My Shout

Yes, May is here. Our new daughter, May Elizabeth Tate Dunstan-Daams that is

She was born yesterday at 11.25 AM. At 49 cm tall and 2.99 kg, she is on the small side, but she looks very healthy as you can see in the pictures below. She is also quite a peaceful little girl, and has barely cried for more than a minute a time. Not counting on that lasting, but oh well - it is great for now. I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

May and her aunt Joy

Yep, she's cute

May, meet your brother Miles (and Bec). He's fascinated by his new sister obviously. Another photo below.

May and Grandma

May and Grandpa

Miles excited about his little sister.

May with her cousins Lucy and Mila

May with her cousin Ned

A great post by Nomadic Matt over on Travel Blogs highlights 5 things that suck about long term travel.

Although the longest continuous travelling for me has been about 4 months (coming to Australia kind of morphed into emigrating, so I won't count that), I think he has some good points.

For me, I think the hardest thing is missing family and friends. Particularly if you hear of anything going wrong back home, this can become a really painful side of being away. This is somewhat offset by the fact that I usually end up meeting other friends or family that I haven't seen in ages while travelling, so it kind of works itself out.

Another thing is the sense that you always need to be doing something. Even on a 4 month journey, there's a part of you that feels like every day needs to count and be filled with excitement. Luckily most days are filled with excitement, merely due to the fact that you are in a different place. Some days you really just need to sit around and not do much at all. For me at least, that often feels like I'm missing out on seeing something. That does of course depend where I'm travelling at the time. Some beach destinations in particular are visited mainly to relax, so that's not much of a problem

Any long-term travellers care to add their thoughts?

Ok, so I realise this blog has just become my place to post photos of Miles. I *promise* I'll post some other things, but in the meanwhile, you'll have to put up with it! And this was just too funny not to post.

One thing you should know about Miles is that he LOVES to eat. He doesn't give up easily either, as you will see in this video I took on my phone yesterday. Stay tuned for a cameo of me stealing some of his food - normally that would never work.

And here are some pics for those who are interested..

Miles enjoying his football

Miles learning to stand.

Miles being harassed by me! My favourite game

Miles PJs that match his blanket.. looks strange when the two are together.

Ok, so maybe there was some travelling.. we went down to the Great Ocean Road a few weeks back. Always nice for a visit. Miles didn't seem to mind too much either. Except for the drive back that is, which he seemed particularly unhappy about!

Here's some photos from this latest visit to The Road.

Unfortunately little Miles came down with Gastro-enteritis on the weekend and has been in hospital the last few days. Here's a photo of him looking particularly displeased with the situation. In truth, we were quite happy to see him this bright eyed again after a few days of pretty lethargic behaviour.