holiday update

Hi all folks

Lots of things have been happening in the life of the Farrens over the holidays. We all definitely needed it and are all very rested after a good time just as a family. On the first week of the holidays we did'nt do very much on the monday we had a relaxing morning and then at lunchtime we went to see are dad and have lunch with him. Then for dinner we had some friends over and to have a play. Then for the rest of the week we did nothing apart from Joe and I did a two day golf clinic. On the weekend we went to see some of mums cousins in broadford. Broadford is on the road towards sydney. So we stayed there for the weekend and had a great time down there playing in their pool and playing games. We came back on the monday and then went to somers (were one of our friends for church live) and stayed there for the day and night. We had a great time playing on the beach and surfing some waves.

So that was the first week of our holidays. Now on the second week we didnt do very much we lazed about at home and on the thursday I went to cricket training (if you dont know I'm doing cricket for my summer sport). On the thursday evening we started our journey down to a place called wilsons promontory (which is a beautiful national park with lots of amazing wild life and senic views and last but not least the spectacular walks it has). We didnt actually stay in the park but a village called sandy point and a house called sleepy hollow and boy was it sleepy. On the friday we travelled into the national park and got a two day pass to go into the park. We first slowly went to the main town in the park called tidal river. We went so slowly because we were looking out for wildlife and we saw some too, we saw 2 wombats (which are a bit like big hampsters).

Dad finishing off now.....we spent a lot of time walking on both days ( 10k plus each day) in the promontory with both some spectacular coastal walks and rainforest walks. We saw a few kangaroos and wallabies and just had great time together as a family with lots of fun, laughter, learning about geography and enjoying the beautiful spring weather.

We were of course very disappointed that Australia lost in the rugby but will do our best to follow England now.

long overdue post

Hi folks just a update on the farrens life.

These past few months have been very busy and affective to us. So to start of with the story of Ella these last few months she has learnt various thing like crawl..... backwards! not fowards she is now chewing for her life and her cheeks are red red red.... oh and the nappies just got worse much worse (I wont go into further detail).

Rugby for joe and I (sam) is going very well both our teams are doing well on the ladder just today in rugby I had a very fearful Injury some one twisted my knee cap and then fell on it and joe got a elbow in the neck so we were in the wars today but the good thing was we still had fun

and enjoyed the game.

But the main thing was our holiday in new caledonia ( which is in the south pacific islands) a nice tropical island and a lovely bungalow to stay in a kuendu beach resort the bungalow had a down stairs and half a upstairs we had a TV downstairs and a kitchen a bathroom and mum and dads room. Joe and I slept up stairs on a kind of balcony over the downstairs flood it had 2 beds, a shelf for our clothes and that was it.

Over the course of the holiday we did lots of things there was a swimming pool about a minutes walk from our bungalow it had 2 really cool waterslides and little toddlers pool and we had loads of fun on that. We also went into noumea a number of times (the capital) and did some shopping there and hung out but most of all we spent lots of time at the beach. One particular day dad and I decided to go snorkelling at a little island about 20 minutes of shore of new caledonia there we saw some awesome coral, fish and ... you wont belive this I saw a SHARK and a SEA SNAKE!!!!!!!!!!which was totally awesome. then we stopped for morning tea and then headed back to the resort.

that was a really awesome holiday.

Next we bring you news on matt and amanda coming over with cute old noah. They had an awesome week over here looking at churches and options for there church and they did spend some time with us obviosly I and Joe were at school so we didnt get to see them as much as mum and ella did.

we also have to tell you about harry potter and the rush the see the movie and get the book I myself have seen the movie and I am about 130 pages through the book.

Last but not least was our trip to sovereign hill (which is a site that was changed into a gold feild town with all your old shops we took a tour guide which was me sowe went gold panning we went down a mine saw someone purify gold and got some old fashioned lollies.

and that is all from the farrens

stay tunned for our next edition

Great Ocean Road - Easter Weekend

We spent the Easter weekend travelling down the Great Ocean Road with Grandma Smith who was staying with us for a couple of weeks. The weather was absolutely gorgeous which made the stunning scenery along the coast even more spectacular.

On our first day full day we travelled West from Melbourne to Apollo Bay where we stayed the night. On the way down we had a lovely lunch at Lorne on the beach and we saw a number of koalas in Shrapnel and Sausage Gulleys.

The next day we travelled even further West to give grandma a tour of the rest of the Ocean Road including Cape Otway lighthouse. We went on to see the Twelve Apostles, Loch Ard Gorge, and even managed to get us all paddling in the sea at Port Campbell where we had a picnic lunch.

On the Easter Monday we came back to Melbourne via the forest canopy walk at Otway Fly board walk it was 40 meters above the ground with some great views there was a tower at the end of the walk dad, Joe and I mum couldn't go up because of ella.

Boys Weekend away

This weekend Daddy and Joe went away on our own for 1:1 time to Phillip Island.

We had an awesome time there doinglots of exciting events...more in one day than Joe has ever done before apparently. The first thing we did was stay overnight in a lovely bed and Breakfast overlooking the bridge to Phillip Island and after a Daddy cooked breakfast we went to A Maze N'Things (www.amazenthings.com.au) . While we were there we played mini-golf and on the last hole Daddy got a hole in one. I got a birdie on the 12 and also an eagle on the 11th. We also went through the very strange images gallery and also the open air maze.

We had lunch in Cowes ( big pizzas) and had an enormous ice-cream that was so big we fed some to the seagulls and watched them get "Brain Freeze".

During the day we saw three wallabies, and lots of koalas, and also a rare sighting of a Kukkaburra. One koala was three feet away from us and eating his tea.....we will be posting the vidoe on YouTube.

We also went for a little ride on the bikes and scooters and finished the day off with a game of ten pin bowling and air hockey which Joe won!!!!!!!

Today we have had a lovely day at home playing cricket and footy with Daddy and watching a little bit of our home town grand prix!!!!

The weather has been slightly autumnal in the mornings but still is in the mid to high twenties during the day....shame of course.

Anyone for Tennis ?

One thing we have learnt in our eleven months in Melbourne is that above all states in Australia this oe is sports mad....with the Commonwealth Games, AFL, Grand Prix, World Swimming Championships coming soon, and of course the first tennis Grand Slam of the year. Given our desire to fully embrace life in Australia we took the boys and Ella to the tennis on Friday last week and were wise enough to go indoors to start with at the Vodafone arena as the heavens opened for part of the day.

We saw a couple of very enjoyable matches with Novak Djokovic (No 9 seed) and also Amelie Mauresmo (No2 seed) as well as having a good wander around all the outdoor areas. Having done wimbeldon a few time it was refreshing to see the space and lack of long queues even though there were 40,000 people there. The other thing we have learnt about sport in Victoria is that it is highly valued in society and priced to reflect that.....ground passes for the whole family in total amounted to £30 and you could simply walk up to the ticket office on the day if you wanted to buy...queue stretched for at least six yards....SO refreshing!!!!!!....maybe I was never a good queue inhabitant!!!

The boys walked away with two giant tennis balls to frame their first visit to a grand slam tennis tournament....Nikki walked away with a beach towel (make of that what you will) and Dad walked away with the bill for it all!!!!!

Anyway can thoroughly recommend for all you tennis fans tired of queueing / praying for Wimbledon tickets that you plan a trip down under to Melbourne.

Somers loving...had me a blast ( Travolta tribute)

We have just come back from a few days down on the Mornington Peninsula coast staying in the holiday home of Nikki's cousin. The weather was beautiful for most of the time (mid to high 30's) and we swam in the sea at Somers or Sorrento each day, with the boys also enjoying their boogie boards, rock pool investigating, sandcastle and trench building and a little beach cricket.

The Farren boys also managed an early morning round of golf at Cape Schanck ( see attached picture) and the boys also spent some time on a friends quad bike wizzing round their garden.

Only slight blot on the horizon was loss of set of keys on the beach so Tim had to make emergency trip back to Melbourne ( 1 Hour) to get spare set.

We were also swimming in the Western Port Channel until we were told that a 6m Great White had been sighted across the other side of the channel at Cowes so we stayed in slightly shallower water thereafter.

Ella survived the beach remarkably well in her Sun shaded tent although it was a feta of engineering to get it down again.

We returned late on Thursday evening to go to the Australian Open tennis on Friday ( see next post) and have had a quiet weekend here with much blessing in the form of a weekend of almost constant rain.........the whole of Victoria is cheering and praying for more.

We wish you a Ruby Christmas

This Christmas time we have been focused on the planning for the Australian version of a ruby wedding anniversary for Nikki's parents, David & Dorothy, that took place last Saturday. We were blessed with a fantastic day, sunshine and a balmy 30 degrees so were able to host the event in the house and the back garden.

It was lovely to meet so many of their Australian friends from down the years over afternoon English tea, and event that was marred only by Gareth and I ( the two sons-in-law) blotting our copybooks with a humorous speech of reflections about significant calendar dates in their marriage and with some advice for the next 40 years of their marriage.

We have also had the pleasure of being some of the first people on the planet to see in 2007, and watched a great firework display over the Yarra River with the boys last night...somewhat different at 24 degrees to the howling winds and rain of the UK I suspect.

We do not know yet what 2007 holds in store for us but after a wedding and honeymoon, selling a house in the UK, emigrating to the other side of the world, buying a new house in Australia, starting a new job, starting new schools, finding a new church, making new friendships there, having a whirlwind trip back to the UK for a wedding, going through a nine month pregnancy and having Ella as an addition to our family we feel that after such a quiet 2006 we will be looking for a more lively 2007..........NOT!!!!!!!!!!

We trust that you have a wonderful 2007.....we certainly are believing that for the Farren family and will share the quieter side of our lives in 2007 with you as we journey along together.

Wishing you all much joy and exciting new opportuities in 2007.

Tim, Nikki, Sam, Joe and Ella.

Christmas Cracker

We have been overjoyed this Christmas to have Ella with us to share the festive season. She has brought great delight to all of our family that have been down here in Australia ( Auntie Debbie, Uncle Gareth, Auntie Andi and of course Granny and Grandad). They have all been stockpiling on cuddles from Ella before they have to head back to other parts of the world. Ella is progressing well and Nikki is coping remarkably well with the new demands of having a baby.....I am trying of course to do my bit too but there are some things that a man simply cannot provide.

Ella is starting to hold her head quite well although not entirely on her own yet, and is certainly spending more hours awake during the day now which provides enjoyment to us all. The boys have become very fond of their morning kiss and cuddle with Ella and love holding her with varying degress of confidence.

Ella Margaret Farren

Mother's Look

We are utterly ecstatic to announce that the Farren family has grown to five now with the birth of Ella Margaret Farren on Friday night at 10:39pm weighing in at a healthy 3.61kilos (7lbs 15 ounces). Ella was clearly enjoying life on the inside too much as it took her 21 hours to get out but when she eventually made it she was fine, as was Mum although very tired as you would expect.

Ella has a lovely mop of black hair, a splodgy Farren nose and has spent the first 24 hours of her life mostly asleep.

Sam's turn now "Ella is a great sister altho she does cry and I am forced to change the nappies. We are very excited to see Ella and she brings great joy to the family around the world. Mum is still very tired. The first time I held Ella it felt like holding some special, another great part of life, a special sister."

Joe says "When I first held Ella it felt pretty nice because she is beautiful, and when we got there she was only twelve hours old"

We will be bringing Ella and Nikki home tomorrow and no doubt will be spending hours on Skype showing her off to family and friends around the world. We look forward to at least 20 years worth of blog posting about Ella until she leaves home, that is assuming there is any young man out there who is even remotely good enough for my BEAUTIFUL daughter.