Hey Everyone,

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Ok, that needed to be done, it's out of my system now.

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas and New Year's and is starting off 2013 right. I just got back from 4 weeks off, having spent my holiday in Sweden with my wife and son, visiting his Sveeedish grandparents. It was the little guy's first ever Christmas, and I'm glad it was in a cold country, cos Christmas in Australia in 38 degree heat just doesn't feel quite right.

I was hoping for snow while we were there…..well, we got snow. Wow, did we get snow. It started snowing on our third day there, and just didn't stop. Now I'm happy to pitch in and shovel paths and driveways and stuff, but even I was getting a little sick of that job by the end of my holiday.

My father-in-law has a pretty cool snow blower machine…..it's funny how the right machine can make even the most boring, back-breaking job fun. I learned an important lesson while using the snow blower - always make sure the spout is pointing AWAY from the neighbour's car before you try clearing the driveway!

We had our Christmas a couple of weeks earlier than the official day. One of the downsides of being an airline pilot is that you don't get the usual holidays off work like other people. I knew I'd be working over Christmas ages ago, so we planned on having an early Christmas so I could enjoy it with my son too. I was told it was going to be a traditional English Christmas too, since it was mainly for my benefit. Mother-outlaw cooked up a proper Christmas dinner, with Roast Turkey, Veg, and all the trimmings, YUM!!

There were only four of us at the dinner table, but we managed to put away most of that bird.  It was a little difficult getting up from the table afterwards though...

It felt a little weird celebrating Christmas early, but with my job you just have to do what works, and it was still a lot of fun. As my wife pointed out, this probably means the Henry will be having multiple Christmas celebrations for most of his life...Lucky little bugger!

The tree at our early Christmas has a bit of a story too. They don't quite do things like regular folk, these Swedes. While there was the usual Christmas tree retailer in town, I was told that we were getting our tree a more 'natural' way……this meant that my brother-in-law, myself, and a neighbour hiked into the woods in pitch darkness with a saw and 'liberated' a tree ourselves!

Any of you seen that movie, The Grey? About the wolves, and Liam Neeson? Well, when you're standing in the woods, in the dark, in knee-high snow, that is without a doubt the worst movie to start thinking about!! I swear I heard something big with teeth following us at one point…
The walk back with our tree was fun too. I should have learned from previous experience, trusting my brother-in-law with directions is a BAD idea! I'll just say the walk home with our tree was a little more 'scenic' than I expected.

So, as it's a new year, and everyone is making resolutions and goals, I thought I'd talk briefly about what I'm planning for this blog:

     - The blog - the plan is to blog more regularly than I have been doing. I'm still new to all this, and finding time to research, write, and post is difficult, but I enjoy the process, so I'm going to try to do better.

     - Fitness - I said when I started this site that I'd be discussing ways to get in shape for busy dads... aaand then didn't talk about it very much! This year I'm going to write more on the subject, and talk about what types of training I'm doing, which is going to be quite varied at least for the early part of this year.  I want to try a bunch of different ways to stay healthy to find what I really enjoy and what works. And hopefully you guys will find that helpful too.

     - New Years Resolutions - these suck. People make them every year, and then forget all about them by February. I do think having goals is a good idea for most people, but they have to be specific and have a deadline, or they just don't get accomplished. I'll talk more about this in an upcoming post. I also think people should have a list of all those crazy, fun things they wanna accomplish before they kick it, but the term "bucket list" is a little too dull for me. I have instead made what I call "My Awesome List of Awesome", which I made a while ago after being inspired by Steve Kamb, and I try and knock a few items off this list each year. It contains things that are a lot more fun than your regular, run-of-the-mill resolutions,  and I'll be posting about it soon, watch this space…

     - Experiments into Online Business - I've only just started looking into this. This year I would really love to find ways to make a little extra money on the side through online business. I have a couple of ideas I'm working on at the moment, so I won't say much now but will talk about this more in the future.

     - Dad Skills - I have written a bunch of these, they'll be appearing on the site very soon


So that's what's planned. I'd love to hear what you guys have planned for the year and what your goals are for 2013, so please leave a comment below.


Coming Soon - Travelling 30 hours by plane with a baby, and the very first Dad Skills post!!


Stay Tuned


~ Ryan


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