Weekly Wrap Up – Sunday 29th July 2018

Ready for the week to start all over again? me neither.

My work roster gives me a 4 day week and a 6 day week, unfortunately this week was the latter of the two. That means less time spent with the family, less adventures, and less time writing for my readers, it doesn’t mean it was a quiet week though.

We should always spend some downtime reflecting on our day to day happenings, that’s what this is about,

Down Under Dad presents – The Week that Was.

The End of our Quick Escape

After a busy couple of weeks I finally got around to finishing my account of our short getaway, you can check out Our Quick Escape – Part 3

In case you haven’t been following, part of the reason for our little holiday was our family is about to become bigger, you can check out the details here When 3 become 4. . . . The other part was to celebrate our little guy turning 2 and Mr and Mrs Down Under Dad surviving 2 Years of Parenthood.

The main focus of day 3 of our getaway was our visit to the Hunter Valley Zoo. While we didn’t spend a full day there, it was well worth it to see Ollie’s reactions to finally seeing animals that he had only ever seen in books, in real life!

Down Under Dad is Famous

Well, not in the traditional sense of the word, but hey, you gotta take the small wins when you can get them.

I was invited by Chris of Dad of Divas to be featured on his segment Dad’s in the limelight. A series of interviews with various Dads around the world answering questions to give you a deeper understanding of them.

You can follow the link to check out the full interview Featured – Dads in the Limelight

How many Parties is Too many Parties?

You already know that our little guy recently turned 2 and the celebrations were out of control (well, as out of control as you would expect for a 2 year old).

What you might not know is that he has group of friends all with birthdays within 2 months of each other.

What does this mean? every year around this time the Down Under Family spends at least 1 day of most weekends attending a child’s birthday party.

You can check out our adventures at 2 of them here 2nd Birthday Bonanza

If you can’t tell already they were pretty wild too.

And it Wouldn’t be a Dad Blog Without?

Dad Jokes of course!

If in need of a good laugh you should check out 25/7/18 – Dad Joke of the Day

and there you have it, the week that was!

Stay tuned for the week ahead!

or if you have been away for awhile and want to see what we have been up to, check out Weekly Wrap Up – Sunday 22nd July 2018

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2nd Birthday Bonanza

With a title like that you’re thinking one of 2 things, either:

• I am one of those (insane?) parents who not only celebrates the birthday of their children but the entire month, or
• We somehow had another child born within a couple of weeks of our first – now that would make for a good story.

note, you could be forgiven for choosing option 1 as we did go away for 3 days leading up to the little guy’s 2nd birthday, you can read about it here Our Quick Escape – Part 1

Or I could be wrong and its something completely different, either way I’ll offer up a third option;

More 2nd Birthday Parties to Attend!

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before but my wife has a group of Mum friends that she is really close with. They all met during antenatal classes before babies came along and stayed good friends, the Dads became friends too, albeit not as close as their other halves.

Anyway that means they have a group of friends all with kids around the same age. That’s means the kids all know each other and are growing up together (to a point). This also means that their birthdays are around the same time of the year.

Last year that meant every weekend for almost 2 months there was a 1st birthday party to attend – if we’re honest it was the most social any of the group had been in 12 months.

This year the calendar isn’t quite as fully booked, but there has still been some fun to be had, you can check out the celebrations for Oliver’s 2nd birthday here 2 Years of Parenthood

Want to see how we celebrated his friends birthdays?

Party Number 1

Well 2 if you count ours as number 1.

So our Party was held at a Pub, Party number 2 was held at a local Play Centre called ‘Megamania’ – Think Multi-Story indoor playground.

As far as a venue for a kids party goes, this would have to be right up there. Its secure so your kids can’t escape – not that they would want to, they provide party food, drink, and cake – because you can’t have a party without cake, and the fun is physical enough that your toddler will be worn out enough by the end to have a sleep – at least you hope so anyway.

The playground itself is imposing enough for an adult (would be close to 3 stories tall), let alone a toddler.

No, don’t worry, the playground doesn’t have some inbuilt spy cameras, to give Ollie enough confidence to play by himself, Down Under Dad had to play with him for the first few times.

You can see below just how high the playground is

After being forcefully removed by his Dad as cake was being served, the little guy ended up going back inside all by himself – #proudparentingmoment right there.

If you look closely you can see him up the top

If you look over the right of the photo you can also see the large red slide. While this was the cause of much joy and laughter, it wasn’t without some bumps.

At some point Ollie decided to go down on the slide by himself. Long story short he ended up with a small friction burn on his chin. Like a true toddler though he continued playing like it was nothing, he did however drag Dad back up to the slide each time after that though.

Overall the Party was a success, although it didn’t quite wear him out as much as we would have thought.

Party Number 2

or is it 3??

The next party was something completely different again. The venue? a local park, if you have been following you would know that this is a dream come true for the little guy, check out Weekend Adventures .

Luckily at the moment we are going through a surprisingly warm time for the middle of winter. Not only is it warm but the sun is out and there is little wind. Perfect for a day at the park.

One of the bonuses of this park was it was also only a short drive away, no major planning needed and anything we forgot was a short trip back home.

note, not that we did, I did see that as a bonus though in case we needed it.

A feature of the park was a large network of paths connecting BBQ areas and playgrounds. This proved to be the perfect chance to try out one of Ollie’s birthday presents.

Before you say anything, yes he does have a helmet, but it was left at home – only a short drive away. Not that we did go get it, #parentingfail ,  to be fair he didn’t actually spend a lot of time on the bike.

He did however choose to eat freshly cut fruit over crackers and dip, already choosing the healthy option, that has to be a #parentingwin right there.

Did we mention at earlier that this party was held at a park? part of the reason not a lot of time was spent on the bike was that he was distracted by the play equipment.

Here you can see him climbing up the netting, the first couple of times he got stuck at the top but once we showed him where to hold on, he did it all by himself, over and over and over.

Unfortunately our time at this party was cut short as Down Under Dad had to work in the afternoon, however a great time was still had.

 

Our Quick Escape – Part 3

Our third and final day of our 3 Day Escape wasn’t as jam packed as the previous 2, however that didn’t stop us making the most of our time in the Hunter Valley.

While it was only a 3 day break, our little holiday was the perfect way to spend some quality time as a family of 3 before things get a whole lot busier When 3 become 4. . . It also happened to line up with the 2nd birthday of our little guy so it was a great way to celebrate it as a family.

If you can’t tell by the title this is actually the third and final part of our adventure. I encourage you to check out our experiences on Day 1 Our Quick Escape – Part 1 , as well as our adventures with Snow (in this part of the country?) on Day 2 Our Quick Escape – Part 2.

All caught up now? Here we go. . .

Day 3

After being so excited the day before that we got up at 2am (can you feel the enthusiasm?) , Day 3 started a little slower. We knew we had until 11am to be out of the hotel (thank you late checkout), but we also didn’t want to start our day too late.

After our little guy felt the need to open the door to the balcony and proclaim to everyone “ooo its cold” over and over it wasn’t long before we were out of bed. After packing our bags, double checking under the beds, triple checking the cupboards, and quadruple checking the bathroom (I know it was only 2 days but when you have a toddler you will find things in the most surprising of places), we decided we needed breakfast.

We had avoided breakfast at the hotel buffet so far as the price was a little steep for us, but being the last day we also thought it would be convenient. Walking past the buffet and seeing the lineup snake its way throughout the lobby of the hotel cemented our decision to find food elsewhere.

If you read Our Quick Escape – Part 1 you will know that on the first day we found a great little cafe that did All Day Breakfast – not that it was late, just we already knew they did good breakfasts.

Breakfast was fairly uneventful, the real run began when we got to the Zoo

Hunter Valley Zoo

The Zoo had been one of our main reasons for coming to the Hunter Valley. Our little guy had always been fascinated by different animals in books and on the TV, so we thought he would be impressed to see them up close.

A short drive away, a handy voucher giving us discounted entry, and we were ready to go.

After we paid our entry fee and purchased our bag of ‘animal food’, we headed in. We immediately heard over the PA system that there was going to be a ‘Lion Talk’ starting in 10 minutes. Anyone with a toddler knows their attention spans can be short, and standing in a crowd listening to someone talk through a speaker is not going to bode well.

It also meant that the walk-in area where you can feed to kangaroos had next to no one in it so it made for the perfect first stop.

While I understand why they do it, its safe to say just about everyone who comes to the Zoo buys some animal food as the kangaroos were pretty well fed. Upon realising this the little guy decided that the ducks on the other side of the fence were more deserving of his attention, as well as his food.

After getting bored of feeding the kangaroos, ducks, and the odd Llama, we decided to keep moving. Next stop were the Monkeys. Kangaroos, ducks, and even Llamas were something Ollie had seen outside before, so the Monkeys were the first animals he had only ever seen in a book. You could tell he was impressed, until we moved on the only words out of his mouth were “Eee Eee Eee” – in case you couldn’t tell that’s the sound a Monkey makes.

As we continued through the first half of the Zoo, the animals were more suited to older kids. What do I mean by that? A toddler isn’t exactly interested in birds, or any animal that’s smaller then they are, especially when they aren’t moving much.

We then moved towards the larger animal enclosures, walking past a number of Crocodiles. Again no matter how much enthusiasm Mum and Dad showed towards them, Ollie wasn’t interested unless they were moving.

Beyond the Crocodiles were the Lions – thankfully by the time we got there the crowd had already dispersed. Unfortunately that also meant the Lions were using this time to rest and weren’t being overly active.

note, I’m not 100% sure if the Lions were actually more active during the talk, however with never seeing a Lion in the wild, I’m not sure how active they are.

As we checked out the other large enclosures we noticed an Emu had come over to the fence and a couple of people were feeding it. I used this opportunity to get rid of the last of our animal food that we had been carrying around and allow Ollie to see it up close. That was were it wrong. . .

Now just to clarify nothing bad as such happened here and no one was ever in danger

With child in one arm and food in the other I reached out to the emu – with the food, not the child (I shouldn’t feel the need to clarify that), and the Emu promptly snatched the food out of my hand. While some of us thought this was funny, the look on the little guy’s face was one of shock and horror.

Let’s just say we moved away from the Emu pretty quickly. Fortunately the scare from the Emu was quickly forgotten about when the Lions decided to use that time to be more active.

To paint a picture for you there are two Lion enclosures with a high wall between them, they each hold a different type of Lion, a male and female of each.

When the first one decided to open its lungs and Roar, the other 3 did the same. What followed was a ten minute symphony of loud roars that would have woken anyone up.

The rest of the visit was rather uneventful compared to the Emu’s and Lions.

Time to head Home

While no one was ready to hop back in the car, all good things must come to an end.

As I mentioned in Our Quick Escape – Part 1 we were lucky that our Destination in the Hunter Valley was only a short drive from our home of Newcastle . While it was only a short drive, 3 big days had obviously warn the little guy out as he was fast asleep as soon as we pulled out of the driveway from the Zoo.

That marked the End of Our Quick Escape. However the busy week didn’t finish there, Day 3 of our Holiday was also the day Ollie turned 2, you can read more about it in 2 Years of Parenthood .

 

 

 

Weekly Wrap Up – Sunday 22nd July 2018

The weekend is Over, you have done what preparation you could for the week ahead and now its time to sit down and get that final bit of relaxation time in before heading to bed to start the week.

This is the perfect time to catch up on the week that was, especially if your like me and have been slacking off, too busy, or just focused on other things, that’s fine, I understand, this post is made for you, a summary of the last week, or so.

Disclaimer, this is actually a two week summary as I missed last weeks. Sorry to mislead you but Weekly Fortnight Wrap Up just didn’t have the same ring to it.

Our Quick Escape

I told you I have been busy, our little family went away for 3 days to the beautiful Hunter Valley.

The first day was really a half day by the time we arrived. A filling lunch at a nice little cafe, a play in the park, and exploring the hotel rounded out the day, check it out here – Our Quick Escape – Part 1

The second day was fully packed from the time it started (around 2am). There was plenty of good food, we found some snow (in this part of the country??), and enjoyed some hot coffee. Some more fun back at the hotel and the day was over. Find out more Our Quick Escape – Part 2

I also told you I have been slacking off, so much that I still haven’t finished Part 3 – Coming Soon.

The Little Guy Turns 2

I’ve been blogging now for a few months and I just realised I never actually mention our little guys name. Oliver has finally turned 2 and Mr and Mrs Down Under are celebrating, not just his birthday but making it through 2 Years of Parenthood .

There was a wild party at the local pub to celebrate (as wild as it gets for a 2 year old), and plenty of new toys to keep Ollie occupied for at least a couple of days.

Twitter Mention

So it turns out that something Mrs Down Under stumbled upon on Youtube – Super Simple Songs is pretty well known. They should really teach you this stuff before you become a parent.

All I did was tweet something that my child did and tagged the artist and it went viral, well as viral as someone with 170 followers on Twitter can go.

If you want to stay up to date and hear even more bad dad jokes (only the best ones make the blog), then give me a follow @DownUnderDadbg

Bucket List Contribution

A few weeks ago I came across a post from Wendy at Travel Drink Dine , asking for submissions for an Australian Bucket List. What better way to highlight the great city Down Under Dad comes from then by contributing a section for my hometown of Newcastle. You can find the full list here by following the link Reblog – The Ultimate Australian Bucket List – Travel Drink Dine

Random Facts about Newcastle

The contribution to the bucket list was only short and was more touristy then anything, sure it might interest you if you were travelling around Australia, it didn’t really give you much information.

After reading The Cole Campfire’s Top 10 Random Facts about Oregon I decided to make a similar list.

If you want to know more about where Down Under Dad comes from, check out Top 10 Random Facts about Newcastle . While it doesn’t neccesarily sum up the best things about Newcastle, it certainly has some interesting facts that not even the people who live here might know.

Dad Joke

Have you been paying attention? I told you only the Best Dad Jokes make it to my Blog. 2 Dad Jokes made it to the hall of fame that is the Down Under Dad Blog this week.

You can read the one about the Surgeon and his Patient here 14/7/18 – Dad Joke of the Day

Or if the Pope is more your style check out 21/7/18 – Dad Joke of the Day

As I said at the start this wasn’t so much a weekly wrap up but a fortnightly wrap up as I’ve been a combination of Slack and Busy. This week should see a change in that.

Hope you’ve had a Great Week! Enjoy the week ahead. If your still awake and feel like some more light reading, you can check out the previous Weekly Wrap Up here – Weekly Wrap Up – Sunday 8th July 2018.

2 Years of Parenthood

When you were young, 2 years seemed like a long time, now as adults 2 years can go by pretty quickly.

This Dad is proud to say the Down Under Family has made it through 2 years of parenthood, that’s right our little guy has just turned 2 years old.

There has been plenty of good memories made from the last 2 years, there was also plenty of tough days. As always though the good ones will always outnumber the bad.

“The next time you think you are struggling with parenthood, just remember the duck that let all 5 of her ducklings go away before going looking for them”

But that’s not what this post is about, this is about our little guy turning 2.

His Birthday

As part of his birthday celebrations we went on a short break into the Hunter Valley which you can read about here – Our Quick Escape – Part 1

The last day of that break matched up with his actual birthday and we started the day off by going to the Zoo! You can read a lot more detail about that in the final part of that series.

Oliver got to see many of the animals he had only ever seen in books or on TV up close and even got to feed some kangaroos. While he did get freaked out by Dad feeding an Emu, he was amazed when the lions decided to roar at each other for a good 5 minutes non stop.

To summarise though at the age of 2 no matter how many times we told him it was his birthday, it didn’t really click until later on in the day.

When we got home we wasted no time in giving him his birthday presents from us. If you read Vocabulary of a almost 2 Year Old you probably have a fair idea of what we were getting him.

That’s right, his presents were themed from his 2 favorite things, Cars (not just any cars, has to be the licensed stuff), and Dinosaurs.

Awhile ago I wrote a piece on Kids Toys – Kids Toys . In this you can read my thoughts on how strict parents should be with the age guidelines on toys. Given the size of one of his dinosaurs, lets just say we still don’t follow these strictly.

His Party

I never wrote about the party we held for his 1st birthday as this blog wasn’t around. To get you up to speed, it was in our backyard (our small backyard), we did all the food ourselves (with a little help from our family), and Mrs Down Under made a multi-layer cake herself (with many practice runs). While it ran smoothly and the weather was great, it was also a lot of work, something we didn’t really want to do this year.

Fortunately we had found a great venue to have it. A local pub that has recently undergone renovations has built an indoors playground next to a large beer garden area. We booked the tables closest to the only entry point to the playground so the kids could play as they pleased and the adults could relax – as much as possible at a kids party.

After a couple hours of playing, snacking, and a couple of drinks it was time for cake

“A Party without Cake is just a Meeting”

A simple ice cream cake with his favorite car on top was certainly a hit. So much that when the car was taken off a few of the toddlers wanted to ‘share’ the car. I say ‘share’ because we know how good toddlers can be at sharing.

Most of the attendees at the party were actually friends that the little guy made before he was even born. My wife’s mum’s group became friends before any of their kids were born and are still good friends 2 years down the track. What does this mean? it means that 12 months ago there was a party every weekend for close to 2 months. It also means that this is the first 2nd birthday party of many in the coming weeks. Stay Tuned!