What's going on?

Wow, I've been pretty slack with keeping up to date with posts in the past but it's been almost five months since the last one which has to be a record for me. Sad thing is I've had more than enough material to write about in that time but haven't been able to get around to doing it. Given that we hope to welcome a new baby into the family in the following week I thought it would be best to briefly catalogue some of the recent big events before I hopefully descend into newborn minutia again.

A new car

Our civic has served us well for many years and we were sad to see it go. The upcoming influx of family members however demanded some adjustment to our transportation so we had to do something. Getting a second car was something we considered but we didn't like that idea due to the additional operational cost and the need to travel separately. In the end we got a pretty good deal on the run-out design of the Honda Odyssey - what some would argue is the ultimate Asian family car. We certainly don't feel out of place at Sunnybank and can now fit mum and dad along with the children when we need to.

Alison had an operation

Just in the lead up to mum coming out for Christmas we had a bit of a health scare with Alison and the baby. Alison took a trip to the GP which turned into an ambulance ride to the emergency department and ended with an emergency appendectomy.  Not the easiest 24 hours but the family and baby all came out of it unscathed thankfully.

Mum over for Christmas

So it was lovely to have mum out here to spend time with Nelly and the family. Had a lot of fun and ate heaps of good home cooked food, which was a relief for Alison who was still recovering from her operation.

The baby's heart is fine

During our morphology scan last year we were told that our baby boy had a small hole in his heart. It was nothing life threatening but still a small concern for us understandably. In January we had a follow up appointment and were told that they could not detect any abnormalities much to our relief. The doctors still can't be 100% certain that the hole isn't there anymore but it's certainly no longer something that will have an impact on his health.

Aussie Aussie Aussie

I suppose it was just a matter of time before I got my act together (or Alison would force me to get my act together), but I've finally applied and successfully completed my test for Australian citizenship. I did miss out on one answer on the exam but thankfully they have a pretty lenient passing grade. Unfortunately there's a bit of a back log so it's unlikely that I'll be able to attend my ceremony and officially become a citizen until September this year. Even so it didn't stop us from having a great Australian day out with friends.

Got a new job

The last year and a half of owning my own business with Chris have been really exciting. The reality of self employment and new ventures however mean that sometimes things don't turn out the way you expect them to. We are still keeping the business going but I've decided to focus on the product side (What Bin Day and Nose to Tail) in lieu of the service arm of the business. This comes with a new position as a developer at Wotif Group, a role that I've been enjoying quite a bit if only for the comparative simplicity. I never got around to that blog post about Socket Software so I won't make promises about discussing work in more detail, but who knows.

Imminent Baby

It's now day minus 6 till we are supposed to meet our boy, not that those estimates are anything to go by. We're enjoying the time we have left as a small family and can't wait to welcome the new bub home. Mum will be flying out on Wednesday to help us out and we're ready to have our lives changed all over again soon.