Let's get the baby gear out of the way first.

We had the first bit of pregnancy excitement this week, when we paid our first visit to our obstetrician. She was very nice, although I do find it disconcerting these days to come across professionals who are around my age. It's just one of those feeling old things, I mean I have almost 10 years under my belt as a professional engineer and I should accept that even people like obstetricians who took 8 years to get thier degree have had a good amount of time in the workplace by age 32.

Anyway, it was really no more than a bit of a chat -she told us a few tidbits of information that were already in our baby zeitgeist due to all of the reading we have been doing, and then gave us a pregnancy showbag. Pretty cool, at least for Karen, there was no chocolates or little plastic toys in there so I lost interest in it pretty quickly. There was one item of interest in there however, which was the little booklet, the "Bounty Pregnancy Book". It features a whole lot of impossibly beautiful pregnant women shot in soft lighting, advertising a whole raft of pregnancy products. Everything from polariod cameras to iron supplements to a set of baby soothing cd's!

Which brings us to Christmas, which was a lot of fun.

We spent Christmas eve in Clare, hanging out a Neagles Rock with our buddy Steve, having lunch and drinking wine. Christmas Day we did the lunch - dinner double, lunch with my rellies and dinner with Karen's. It's true what they say, Christmas is more fun with children, and I certainly had a blast assembling and playing with toys my nephew received from Santa. Brock of course also had a blast, as evidenced by this photo showing him sitting on my dad.



Boxing day saw us eating dinner again with Karen's Mum and Dad, and on the 27th Karen worked for a day, and I put in a good 10 hours of solid manual labour helping to plant grape vines in Karen's dad's vineyard. Don't worry though sportsfans, I was straight back to relaxing the next day. Lea and Jon came around for a few hours of teev watching and scrabble, and then Karen and I headed for our (by our I mean in my family's) shack at Morgan on the Murray River.

This was fantastic, it was pretty relaxing, a good chance to catch up and chat with my little brother who has been living in Perth, and I actually wake boarded! (Wakeboarding is a cross between snowboarding and water skiing, for the non-gnarly)

This is a sport I have been trying to get the hang of since my brother in law Paul bought his speed boat a couple of years ago, and this time it just clicked. By the time we came home, I could confidently stand up, steer in both directions, and hold my balance through some small waves. However, my attempts to catch some fully sick air over the wake of the boat ended badly. Not quite ready for Planet X yet....



We had a fairly quiet evening on New Years with our friends Ben and Beck from Canberra, up at Ben's parents country ranch at Meadows, and only interupted the board game we were playing for a few seconds to acknowledge the year ticking over. No Auld Lang Syne BS for us this year I'm afraid. I say meh! to you Robert Burns....

Finally, I got 2005 off to a good start by being non hung over, and playing golf. This year should be fun, and at least until the baby comes a little less busy than last year. Looking back, 2004 was the most action packed year of my life. For those who don't want to read back through, here is a quick summary of my activites.

1. Ran a radio station at a Jamboree for 11,000 kids.
2. Built a house, and did all of the associated storm water, fencing and landscaping
   
3. Moved into said house
4. Travelled around the world for 9.5 weeks
5. Spent 6 weeks working in Moomba
6. Got my wife pregnant.

Phew!