Family
Charlie Ryan
Charlie Ryan was born weighing in at 9lb 2oz at 9:02pm on Monday 16th November.
Jen laboured hard for 29 hours and although extremely tiring and frustrating at times it was all worth the effort when he arrived safely with us.
More to follow…
New Camcorder
When we last posted way back in June it was our intention to use Nick’s birthday money to buy a video camera ready for when the baby arrives. Well here it is! Thanks to everyone who contributed and look forward to some videos in the not too distant future.
Turning 29
Well first of all thank you to everyone for the messages, cards and contributions towards the Camcorder I am hoping to get for when the baby arrives.
We’ve been away to the Alveston Manor in Stratford-Upon-Avon courtesy of Mum and Dad for the weekend.
On Friday we sampled the delights of the area on a break-neck open top bus tour. I’m not the most cultured person in the world so I don’t really get the whole Shakespeare thing but there are lots of nice houses that I noticed!
On Saturday we wandered the streets of Stratford and they felt a little different to your usual British city centre. Then in the afternoon we enjoyed a couple of hours looking at cars that Dad may or may not purchase in 3 years time!
Last night we enjoyed an excellent meal at La Bistro Pierre and I had the most excellent chicken I have ever eaten. Half a chicken as well! Mmm mmm…
Then this morning you would have seen us making our way down the river enjoying the morning sunshine.
All in all, a very enjoyable birthday weekend!
Parent Practice
Well today we had a lot of fun with Ben and Emily. We took them out for breakfast, fed the ducks, spent several hours at the excellent TechniQuest and played with the equally excellent Laser Challenge Pro Guns up and down the street!
We can’t wait to have our own children to shoot on a sunny Saturday afternoon!
Baby Allport
WOW!!
Here are some scans of our little baby! Everything is going ok so far and we are 13 weeks. The due date is 3rd November 2009.
UPDATE: There are now more scan photos of our little BOY in the Photo Albums section of our site.
Nick's Birthday 2008
Well last year I thought I was old! This year I look old and feel old! I still don’t have (m)any gray hairs but the eyes are telling a story. This years attempt to regain my youth comes from Jen in the form of a Nintendo Wii! I’ve been naughty and had it early though which we have enjoyed the last few weeks.
Thank you all for your gifts and to those of you who I know have cards and gifts waiting for me. It’s been a really nice day at work where people are genuinely nice about it being my birthday. Jen and I will go out this evening and do something depending on the weather. Not sure what I fancy yet though. Of course, that all depends on if there are any Wii games in any of these boxes!
I have to say that so far I have really enjoyed my day. Birthdays come around and go by some years and they are just another day, so thank you to all those people who have helped me to enjoy it.
Ground Force
We’ve been working on the garden the last few weeks as to be honest it was left in a bit of a mess by Persimmon our builders. There are some pictures available which show the work from start to finish. A big thanks to Mum, Dad and Jonathan for all the help. They never just visit!
Clan Smith
We haven’t seen Mar and Magnus for quite some time so it was really nice when they visited us twice over Easter. We didn’t get any of Magnus’s fried fish but a trip to Beales was almost as good!
Christmas 2007
This year was our first Christmas in the new house and was an opportunity to have the family over and do the cooking! Dan was away but we had David, Eira, Gran Dodge, Shar, Ben and Emily. We cooked roast beef (which took hours) and there was nearly half left at the end!
It was also Emily’s 4th birthday and we had cake to spare as she rolled around on her new roller skates!
David and Eira almost didn’t make it as they locked the house keys inside by mistake. David says it was Shar but we all know the real truth! Any way, David managed to break in in an all to easy way for my liking. There are always rumours about his previous life going round, perhaps there is more to him than meets the eye.
We then went up north to Mum and Dad’s where we saw Mum, Dad, Jon, Nan, Grandad, John, Sian, David, Linda, Gav, Charlotte, Matthew and baby Seren. We didn’t know at the time but Charlotte was plus one!
It was really nice to see everyone again. Happy new year to all!
Family Day 2
It’s unusual for us this summer to have seen more or less all of the immediate family. With the exception of those up in Scotland that is. This last weekend we saw my side of the family including my Grandparents which was really nice. I was glad they were able to visit us as they don’t get chance to come down very often. Hopefully we’ll get to visit everybody else soon as well as we don’t really meet up enough and I enjoy it a lot now I live away from them.
Any way, at the risk of making my Mother cry I’ll stop there…
We also were able to feed them from the garden which was cool. Most of my family aren’t really that bothered by it to be honest but Dad enjoyed it!
Family Day
Well sort of at least. The girls played with the kids out in the garden and the boys all watched the rugby! But hey, it’s the thought that counts.
Summer 2007
Well it’s been over 2 months since we last posted on here which isn’t very clever. So sorry about that. (Not that any one is likely to have noticed!)
Our summer went something like this:
July 2007
Ian and Viv’s Wedding somewhere near Silverstone/Oxford in a little village I forget the name of! We had trouble with the hotel and ended up having to drive back after wedding and eventually got home at 1am. Still, nice day overall.
Then we went off to Camp and it rained a lot. I think you probably all remember the rain. Still on the plus side there were no arcade games this year which was a definite plus in my opinion and the week went very well overall.
August 2007
August saw another wedding but this time for Bethan and Chris. I have to say that of the 3 weddings I have been to this summer I enjoyed this one the most. No offense to the other parties concerned but I really enjoyed meeting up with my family who I don’t see as often as I would like to.
During August we escaped for a week to a small town in France to stay with Jen’s mum and dad. Like last year we had a very relaxing week and enjoyed being spoiled by Eira! There aren’t many photos to show you as I didn’t take any!
The last event of the summer was the wedding of Ellen and Tom. (Photo soon!) Once again we enjoyed ourselves and were very impressed with the venue and the food on offer! I think they win that prize this year!
My new job is going well and I have already been in post for 5 weeks. I have made the most of being able to walk and cycle to work and have only taken the car out of the garage a handful of times. Hopefully it will start to pay off soon both financially and physically.
Jen is well. Busy as usual. Perhaps I’ll let her add her own update…
It's official, I'm old!
As of today I am now in my late 20s and am officially old. I am now beyond the stage where I can be seen as a cool 20 something who lives a carefree life and has more money than sense. I am now slipping down the all too short slope that leads to grey hairs, wrinkles and the crisis point that is 30 years of age!
Despite having to contemplate all of this I look at my life and am feeling very satisfied at the moment. Life is good.
Thanks to everyone for their best wishes and cards/gifts. I have used any money I received in a last ditch attempt to regain my youth by purchasing a number of games for my Playstation 2 – including Madden 07, NHL 07 and NBA Live 07. By the way, if any one out there is interested in linking up for a live game then let me know. I am also hoping that somebody will buy me Lego Starwars 2! I also had a really nice jacket from Jen and the afore mentioned clock from my parents.
I actually took the day off work and finally got around to playing a round of golf. Considering I haven’t played for a year now I was pretty pleased to finish off with a 48 on the par 42 course. We didn’t go out tonight (too old for that now!) but had a Chinese takeaway and a delicious M&S chocolate cake.
Any way, thanks again to all.
Jen's Birthday
Celebrated my 26th birthday on the 31st January. Went to pilates with Ellen in the knowledge that Tom and Charlotte would be fattening me up later that evening with tea a la Palmer. Had a lovely time, they spoiled me rotten, with sticky toffee pudding and birthday cake!
Also saw the family the following weekend, so it was all very relaxed. Planning on meeting up with the medic gang on Wednesday this week to have a little party.
Thankyou to everybody for all the lovely cards, presents and money I’ve been given – I feel loved!!!