After a longer than expected summer holiday, we are back! Today on this 29th February Leap Year day, it seemed like a good time to upload our first video of the year and say ‘Happy New Year’. We had tried to make an earlier video, but it was night time and too windy, so we decided to try again.

This summer has been very hot again and everyone around the world has seen the Australian bush fires, which we were luckily not impacted by. The school summer holidays ran until late Jan and it was quite nice having a break from the demands of social media. I only reposted the drawings from Andy Marshall (illustrator for Motivate Man, our upcoming kids book). You can follow him on Instagram @AndyCMarshall

The Kickstarter campaign ended in December with us nearly reaching $3,000 (Australian) which, when you take out printing and posting costs, pays for about half of the project costs, so that’s a big win. We learned a lot and it was fun, so we ticked a big box.

Andy was impacted by the fires and his other work, but he has been taking his time and doing a great job creating wonderful images for the book which I could not have imagined, so while I doubt we will have the book ready for 21st March, which is World Down Syndrome Awareness Day, that’s okay. We will end up with great first book.

The other fun thing I did over the break was to take part in my second podcast. I had done my first with Andy Marshall (you can find that interview here at Fork in the Road). Despite being a bit nervous as you feel like you don’t have the control of being able to edit out anything that isn’t perfect, unlike when creating films, it worked really well. I was then approached by Rich Bolus from The Dad Mindset, having been introduced by a mutual friend. I agreed to do a podcast with him and was really happy with the result. You can find that here. He also has a great interview with Maggie Dent, a well-known parenting author and educator, so I feel honoured to be able to contribute and feature alongside her!

So we haven’t been doing nothing, of course! Who could do nothing when you have work, 2 kids, a garden and house to look after? Elijah has started Year 5, which will be his first full year at his new school. As we mention on the video we have just produced, he has started learning Spanish, so I am learning it as well to help him. I’m quite enthused to be adding another language and to know that Elijah will end up being able to speak many words and phrases in both Spanish and Japanese.

When we did a Social Role Valorisation course with Darcy Elks many years ago, I wrote that I wanted Elijah to become a linguist. While that seemed like a bit of a dream wish at the time, it has become a reality, which couldn’t make me happier. On that note, I hope you have a great week and, as Elijah teaches Crumpet in this week’s video, I’ll say goodbye in Spanish – ‘Adios!’

Please feel free to leave a comment and I’d appreciate if you would pass on the details of this blog to anyone you think might enjoy or benefit from it. Thank you 🙂 All the best, Rob.