On Sunday we were lucky enough to be given VIP passes, by my very nice boss Nick, to the Pickup racing at Rockingham Speedway.  As Jen stayed at the house for an exciting Guiding event the girls, Dad, Dave and Finn all joined me for the trip.

Full story about 'Day at the races at Rockingham Speedway'

Went with Girls, Michelle, Warren and their trio to the Gymnastics Academy that Emily goes to.  They do a free session (free play not free entry) where you can mess around on all the equipment.  They have large pits of foam cubes under some of the equipment that the kids could fling themselves into and crash mats around the rest.  Was a real blast and the kids all had an excellent time - even the big kids :)  Have a look at the photo albums for all the pics.

It's all changed a bit - though mainly behind the scenes to allow me to actually update the site once on a regular basis rather than once in a blue moon.  To start with I have started adding a load of older pics so some can have a laugh down memory lane :)  It is still not finished but as I was getting annoyed with Facebook's upload I put them here.  If you can't remember your password or want o register then it is probably best giving me a shout :)

The family name survives another generation with the fantastic birth of baby Ian James at 9.19 am (EST) on the 17th May. Weighing in at a hefty 8lbs 12oz, baby Ian is doing well and big sister Sophie seems to be excelling in her new role. HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to Sophie, Kris and Simon and we look forward to me running out of webspace with all the baby Ian pics that Kris can upload. Congrats again and we look forward to getting to meet the little man himself!

Yes it has happened - at 00:27 on the 23rd April 2006 Hannah Louise made her appearance. Weighing in at a diddy (but not as small as Sophie diddy) little 5lb 14oz (though strangely enough only 1 cm shorter than Emily) she is doing fine, as is Jen who is feeling much better than after having Emily. Both mother and baby were back home less than 16 hours after Hannah's arrival into the world and Emily is a very excited and devoted big sister is looking after her. A few pics below and more will be added into the photo section in due course - though not promising when as, to be honest, I have better things to do at the mo :)

Wow - yet another update! I have extended the 'add a comment' bit to the photos too so you can now add your opinion on any of the photos in the galleries. Needless to say, as you can't look at the pics anyway, you need to be logged in if you want to add any.

You can now add and view comments to news stories on the home and event pages. If you want to leave a comment you have to be logged in and then click on the 'Add comments' link. Your comments should appear underneath the story when people select to view the comments. It's a very rough and ready system at the moment and I will make it nicer when I redo the site but for it should be ok for now. If you have any problems then give me a shout.

On Tuesday I had my 30th Birthday pressie shadowing a big cat keeper at Paradise Wildlife Park. The keeper in question was a lovely young lady called Jenny (of all things) who looked after me for the day. The day started saying hello to some of the animals starting with two Wolves, then a beautiful Jaguar, the Tigers, onto the Snow Leopards, the Ocelot, Pallas cats, Geoffrey's cats and the Cheetahs (which we managed not to take any photos of - d'oh!). After saying hello to the animals it was onto my first job of cleaning out the inside area of the Tigers enclosure. It was just a case of removing the wet straw, washing the floor and tidying the dry straw. After tidying it was a tea break followed by preparing the cat's food. It's a bit gory so you can skip this paragraph if you like :) The food consisted of 2 rabbits which I had to cut in half and then cut their back half in two, prepare two big cuts of horse meat, de-yolk a number of chicks (you have to rip them open and squeeze a puss coloured sack out of them - very pleasant!), and weigh a horses head that had been cut in two (also very pleasant!). I also had to chop up the meat that I am using in the hand feeding pics. After the food was sorted (which took a lot longer than I thought) it was time to go and feed some of the animals. Saying another quick hello to the Snow Leopards it was into the actual Ocelot enclosure to feed him some of the chicks. After the Ocelot, Jenny went into feed the Pallas cats (I wasn't allowed in as the male is quite violent and the female pregnant). Finally it was into the Geoffrey's cats enclosure to give them the remaining chicks. They were extrememely cute and smaller than Cassie but are quite vicious so, while I could hold the chick and they would swipe it out my hand, I couldn't stroke them. After the smaller cats it was onto the Tigers. This was one of the best experiences I have ever had. Jenny explained how to feed them without losing any fingers and said that I could try and hold onto it as long as possible once they got hold - I think about half a second was my record. The sheer size of them was amazing (and they are small tigers) only weighing in around 36 stone. After the Tigers were fed there was just enough time to go and say hello to the Racoons and feed them before it was time for lunch. After lunch it was onto feeding the Lions. Unlike the Tigers that grabbed the food with their teeth and ripped it out your hands the Lions were a lot gentler and ate more similarly to domestic cats trying to pull the food into their mouth with their tongues. And that was the end of my shadowing. I had an incredible time - being able to stroke the animals as they brushed up against the bars and putting your hand against the bars so they could lick it was an experience I will never forget. They are such beautiful and graceful animals that you just want to stroke and cuddle - though obviously it would be the last thing you do! A big thank you to Jen for choosing it and also to everyone that chipped in to get it for me. Also thanks to Jenny who was a pleasure to chat to, didn't take the mickey out of me for wearing latex gloves on the food preparation bit and let me get so close to these incredible creatures. As you can tell I had a b****y excellent day and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Sorry for the long diatribe - hope you enjoy the pics and there are more in the photos section too :)

Just added the facility to add a guess as to the sex, weight and date of appearance of Sprout. Just head on over to the Events to have a guess. You need to be logged in though before you can have a go :)

Have finally got round to adding some more news as Nik & I went to see The Prodigy last night and they were bloody brilliant so I thought I would upload a few pics for everyone. As they have just released a greatest hits album the concert was made up of all the classics and some of their new ones, including my favourite Breathe. Thanks to Jen being quick off the mark with the tickets we had the best seats in the house, sat front row and dead centre of the south balcony, so we were about 50 metres from the stage looking over the heads of all the people bouncing up and down in the standing area. Definately worth going to see if you get the chance, but be warned, as the warnings there said the concert is very loud :)