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As we draw closer to the day we expect to meet our baby, the list of items I anticipate buying seems to be growing longer by the day. Charleigh has remained fairly aprehensive about the amount of items we’ll genuinely need, maintaining a shortlist based on her past experience.

Given the current space in our apartment, or lack thereof, I totally understand why we should be looking to hold back on too many of the bulkier items - That is until we find a larger home to help house our growing family. One thing is for certain however, we’re definitely going to need a pram (Read: Buggy, Stroller, Push-chair).

I initially began looking in to prams almost immediately after we found out we were to be expecting our baby. From that moment there were two aspects to our choice that I knew I had to get absolutely spot on.

Uppababy Vista

Multi-purpose Design

Since we’re looking to save on space in the short term and ultimately to save of money, we needed to make sure that whichever pram we chose would allow to to utilise a car-seat as the bassinet and also allow for adaption to different seats as our baby grows.

Correct ergonomic height

Being as I’m 6' 2", I didn’t want want to be hunched over in agony pushing a chair designed for Charleigh’s shorter frame. This is vitally important, since the 10+ hours I spend sat in front of my computer is already far too much for my back to take.

Whittling down the options, taking in to account our “must haves” - Completely dismissing any product with a bad review, or so much as a safety related product recall during the companies early years, I was eventually left with two choices.

Whilst visually very similar there are a couple of distinct differences between these two prams, ultimately the UppaBaby Vista was 3" taller, 1.5kg lighter and $555 cheaper. It’s a complete no-brainer - It’s increased height is a huge advantage for me, the small but important weight difference will be very helpful for Charleigh, and the money saved is more than enough for us to buy a car-seat (Once we have a car, anyway).

I’m glad I spent so much time working my way through viable options and now I can’t wait to have the pram in my hands. It makes the realisation that our baby is almost here, so much clearer!

2013 has been a fantastic year for myself and my family, and I really can’t wait for what’s to come in the new year. In keeping with usual internet tradition, I thought I’d put together my top few moments of this year (in no particular order).

Moving to Android

I spoke at length in a previous post about my planned move away from iPhone, it’s something I’d been toying with the idea of for a little while, and now I’ve lived for almost a month with my Nexus 5, I can safely say it’s been the most positive experience I’ve had with a phone since the original iPhone back in 2007. I have to give a large amount of the credit for both the easy transition and the continued love for the platform, over to Google. Such a tight integration to apps I use daily is incredibly useful and pushes Android lightyears ahead of iOS.

The announcement of our baby

The single greatest moment of my year was a short but sweet phone call from Charleigh - “We did it”. Easily the biggest moment to look forward to in 2014!

Our engagement

Really though, how could this not be one of my top moments? I finally asked Charleigh to be my wife and with a litle nerve racking hesitation, she said yes! We began planning the wedding almost immediately and already have a ton of ideas as to how we want to celebrate, where we want to get married and I’m pretty positive that Charleigh already has her dress and colour scheme all picked out.

Travelling for business and pleasure

I’ve been really fortunate so far in life to travel quite a lot and this year has been no different. I travelled all over Australia, to Hong Kong and the US (This was just for work) and for a little leisure time, I met my brother in LA for a 2 week road trip around California. I can’t wait to travel even more next year, with the whole family in tow!

Using my camera more

I’m not a huge fan of New Year resolutions, but if I had picked one at the beginning of 2013, it would have been to use my camera more. A mistake I’d made in the past was to assume taking a large quantity of pictures was equal to taking pictures of a high quality. This year I tried to photograph as though I was using a film Camera - Not clicking away 10 times every time I saw something interesting, instead trying to capture a moment as best I could. It’s something I really spent a lot of time working on and the photosets I’ve been able to put together towards the end of 2013 have been some of my best and favourite to date.

I’ve been an Apple fan for years now. I feel I’ve dothed my cap to the tech giant many times over the years and have even managed to sway a few other to become converts of the company responsible for some of the greatest innovations.

I wrote a post last year on the subject of Apple and the iPhone 5, my disappointment from Apple largely came from their lack of hardware innovations in recent years. Sure the cameras have improved, processing power and speed have increased as well, but where I really feel I’m losing out as part of the Apple eco-system is in advances in apps and third party technology. It took Apple a good few years before they changed iOS in any great way - I’m now thinking it was too little too late.

In the time it took Apple to upgrade to iOS 7, I began to utilise and ultimately became dependant on apps like Dropbox and Spotify. Those two apps alone have been enough to essentially remove my phone from my device cycle. About the only thing that is the same now between my various devices are messaging and browsers apps.

Given all the above, I’ve really had the same phone since the iPhone 4 now, and I think it’s a fair statement that 3 years of essentially the same phone is about the right time for an upgrade.

I’ve been keeping my eye on the Nexus range for quite a while now, and was almost at the point of getting ready to purchase one when rumours of the Nexus 5 started to surface. I decided to wait it out and see what the specs were before getting too involved and when those specs finally did see the light of day, I was really pleased! If I’m being honest, the specs are as near as makes no difference to my current iPhone 5, on top of this there are two very specific aspects which appeal to me; The Android Kit Kat OS and NFC capability. On top of this - It’s only AU$399

I ordered my Nexus 5 a few days ago and it should be waiting for me back in Melbourne by the time I get in to the office.

I’m sure Charleigh will be pleased as her phone is inevitably about to be upgraded, and I’m really excited to be back on Android for the first time since my Google G-1 (Yeah, I know…)

I’ve been an avid Apple fan for years now. I feel I’ve dothed my cap to the tech giant many times over the years and have even managed to sway a few other to become converts of what is undoubtedly the company responsible for some of the greatest innovations the world at large has seen; both in terms of technology and style.

I wrote a post last year on the subject of Apple and the iPhone 5, my disappointment from Apple largely came from their lack of hardware innovations in recent years. Sure the cameras have improved, processing power and speed have increased as well, but where I really feel I’m losing out as part of the Apple eco-system is in advances in apps and third party technology. It took Apple a good few years before they changed iOS in any great way - I’m now thinking it was too little too late.

In the time it took Apple to upgrade to iOS 7, I began to utilise and ultimately became dependant on apps like Dropbox and Spotify. Those two apps alone have been enough to essentially remove my phone from my device cycle. About the only thing that is the same now between my various devices are messaging and browsers apps.

Given all the above, I’ve really had the same phone since the iPhone 4 now, and I think it’s a fair statement that 3 years of essentially the same phone is about the right time for an upgrade.

I’ve been keeping my eye on the Nexus range for quite a while now, and was almost at the point of getting ready to purchase one when rumours of the Nexus 5 started to surface. I decided to wait it out and see what the specs were before getting too involved and when those specs finally did see the light of day, I was really pleased! If I’m being honest, the specs are as near as makes no difference to my current iPhone 5, on top of this there are two very specific aspects which appeal to me; The Android Kit Kat OS and NFC capability. On top of this - It’s only AU$399

I ordered my Nexus 5 a few days ago and it should be waiting for me back in Melbourne by the time I get in to the office.

I’m sure Charleigh will be pleased as her phone is inevitably about to be upgraded, and I’m really excited to be back on Android for the first time since my Google G-1 (Yeah, I know…)

Cooking has always been a huge passion of mine, from an early age I always spent time learning to cook with my Mum. Learning the basics at a young age gave me a real boost in confidence when it came to cooking, but it wasn’t until Charleigh and Ellie came in to my life that I really started to become more diverse in what I was cooking.

Growing up with a nut allergy, I found myself constantly excusing myself from certain dishes or restaurants entirely - but as I’ve grown, I’ve learned to appreciate many more flavours and styles of food. This made our offices Christmas party an incredible treat for me, not only did we get to spend the day with 2 professional chefs, we also got to learn about and cook a cuisine which was entirely new to me.

Click through on the picture above to see more of our amazing day.

I love time off, who doesn’t? But there’s always that mammoth task of having to organise everything which is the slight downer on the lead up to your holiday…

To make matters slightly worse this time, I’m out of the office tomorrow for a meeting with a client, which means I’ve lost a day which I would have used to prepare my colleagues with some work I need them to do in the meantime and unfortunately, I’ve also lost the extra day I had to complete some outstanding work. It won’t be a problem, I’ve got a lot done already and it’s only 11am, which is definitely a bonus! But it just puts a slight bummer on everything.

Aside from the generic work I need to get done in the meantime, I’ve also got a lot of personal stuff to get out of the way too… Printing boarding passes for the tunnel, getting a hard copy of our breakdown cover from the RAC… Those all stick directly with the trip! Other than that, I’ve got to get my suit from our other office and get it back to Greenwich without a suit bag, I’ve got to get up to Worcestershire tomorrow for this meeting, Saturday we’ve been invited to a wedding and then Sunday I’ve got to get back to Worcester to finish packing the car, give it a final service and we’re off!