April Update

Lani and the kids have just left after visiting us for 10 days. We had a great time, especially all the kids. MJ loved playing with James and Jazz and really misses them now they are gone. He has even cried a couple of times cause he wants to drive to QLD to visit them. Luckily we will be flying up to visit them in just 3 weeks.

John has been doing a bit of travel with work recently. He is currently in Brisbane for a few days and spent 6 days away in Singapore for a conference during March. He has been much busier at work since some changes a few months back. He appears to be enjoying the change, especially now that he is managing two minions.

MJ is doing great. We tried out the German/Australian playschool this term, but have decided not to re-enrol him for next term. He seemed to enjoy it and picked up a bit of German, but I think it is more hassle than it is worth, dropping and picking him up. He is still going to Rainbow child care each Wednesday which he enjoys as well.

Jessie is still the cutest thing ever. Her teeth are appearing very slowly and she currently has only 6. She still loves playing outside and she is totally in love with a kids show called 'The Backyardigans'. She gets excited everytime I put an episode on, even though that is about 20 times a day. It is good, cause I don't mind watching either. They do lots of cool dances, which Jessie loves to join in with.

A couple of weeks back Matt, Meredith, John and I went to see Cirque Du Soliel's 'Varekai'. It far exceeded all our expectations and we all really enjoyed it. It is an extremely high quality production and the music and costumes were fantastic. I am really glad they came to Canberra and that we decided to go.

A bit of fun....meet Keido

12 Years

Tomorrow is our 12th Wedding anniversary!! Wow how the years have flown.

Happy Anniversary John Connolly!!! It has been 12 looong years, but I still love you.

MJ Turns 3

Mr MJ turned 3 on 16 Feb and we celebrated by a weekend in Sydney and a visit to Taronga Zoo. We saw lots of great animals, but it was a very hot and tiring day esp for little Bessie Boo. Luckily there was a nice pool at our hotel that we could cool down in.

We were also able to visit paw paw (Krysti's grandmother) and Aunties Doreen and Sue who were visiting from US and Adelaide and Uncle Jeff. Good to catch up again and had some yummy wonton soup.

MJ is doing very well with his toilet training and now is in underpants all day. He is also finally going to sleep without his dummy, which is some kind of miracle that we are very happy about. He has been a really good boy lately. His latest thing is the PS2 and has become really good over the last month. He has already finished (with a little help from mum & dad) Madagascar, Lego Star Wars and Dora and the Purple planet. He has also started a day at a local German playschool that just opened this year, just for something new and different.

Miss Jessica is a cheeky little girl that loves running away from mummy and daddy at every opportunity. She seems a lot more robust than MJ at the same age. She enjoys playing outside and getting very dirty. She is almost 15 months old.

John has recently been informed of a few changes at the BHC. His area will be taking on additional responsibilities and a few extra staff. Hopefully it will be a good change for him, getting to do new things and working with new people.

QLD Visit

We hope everyone has had a fantastic christmas and new year.

Krysti MJ and Jessie have just returned home after spending 4 weeks on the Gold Coast with Lani and Paul. John was up for 2 of those weeks during christmas and new year.

A huge thank you to the Lyons family for being so accomodating. They even built some little gates for the stairs so Jessie didn't go for any sixers. A special thanks goes out to the J-Man, who did a fantastic job of hanging out with MJ and keeping him entertained. Jazzie also loved to play with Jess and pick her up and run around.

MJ seems to be following in Jasmine's footsteps in regards to loving the water. He has a little swim vest that keeps his head just above the water. He loves to jump into the water and paddle around. His skills progressed a lot while we were there. We went to grandma's place yesterday for a swim, and she and grandad were very impressed with him.

MJ also enjoyed our numerous trips to Movie World and must have ridden the little roller coaster over 20 times. He also braved the big peoples Wild Wild West ride a couple of times.

Jessie is doing great. She is a super walker now and has started climbing on everything. Still a little spoilt mummy's girl, but hopefully getting a little better.

The house was in pristine condition when we arrived home, thanks to John. Unfortunately it is already in a mess, thanks to the kids.

Happy Anniversary to Jenna and Jay for today, we hope you are enjoying yourselves over in the USA.

Also, Happy Birthday to Kimbees for yesterday, she is currently visiting with Lani in QLD.

There are also some new photos on Flickr, so feel free take a look.

Happy 1st Birthday Jessie

Today is Jessica's first birthday. Her first year has really flown by. She is getting quite good at walking, and I think it will be her main mode of transport within a few weeks.

We had a family party for her last Saturday, where she received lots of lovely gifts, and her Grandma made her a fantastic Dora the Explorer cake. There are lots of photos on Flickr, so please take a look.

Krysti and the kids will be flying to Qld to stay with Lani on 16 Dec. John will drive up just before Christmas and stay for a couple of weeks. I am sure we will have a great time with Lani, Paul, James and Jazz doing lots of fun QLD things. Both MJ and Jessie love the water, so they will have fun in the pool and at the beach. Hopefully Jessie won't eat too much sand!

Watch saga

I've had a bit of a problem with the Tissot watch that Krys bought me in 2001 while she was in Europe. Recently the battery started to fail, which after 5 years is pretty good going. So, we start to look around for someone to replace it. The Tissot T-Touch has a few extra functions on top of a regular watch such as a Barometer and Altimeter which rely on atmospheric pressure to accurately calculate their readings. So, rather than take the watch to the dodgy guy on the corner and get a new battery put in for ten bucks, we did the right thing and went to a Tissot Agent for the battery to be replaced and then have the watch properly pressure tested. So, off to Angus and Coote we go (a local Tissot Agent) and we are told it will take a week to get done (it gets sent to their watchmaker - sounds good) and it will cost around $70 for the work. Ouch but fine. We leave the watch and return one week later to collect. We pick up the watch and are told the bill is $18 and it hasn't been pressure tested...

Off we go, frustrated but hopeful that the watch will still be OK. While having some lunch I start to reset the time and check a few things...Temperature reads 97 deg C, altimeter 9999M and the barometer is off the scale! Huh!? So much for a professional watchmaker! We take the watch back and they apologise and off it goes, back to the watch maker once again, for repair. 1 week later, I get a call to say the watchmaker can't repair it and that it now has to go to the manufacturer, Tissot, for service. That was 9 September - I'm told it will take 6 weeks



Today, finally, almost three months later, I get a call to say the watch has been repaired and is ready for collection.



The watch looks beautiful. It's had a $280 service which includes replacing all the buttons, the sapphire touchscreen face glass, three pressure seals, the bracelet hinges, the hour and minute hands, the whole thing including the bracelet has been thoroughly cleaned and polished and looks almost better than new. They even replaced the LCD panel (I can tell since the previous one had a leak in the top left corner)!



Overall, I'm bitterly disappointed about the screw up and the enormous amount of time taken for repair - they will be receiving a letter from me, mark my words. But..I have the watch back and it looks great.

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Our old digs are up for sale

The house we lived in, before we emigrated to Aus (19 Keynsham Road) is up for sale.

Asking a mere 235,000 pounds (approx AU$575,000!).

Can't believe I found this...the garden has gone downhill bigtime too.

Check out the brochure.