Walkers of Upwey

High School Reunion (not Musical!)

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:58:00 +0000

Well, we've hit Autumn with a bang. Cold, wet and windy so far. Urrrgh!

Anyway, I'm off to Wollongong via Sydney tomorrow for my High School Reunion on Saturday night. It's been 20 years since most of them left Year 12 while it's 22 years since I left Year 10. It's also 22 years since I've seen pretty much anyone. Looking forward to it.

Oh Summer, where for art thou?

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 01:28:00 +0000

I know it's only 1st March, yet summer seems to have taken an early holiday this year. March can be quite hot, but in the last 7 years, February has had the title IMHO.

Anyway, our plans for various outings on the weekend were scotched thanks to the weather, so let's hope it's been worth it and we have a wet and (not so) wild winter with lots and rain :)

Performing Arts classes recommence for 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:37:00 +0000

Patrick and Angus do performing arts out side of school. This culminates in two performances per year - one in June and one in December.

On Monday evenings they go along to rehearsals and undertake tuition in singing, dancing and some drama. Of the three streams, drama is definitely the gift that keeps on giving. At home, any day of the week you can see Patrick or Angus giving a dramatic performance.

It could be because they don't want to go to bed, or they don't want ham on their sandwich or simply because they have no reason why they are acting out.

These classes are really money well spent.

On a serious note, it's great to see them enjoy the rehearsals and they absolutely love being part of the performance. The performances are held at the National Theatre in St Kilda to a full house. The costumes, props, lighting and the performers are all top notch. They are part of the Childrens Performing Company of Australia (CPCA). We recommend them if anybody's interested.

Here's a few photos from the December 2009 performance.

And so ends another season of Pennant

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 02:21:00 +0000

Without boring all of you non-bowling types into a coma, my team was relegated from Division 2 to Division 3 as of yesterday afternoon on the back of some stupid decision making and a bit of luck for another team. There's always next year! Pffft!

Anyway, on with the show.

The coming weeks and months will be interesting and my colleagues and I look for support to be elected to the new Bowls Victoria board. With the current board being only an interim board to steer good ship Bowls Victoria from the time of unification until the first full board can be elected, it will be interesting to see how the cards fall and how many incumbents stick their hands up to go around again.

This is the single biggest opportunity in more than one lifetime for bowlers to effect change in their sport - for the better and towards the future. I'll keep you all posted on how this goes.

So, apart from kid's sport - weekends are now free (mostly) until September!

Getting back to nature

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 03:28:00 +0000

When I was a kid I'd take off for hours with my brother or some mates and we'd go up into the bush behind the next street of houses and just go on an adventure. Never got into strife, and on occasion saw some wildlife.

This morning I took a walk and rather than cruising around the normal few blocks I took a different route down near the local tennis courts and then behind them where this is a creek.

It's summer, and as and adult isn't it funny how your thinking changes. As a kid I wouldn't have a second thought about walking through there, but as I was walking this morning my mind turned to snakes. Living where we do, it's a real possibility that you could encounter the odd 'Joe Blake' in that sort of an area. But I soldiered on and lived to tell the tale.

I next thought that the kids would love to go exploring down there, get a bit dirty and maybe see a lizard or something.

I should really get my lazy ar$e out of bed early more often and do this :)

Winter Olympics

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 22:05:00 +0000

I love the Winter Olympics. Last night I watched some curling - lawn bowls on ice! I also really enjoy the Alpine skiing and the Giant Slalom as well as the Snowboard Cross and the Half-pipe. I still don't get moguls or figure skating, but the speed skating is awesome.

I get similar feelings about the Summer games as well, but you don't often see cycling or athletics advertised or promoted in the media - these are things you need to seek out. So we're off to the Melbourne Madison soon, thanks to Robin letting me know it was on.

So many people enjoy watching many of these events but wouldn't know that there is a domestic/national/international series held locally and so forget about it until the next Olympics. Most of us will never get to an(other) Olympic games so you should support your local versions of the same sports I reckon :)

Literacy assessment

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 07:51:00 +0000

Owen had his Prep literacy assessment today. All of first term the Prep's only go to school Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday while Wednesday is reserved for Literacy and Numeracy assessments.

While he doesn't really show much interest and reading (despite being asked if he'd like to read to etc) he surprised us and apparently his literacy is about to TAKE OFF!

There's no doubt he's ready for school and all that it entails, and now we know that he is capable of reading and sounding etc, but just not too keen on it when there are so many other cool things to do like play DS or Wii or shoot hoops with his big brothers!

Yay Owen!

Lawn Bowls coach

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 02:22:00 +0000

I spent the weekend at a course to become a lawn bowls coach. I've been waiting to do this for almost 2 years now, however I've been thwarted on previous occasions by trips to NZ for work or the course being on a day/evening that I couldn't make.

Anyway, I've done it now and as well as learning about how to deliver basic coaching to new bowlers, also learned a bit about my own bowling.

It's no fun

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 01:28:00 +0000

All 6 of us are home with various levels of sickness. From the common cold to chest infection and bronchitis.

We all visited the doctor yesterday. How often does a doctor have an entire family of 6 lob in their office?

Hopefully we're all on the mend now.

Illness

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 02:05:00 +0000

Patrick is on his 4th day off school in a row. He hasn't attended all week. I don't feel too good either, but considering I work from home and don't need to go into an office where I would potentially infect everybody else, I'll keep on working.

It's the bloody dry cough during the night that does you in. Bad, broken sleep is the worst. Damn viruses! Damn you!

Hopefully we'll be on the mend soon. Lily, and to a lesser extent Owen, are also showing symptoms. It's that time of year :(

Heathcote

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 00:23:00 +0000

Saturday morning saw Patrick and I head to Patrick's soccer match. The Sherbrooke Rangers U11 Rockets remain undefeated after a 2-0 result against North Blackburn Jedi's.

After the match Patrick and I headed Heathcote to visit Wild Duck Creek Estate. This was the annual open weekend where mailing list customers can turn up, taste the fruits of David and Liam Anderson's labours and pick up their order.

The 2007 vintage was tiny due to environmental factors. The upside is that the fruit that did manage to get into the bottle is actually quite intense.

As always it was a great experience to taste new release WDC wines and catch up with David and Liam. Having a cellar door that is open only weekend a year seems quite counter productive, but it works very well for WDC.

And apparently the 2009 vintage will see a return to more realistic cropping levels and hence more wine of offer for customers. The 2007 vintage saw allocations slashed for most wines and some wines not even produced.

Last piece of the puzzle

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 06:15:00 +0000

As we've been rearranging the lounge room and making the place a bit more comfortable, we decided that a nice lowline entertainment unit would set the lounge room just beautifully.

Well, Karen ordered it and it arrived yesterday. Because our lounge room is quite large and open plan, the unit was planned to go up against thefar wall (for those that know our lounge room). Well the plan was OK - all except for getting the 3 metre (10 feet) unit into the house!

I had to quickly remove the picket fence/railing from our front verandah to allow access through the front door. The 2 delivery guys that turned up were honestly the oldest, un-muscliest, un-delivery type guys you could imagine and gave Karen all sorts of reasons why it couldn't be taken into house any other way - hence I had to do a bit of ad hoc DIY. Luckily the railing went back up OK (albeit, temporarily). At least it's safe.

And the unit looks great in the room, Karen's very happy that it sets the room off nice and symmetrically. Who knew? The way to a woman's heart is via furniture symmetry!

Back home

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 03:24:00 +0000

We managed to make he trip home in one journey this time - with no break in Holbrook.

This was a decision made on the spur of the moment, as we cruised through the southern extremities of Sydney and beyond. We polled the kids, and those that could provide feedback were all for it, so we made for home.

An extra 6-8 days a year travelling and about $1000 p.a. in accommodation costs (not to mention the other incidentals incurred) makes for an expensives trip 3-4 times a year. The break is sometimes a good idea, but in my opinion it has so many drawbacks I'd prefer not to - as long as the rest of the family agree.

If I was the only one who wanted to make the trip in one go - I don't think I'd be too popular!

Anyway, we're home now and back in th groove.

So long Sydney

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 06:22:00 +0000

After a fortnight in Sydney, we're off home tomorrow.

With NSW and Vic school holidays totally out of kilter this time, it was a bit disappointing that we only got to catch up with Damien & Kellie & Co. once, but that's what happens when your State Government is adamant that the first term school holidays MUST encapsulate Easter! What's with that? Anyway...

The kids have seen two movies and been bowling as well as having been taken on many day trips to parks etc over the past fortnight. Patrick almost finished his (late) homework as well. You can't rush these things.

Now it's back to Upwey and school, pre-school, playgroup, etc. I hope our house is still standing after some pretty devastating winds going by the TV weather reports.

I should probably blog more often as well :p

And here's a few random family photos.

3 posts in 12 months!

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Wed, 20 May 2009 01:19:00 +0000

I've been slack on the blog front, but pretty busy in real life!

Last weekend was 12 months since that trip I made to Albury which resulted in me coming home from Albury to replace Karen at Owen's bedside. The weekend before last Owen was again admitted to hospital for asthma.

Luckily we were all in the one place and Karen and I each spent a night with Owen at the Angliss.

Last weekend I again went away for the weekend on a bowls tournament trip and nobody went to hospital! Amazing!

I spent the weekend in Moama with 3 other members from my club and we played in a 4's tournament. We won 2 of our 5 games and had a great weekend. Looking forward to doing it again in August for a Pairs tournament in Deniliquin :)

Christmas Photo

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 00:18:00 +0000

Here is the official 2008 Walker Family Christmas Photo!

Click on the photo for a larger view!

Baby food

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 10:59:00 +0000

How fast can an eight month old devour a tin of pumpkin and potato goop? Pretty damn fast! Lily is well onto this eating caper. Of course, she's still attached to Karen many times a day, but she's pretty handy on the fang as well. She'll have to be - to keep up with her big brothers.

Locusts. Why did I just think of locusts?

Birthdays galore

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Tue, 27 May 2008 08:48:00 +0000

Owen turned 4 on the 13th of May, my 36th birthday was last week and Patrick turns 10 this weekend. But here's my story.

Karen asked me a couple of months ago what I would like for my birthday. For once, I had an answer. I wanted to go bowling for the weekend! And it just so happened that there was a tournament on in Albury on the weekend leading up to my birthday.

It was a triples tournament so I wrangled Damien Jones and Steve Peisley into forming a team and sent off the entry form and organised accommodation in Albury. I was stoked - couldn't wait. With every week that went by I was getting more and more excited.

Anyway, on the Friday afternoon I picked up Damien and then we headed off to Steve's place to pick him up before trekking up the Hume to Albury. Woo-hoo!

I kept Karen abreast of the progress and called her again once we were in transit.

The one weekend I went away bowling with a couple of mates EVER and what should happen? Well, here goes.

Friday evening, Angus announces he is not feeling well and goes to bed early. This suits Karen as she can also put Owen to bed early. Karen and Patrick stay up watching the footy.

Fast forward a couple of hours and Angus isn't feeling any better. In fact he feels so bad he decides to eject his dinner and lunch all over his bedroom floor. This made his quite upset and gave Karen a job of work to do. Angus is out in the shower and upon exiting, he barf's again. Karen re-makes his bed, dresses him and puts him to bed with a bucket beside his bed. Owen slept through all this mania! Patrick wouldn't sleep in the room because of a curious (barf) odour. He slept with Karen.

Meanwhile, I'm in Albury eating take away pizza, having a couple of beers and kicking back. I was hoping upon hope that that would be the last drama for the weekend. Did I mention that I had taken the family car to Albury and left Karen and the kids without a car? Well I did!

Cue Saturday morning. I called Karen to find out that Angus had woken up and was feeling much better than the previous evening. Owen was now on the decline with his asthma! Damn. The one weekend I go away and hell breaks loose. Karen continues treating Owen's asthma with Ventolin and Tilade as per his treatment plan.

Meanwhile in Albury, the rain delayed the start to the day and our first 2 games were reduced from 12 to 10 ends each. And we only ended playing 3 of the 4 scheduled games. We won 2 of our 3 games on Saturday, and with an early finish to the days proceedings we had a couple of cleansing ales.

Back in Upwey Patrick had played in his first soccer victory for the year, Angus was feeling better and Owen was beginning to show some slight signs of improvement. Friends lent us a car in case Karen had to rush to hospital at short notice. Owen was taking Ventolin onboard like a champion!

At the Boomerang Motel in Albury, Steve suggested we get some dessert (lemon tart) from the motel restaurant to compliment the take away pizza we had consumed. Damien and I laughed, but went to the restaurant just to humour him. Lo and behold - there was three serves of lemon meringue pie left! Not lemon tart, but lemon nonetheless. Damien and I were now laughing on the other side of our faces while we snuck the dessert out of the restaurant and back to our room.

Things were going slowly downhill in Upwey. Owen was taking Ventolin at 1/2 hourly intervals and Karen was not getting much sleep. At about 7am on Sunday morning, Karen called Carla to organise for the big boys to minded and then called an ambulance to transport Owen, Lily and herself to the Angliss as Owen's asthma had deteriorated overnight.

Back in Albury, I'm waking up to face another day on the green and see if we can win 3 from 3 on Sunday to figure in the money! I called home to see how things went overnight as the last I had heard was the Owen's asthma was settling down. What a shock when I found out they were in hospital! 350km away and what have I done?

So, we won our final 3 games to finish with 5 wins and 1 loss. This put us 20th out of 116 and we finished up with $50ea. Prize money went down to 40th place, so we did pretty well. We had a ball and we'll be heading back again.

Anyway, as soon as the presentations were over we hit the road back to Melbourne. I dropped Steve off first, followed by Damien and then went home to put the baby seat back in so Karen could take Lily home. I relieved Karen at the hospital at about 10pm on Sunday night and Owen was sound asleep. Karen picked up Patrick and Angus from Carla's (meanwhile Patrick and Cody had spent some time at Carolyn's place during the day to share the load) and headed home for a "restful evening".

I awoke on Monday in hospital and Owen was rearing to go. Hang on! Today is my birthday! What a weekend.

Owen was discharged later on Monday with a new treatment regime and appearing much better than when he presented.

The boys woke up and were also feeling decidedly second hand after such a long Sunday, They didn't make it to school either. Karen, Patrick, Angus and Lily came and picked up Owen and me from the hospital and we had a lovely birthday lunch at Zagame's. Phew! I made it to 36!

How could I have possibly guessed what an eventful weekend would be had at home on the one weekend I go away? Karen did a truly remarkable job to keep everything together and the help from Carla and Carolyn was much appreciated too. And to Damien and Steve - next year we'll go better than 20th!

Easter

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 08:57:00 +0000

We headed up the Hume on the Thursday evening that school wrapped up for Term 1 in Victoria. We stayed the night in Wagga Wagga before arriving in Sydney on Good Friday. It was an action packed visit.

We caught up with family, went to the Easter Show (Lily included), had Lily christened, had a party to mark the occasion of Viv and Brian becoming Australian citizens (finally) and I even got to go bowling twice!

Lily caught up with her new cousin, Tarnie

The entire clan caught up. There's now 9 kids between mine and my brothers families!

I'm a sucker for a cow caricature

Owen met a friendly lamb

While Angus and Patrick had fun on the giant slide

We put on a massive Aussie spread to mark the occasion of Viv and Brian's naturalisation

And we laid on a great cake for Lily's christening (not that she knew about it)

And Angus lost a front tooth!

So, as you can see - we we're pretty busy!

Since last we wrote...

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 09:31:00 +0000

We've been doing a bit of this and that. We even managed to get everybody out of the house and see the Sand Sculpture exhibition at Frankston Beach. Now that is art!

Owen was also admitted to hospital with a recurrence of his asthma. This time they sent us home with an asthma management strategy and a diagnosis of actually being asthmatic. Poor little fella. But he did have exclusive use of the Starlight Foundation kiddy entertainment unit. It has computer games. Nintendo GameCube, DVDs and more!

And Lily continues to come along in great fashion.

You better watch out...

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 21:37:00 +0000

As Christmas descends upon us I thought it was time to update the blog.

Lily is growing and getting more sleep during the night (which is good for Mum and Dad). Still not as much sleep as we would like, but what can you expect from an 8 week old?

Angus and Patrick have almost finished school for the year and have found out who their teachers are for next year. No nasty surprises (that we know of). Since Patrick's teacher for this year is moving rooms next year, he has been using the kids as removalists this week. That a combination of the draconian IR laws and a slack teacher.

So, have a Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year. We hope to see many of you over the break.

We got a towbar - for FREE!

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 05:39:00 +0000

We got a new Kia Carnival (through salary sacrifice) in July. I recently enquired about getting a towbar on this car. I want to use a bike rack and eventually buy a box trailer (we need one when we go on holidays with 4 kids).

Anyway, the only place to get one was Kia as there was no aftermarket alternative. Or there wasn't until I queried Boronia Towbars.

These guys make aftermarket towbars but hadn't had a Kia Carnival in yet so they hadn't had the chance to use one as a template.

Enter - the Walkers. They needed to car for two days to work out how and where it would be attached and wired, as well as to make a jig from which to manufacture further towbars. For the inconvenience of not having our car for 2 days, we got the towbar for free. They'll obviously make up for that on future towbars they manufacture. Sweet!

22 days into Movember - 8 days to go

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 23:23:00 +0000

22 days into Movember and my own sponsorship amount is $40. Let's go people! Click on the Movember link to the right of screen and pledge some $$$ for Men's Health. You can also check out my Mo Log and see a picture of my mo. It's coming along nicely.

Yay, we haven't been to hospital all week!

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 11:08:00 +0000

Yay! The Friday following Lily's last visit to hospital saw Karen as a patient, due to a viral condition that felt (to Karen) much worse than it turned out to be. The downer was that one of the tests conducted turn Karen radioactive for 24 hours. We found out about this AFTER the test when the nurse said "You're not pregant of breastfeeding are you?" Derr! Shouldn't you have asked this BEFORE the test - especially of the answer to the pregnancy part of the question was YES! So, Karen could not nurse or feed Lily for 24 hours.

Well, we've overcome that and Lily is now gaining weight and growing in all dimensions. She is not yet sleeping through the night, but to her credit she is only 4 weeks old and we may asking a bit much.

Also, the mo' is coming along nicely.

If you feel like you'd like to donate, go here.

Movember

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 22:24:00 +0000

Having turned the blog Pink for October, I'm now growing a mo' for Movember.

During Movember (the month formerly known as November) I'll be growin a Mo. I've shaved off my goatee as you can see here. This will be interesting, because the kids have only ever seen me with facial hair! That's right I'm bringing the Mo back because I'm passionate about men's health and the fight against prostate cancer. Why...

Every year in Australia 18,700 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer and about 2,900 die of the disease, making prostate cancer the second largest cause of male cancer deaths, after lung cancer.

The average life expectancy of a man in Australia is 5 years less than a woman (currently 78 compared to 83).

Men access health services 30-40% less than women, thereby denying themselves the chance for prevention and early detection of common diseases.

As you can see, there are plenty of reasons why we need to make the community aware of Men's heath issues.

To sponsor my Mo please go to http://www.movember.com/nz/donate, enter my registration number which is 109799 and your credit card details. All donations over $5 are tax deductible.

All donations are made directly to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of New Zealand who will use the funds to create awareness, increase support networks for those men who suffer from prostate cancer, fund research and scholarship programs. (I'm doing this for NZ since I work for an NZ company and we have a company Mo team!)

For those that have supported Movember in previous years you can be very proud of the impact it has had.

Thanks for your support

Michael