Kemps Creek Hot Fire Day

Hi All. Told you I would be a bit quicker this time...

Well on Sunday I went to a place called Kemps Creek that is used by the RFS to conduct training, primarily Village Fire Fighter training. This is the training that Heidi, Robbie and Jamie are going through at the moment. I was there as part of a safety crew. (Or unsafe crew in some cases...read on.) Five of us from Faulconbridge went down, four on the safety crew and one was participating in the training. We manned the car fire scenario. There is a mid nineties Mitsubishi Magna (sedan for those who don't know) that is used for this. We fill it up with paper, grass, timber and almost anything else we can lay our hands on, douse the whole lot in petrol and set fire to it for the training crews to put it out. Once it is on fire we man a safety line (hose) to cover the trainees in case anything flares up. It was a long day, but heaps of fun. On the last run we were let loose by the trainers and told that we could make the last run as impressive (explosive) as possible. We filled the car with all of the combustible material we could find and for the finishing touch we doused it in 30 litres of petrol, lit it up and stood well back! It went of like a, well a fire cracker...

I was really tired by the end of the day, but no where near as tired as I was when I actually did the training. I feel for Heidi and the boys. I know exactly what they went through and by the end of that day you can barely put one foot in front of the other, you look like a creature from the swamp and smell like a rotten goat. Still, it is lots of fun....

Here are some photos....


Preparing the car.

Burning car! Ha ha ha!

More burning car! Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!!

Safety line in operation.

Well, it HAS been a long time....

Well you could have knocked me over when I looked at when we did our last post. December!!!! All this baby stuff really does eat up all your time. I will keep the writing short but the photos plentiful on this one for you as Xavier has changed a lot since the last post, as is expected. Before the photos, a little update.

He had his first day in day care on Monday. Karen and I were very nervous about this and we were wondering if he would feel a little anxious about being left with a stranger for a whole day, but he seems to have completely enjoyed himself. He was full of smiles and once the smiling was over with he crashed and slept better than he has for a while!! Seems day care will have its advantages. He is going to family day care, which for those not in the know, is where a qualified day care person takes care of kids in their own home. We were always very happy with the care provided to Ben with his day care mums, so we thought we would try to find the same thing here. We found a really nice lady at Lawson called Justine and she has two kids of her own. One is an 18 month old boy and the other is a 6 year old girl. Xavier will be happy with this as he loves other kids. She can only have maximum of 5 kids under school age in her care at any time including her own kids, so we know that Xavier will be getting personal attention. At the moment he is going Mondays and Thursdays and that will increase to include Tuesdays and Wednesdays in a few weeks.

Karen started taking him to the pool on Tuesdays and he is having a ball. Apparently he really likes being dunked. I am yet to see this as I am working. I am sure Karen will do a post soon and fill in all of the details.




He is doing lots of rolling, grabbing and chatting. It is all getting very interesting.

Here are the photos....

Trashing his bed...


His first solid food...


"Can I go to the Fire Brigade yet?"...


Enjoying a cuddle with mum before bed...

"I want to eat your brains!"

"This caterpillar is making me sleepy."

I thought I would add a few paintings as well. Haven't had as much time to do this of late, but try when I can...

Well that is all for now. Talk soon...

FIRST SANTA MEETING

We had our brigade Christmas party last Saturday. Daniel, Ben, Xavier and I all went along and had a great time.

The party's theme was a beach party. They had a jumping castle for the kids, unfortunately Ben was too big and Xavier was to small to go on....next year for Xavier at least. Ben and I were hanging out for the little kids to get off so we could have a go but by the time the guy came at 7pm to dismantle it most kids had to be dragged off screaming so we missed out. They also set up a large blow up pool in the front carpark which proved to be no end of fun for the kids even though it was quite a cool day.

A pinata was organised for the kiddies in the shape of a Santa, there are some very troubled kids who obviously have Santa issues as some of the faces pulled whilst whacking santa were quite disturbing! Santa held out though and dispite losing his head and then having to hang by his feet he eventually had to be broken open by Bec and the sweeties tossed up for the kids.

Straight after the Santa beating came the visit from Santa riding on the back of the Cat 7 fire truck!

There is something wrong about letting kids whack santa and then have them all lining up to get a present from him! Xavier had his first Santa experience and was not phased at all, sitting on Santa's lap I think he found the kids more interesting. He got a little ducky rattle that he seems to like.

All in all we had a lovely day/evening (3pm to midnight), Xavier was very good and seemed to enjoy cuddles and coos from everyone, Ben had a ball despite being in the company of either under 10 year olds or adults.

No, this is not baby Jesus, it's Xavier partying on into the wee hours!!

Xavier wondering why Daddy had Santa's tummy on his head.

HOWS DAT!!!!!!!

He, He He He He............more bragging photos...........................hows dat for a poo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So,do you still think I'm cute now??

SMILES, CHECK UPS AND IMMUNISATIONS!

Hi,

Mummy took me to the doctors 3 weeks back where I had my 6 week check up. I passed with flying colours. I weighed in at 5.28kgs, the doctor measured me at 52cm which meant I had shrunk since I was born but because I was a bit of a wiggle they said they will try again at my next visit in two weeks. Everything else was great and I am sitting just above the average line on all my growth charts.

I have started smiling now too! Everyone sticks their faces in my face and pull funny looks and make funny sounds. At the moment I think Ben is the funniest!

Last Thursday, Mummy took me to work and I had to have a needle in each leg and to top it off they dropped some disgusting stuff in my mouth too..............supposed to be good for me. I had my height and weight checked again, I now weigh 5.8kgs and I am 58cm (1ft 11inch) tall. Anyway, Mummy had a bit of work to do as they were having an accreditation visit so I decided to be on my best behaviour and went to sleep for a while. Once we got home I had had enough of being good. My legs were sore, I didn't feel very well and didn't feel like eating either. Mummy cuddled me to sleep and then I managed to get a good 8 hours in..................felt great in the morning! Mum still looked a bit tired, I think she was waiting for me to wake up in the night.

Aunty Heidi and Ishbel came to visit the other week. I managed a few smiles for Miss Ish and got lots of cuddles.

On Saturday night we went to my cousins house for Mummy's birthday tea. Aunty Heidi had cooked a yummy tandoori chicken - Mummy said it was delicious.

I've just added an extra picture to brag at how well I am doing at tummy time. Sorry I am not looking at the camera, I haven't quite mastered that yet. I had just finished having a shower with Daddy, I enjoy that as it relaxes me and I manage to sleep very well after.

Thats all for now, chat again soon,

Love Xavier

XXXXXXXX

New Paintings

Hi All. I have done some more paintings. Landscapes this time. Take a look...

RFS update

Hi all. Just a quick update on what I have been up to with the RFS. As promised in a previous post I said I would let you know how I went with my Advanced Fire fighting assessment. It went well. We had our practical pumping assessment first which presented a couple of scenarios that we had to interpret, identify the best action and execute our techniques to the satisfaction of the assessors. The guy I was partnered with from Winmalee had no problems. Next was the theory. There were three separate exam papers. One was Advanced Firefighting Principles, Advanced Firefighting Technical and Mapping & Weather. I forgot a couple of things on my first quick pass, but after spending some time mulling it all over it all came to me. When my theory papers were "marked" by Steve from Valley Heights he said it was refreshing to see someone had spent the time to learn their stuff properly and that my assessment was the best of the day!! Cool! So I passed, which is a relief as I didn't spend as much time preparing as desired due to the arrival of you know who.

On Tuesday I attended an inter agency terrorist response exercise with about three hundred other members of the RFS from far and wide, including Heidi. It was a 4:30am pick up at Faulconbridge and then off to Holsworthy army base. I will not go into all the details, but people were made to look like they had been in an explosion on either a bus or a train. Both a train carriage and a bus were blown up for the exercise. Pig carcasses were placed in each and when I asked about this apparently they are put in there to gauge the effects of the blast on a body. It looked quite strange to see a pig carcass dangling over the back of a seat in an exploded bus! There was a lot of time spent sitting around waiting but the actual exercise itself and the makeup efforts were very impressive. I took a couple of sneaky photos of one of the "blast injuries" of a guy that played one of the dead.

Well that's all for know. I will update again soon...

DADDY'S FIRST FEED

We bought a new breast pump so I can practice expressing and get it down pat before going back to work. This meant that Daniel was able to give Xavier his first bottle feed. We were a bit worried that he may not take to it but after screwing up his face initially he decided that all was OK. He has now had two feeds with his Daddy which has been very special for Daniel (good for the bonding) although he did give Daniel a few strange looks initially as if to say "hang on, this isn't right". Ben's turn next time.

WELCOME TO OUR NEW ADDITION

Sorry it has been so long since we last blogged. A lot has been happening as you know.

Firstly, we have to welcome baby Xavier to the family.

He came just one day after his due date, although this was driving his Daddy mad - he was eagerly waiting the arrival of his new bubba. Things were made worse by baby Fraser Colquhoun arriving promptly on his due date!

Never the less, the wait was worth it and Xavier Christian Hale was born;

Sunday 12 October 2008

Time: 9.52pm

Weight: 8lb 71/2 oz or 3.845Kg

Length: 54cm

All went well and both Xavier and myself were fine - so good in fact that we left hospital on the Tuesday - desperate to get home to the peace and quiet and away from the noisy hospital. We took the early discharge option where the midwife will come to your house for the next 7-10 days and check on you and bub.

So far he is settling in well, we haven't found a routine yet but he generally manages up to 5 hours a sleep over night and daytime sleeps vary. Just when I think we have some sort of routine he changes again. He is very alert and very good a lifting his head. He is starting to make eye contact with us and hopefully won't be long before the "wind" smiles turn into real smiles - can't wait.

Ben has been a fantastic big brother and is quite happy to cuddle his little baby brother even when he is howling his head off. He has been good at being able to settle his baby brother too! Ben was in Townsville the two weeks leading up to Xavier's birth, he flew back on the 12th October. Heidi and Ian offered to pick Ben up on the day just in case Xavier decided to make his grand entrance...........good job they did. At the time that Heidi would have been at the airport collecting Ben, we were headed for the hospital! What a nightmare it could have been, the airport is about 2 hours from the hospital. Ben ended up staying the night with his cousins, Daniel did call him after Xavier was born but he was already in bed asleep, although he did talk briefly to Daniel he doesn't remember the call!

Daniel took the first 3 weeks off work to spend time with Xavier and I, it was nice to have the support. He is a very devoted Daddy and I think he wishes he could have longer but he has organised to have two weeks off again at Christmas which will be nice. The only thing he doesn't seem to handle well are the poopy nappies!

In between sleeps I have managed to keep in touch with work and do a few jobs from home for them, I arranged to have remote access so I can dial in and do work at home. It helps keep the brain functioning and also helps keep my business manager, Claire, sane as she also has to look after a couple of other centres too. I'm doing things like the rosters and did the banking reconciliation - something Claire hates as I can usually balance mine and she never could prior to me starting at the centre. Down the track I will do a few more things and if I keep track of my hours I can get paid for them once my paid leave runs out (in about 4 weeks).

Well that's about it for now, sorry it's taken so long and I'm not sure when the next blog will be but we will do our best.

Long time no blog...

Well, it has been a while since there have been any updates from this neck of the woods. We have been busily getting ready for the impending arrival of the baby. Ben is in Townsville to see his dad at the moment. He is due back on the 12th of October. Baby is due on the 11th. That should make things interesting.... I have some photos of the babies' room all finished and a couple of photos Karen thought would be funny of me in the cot. (Not sleeping of course, just painting it.)

Ben has completed his basic fire fighting course and assessment, so he is a qualified cadet now. He got 100% on his theory exam and did very well on the practical side of things too! He did better than we did. Now he is eagerly awaiting his certificate, badges and his own uniform as he has been wearing Karen's for the past 5 months!!

I have been doing my advanced fire fighting course work. This goes into more detail on the mechanics of fire and fire fighting such as weather prediction, fire behaviour, pumping and (boring) community education. It has been a really good course and the assessment is at the end of November. I will let you know how I go. Karen has warned me that next year is her year to get stuck into all of the courses she missed while she has been pregnant, so I will be spending a lot of weekends being a house husband.


Bub's cot and canopy.



Bub's change table and wardrobe.

Bub's room from the door.

Me in the cot.

Me in the cot.

Well, this has been a quick update. I will endeavour to be a bit more prompt in my posts now that the preparation for the baby is done, although I am sure he will keep us very busy when he arrives. I will post photos of him when he arrives....

Talk soon!

For the record

For the record, the stripy top has been worn all of 3 times! It is reserved purely for the viewing pleasure of the Colquhouns!

Love the new google earth thing with the houses, Daniel said we can view ours too, how cool is that?

What's up?

Well, it has been a busy week, or at least weekend. The week itself was the same as usual. Work for Karen and I and school for Ben. Ben went to football training on Thursday night and clashed heads with one of his another boy from his team. Here is the resulting injury. We thought it was quite cool, but Ben did not share our enthusiasm.

The weekend was an entirely different story. On Saturday I hired a floor sander to strip back the floor in the babies room and polish it. I had done about ten minutes work on the sander when my phone rang and it was Stuart, the captain of the brigade asking me to be on a crew to assist with storm damage. I raced off to the station at about the same time Karen and Ben were leaving to go to Ben's football game. Ben's team were up against the top of the ladder and were beaten by a mile, but he had fun.

We ended up only having to attend to two houses on our call outs. No damaged homes, but a couple of crushed fences. The second house we were at fed us toasted cheese sandwiches and tea and coffee before they would let us leave. Once that was done we went back to the shed, cleaned up the truck and left for the afternoon. (Only to return later in the evening..read below.)

When I got home, Karen and Ben were back from football. I resumed sanding and found that the floor boards came up very nicely. I put the first coat of varnish on and left it to dry. (12 hours!) Over the remainder of the weekend I put the second and third coats on. We are really happy with the way it all turned out. The first photo is the bare boards and the second photo is the finished product.

On Saturday night we had a social function at the fire brigade. We have been having a deck built at the back of the shed for social gatherings. This is now complete and we had a deck warming/card night. We got there at about 6:30pm and started on the nibbles. We did an "official" opening of the deck later on with champagne and a ribbon cutting. After that we got down to playing cards, eating pizza and partaking in some "beverages". It was not for money, just for fun. We played poker, Blackjack and a couple of other games. It was great fun and most of us may have had a few more drinks than we should have! Karen, Ben and I left at about 2am and the rest of the guys assure me they left at about 3.

Sunday was a bit slower. We slept in until 11am! (Guess that won't be happening for much longer!) I got ready and went to the fire brigade for a maintenance day. I Spent about 2 hours there doing some gardening and tidying before coming home again. We spent the rest of the day on the couch watching stuff recorded over the week.

Karen and I both took Monday off so that we could take Ben to Blacktown to compete in the regional athletics championships. He was selected to represent the region in javelin. We got there an hour before his 10:45am event only to find that it was actually at 11:30, so we watched for a while. Ben did his best but was up against some stiff competition. He was a bit disappointed in himself, but we are very proud of his achievements. He got a Sydney West Athletics jumper for his troubles. This is Ben in action...

Well, that is it in a nutshell. One last photo to leave you with. A progress photo of Karen's "alien growth"...