Today is our first camping day as a family, and other than a bit of stress through the getting going part we’re doing well. After finally eating something Grace was a star and went straight to sleep, absolutely knackered from the day. Tomorrow we’ll actually take some photos…

It is nice to come home to my family. When I have been out for a day and I come home, Grace is usually hanging on the gate excitedly calling, “Daddy, daddy!” before I have even gotten out of the car. I love coming home to my little girl and my wife – I am blessed to have them.

Grace is loving helping in the kitchen, grating cheese, peeling potatoes and carrots.

While we were shopping Grace looks intently at the shopping list and says, "Got Energade, got roll. Not got marshmallows."

Next weekend will be our first family camping outing (weather permitting) and we need a lantern, which landed us at Outdoor Warehouse. Grace has read about camping in one of her books and I thought she would be very excited to go camping and sleep in a tent, so when she was getting a bit restless while we were looking at the lights I took her upstairs to check out the tents.

Donné had her busy bag swap today and I took Grace & Jack for a trip to the aquarium….my first time looking after two children at the same time. I was expecting it to be challenging, but fortunately it went really well and both of them were really well behaved.

Since a friend got one, I have wanted a 3D printer. So when the opportunity arose to group buy one with some friends I jumped at the chance. 3 of us have clubbed together to buy an Ultimaker which can be used to print three dimensional plastic things.

I’m excited about getting the printer and making things, but I am even more excited about the people that are getting together and the amazing ideas and opportunities which may come from the group.

One aspect of the purchase is that for one week in month the printer will be used by a kind of maker club, and the group of people who are going to make up that club is a really exciting group. Tonight was our first get together to start discussing how things will work and it is really great to be able to be a part of that. I enjoy the art of creating and I am loving the excitement and enthusiasm that people have about turning their ideas into real things. It is going to be exciting to see what comes from it – I really believe that a group of creative people having fun is going to spin off a lot of interesting ideas.

People who have not seen Grace in the last couple of weeks keep on saying she has gotten so tall.  I think she probably is a little bit taller but besides that I think her face is changing, and she is just growing up.  With the growing up – Grace has been challenging all her boundaries and its rather exhausting having to correct the behaviour all the time, but in between these, there are such special moments.  I love our little outings, playing times and chats, she makes me laugh with all the funny things she says and does and I love how she remembers funny little stories and will talk about it days later.  

It is always fun to see Grace enjoying her toys and things when she returns home from a trip away. It often feels like she has just received a huge bag of new toys and she is rifling through them to see what she can discover.

The three things that stuck out on this return were her table (she loves sitting there and building puzzles, drawing, cutting and so forth), her bike (which she has been loving over the last while) and her wheel (a single wheel on the end of a pole with a steering wheel, that goes click-click as it is pushed around).

We slept at Gogo and Gramp’s house the entire time while we were away, so they have become an integral part of her bed time routine over the last two weeks, so when Grace was getting ready for bed she was missing them. There are sure to be some more requests for them in the morning (from both us and Grace).