy”!  Going away for a week was almost worth just that

Catching the maglev train from Shanghai city to the airport.  Firstly it’s cool technology and secondly the image below shows the speed that we got up to – on a train!!

Well It’s 05:30am on a Saturday morning and my cab is about to pick me up 🙁

I’m off to Shanghai for Dell’s Asia-Pacific-Japan Technical Summit!  Three days travelling to attend a three day conference – I’m not sure it makes sense……..  Packing my suitcase was easy, packing my hand luggage much harder!  Laptop, phone, PDA, Ipod, Card Reader, cables, wallet, passport and tickets should just about do it

Have a great week everyone.

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I’ll miss my boys while I’m away for a week 🙁

Elliot’s growing up so quickly!  He’s really interacting now and can keep his head up for quite a few minutes.

As for Max he’s turning into a typical tearaway two year old who can be divine one minute and a stroppy shit the next! lol!  Here he is pretending to be Superman with an All Blacks silver fern cape

On Saturday we bought Max and Elliot an inexpensive scotch chest each and they were delivered today. We then spent 30 minutes with Max changing his room around so that they would fit and it meant that when he went to bed nothing was as it was the night before…….

He wasn’t tooooo bad going to bed but it took him about an hour to drop off to sleep and it will be interesting to see how the night goes