Start as we mean to go on...................

Does thou love life?

Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.

Life doesn't get much better at the moment. Ive had two weeks off to spend quality time with my three girls. Now Nikki is well on the road to recovery after the pregnancy and we have settled into the new routine with the both the girls, it has allowed us to make to make the most of the second week of my paternity.

To look at Nikki a couple of hours after the pregnancy, you wouldn't think she had gone through giving birth to our second daughter. Two weeks on, Nikki is virtually back to normal and looks fantastic. I'm really proud of her, she really is a great wife and mum to Nyah and Ciara. Saying that, I have respect for any women who have given birth, truly amazing!

I'm really pleased with my commitment to the gym this week and especially my diet. I find reading the Men's Health magazines and researching on the web about healthy eating and training a real dose of motivation. I have been training on and off over the last 15 years and never really feel I have reached the "blue sky physique". This is down to a number of reasons, work, home improvements, children. These are all big milestones in my life that have taken up time. These are all reasons for not maintaining the gym but not really excuses. I pride myself on been organized and utilizing my time effectively. I have realised that even when you don't necessarily want to do something, for example go in the gym, if you force yourself to go in and do the session, when you have finished, showered and sat down you can reflect and think that was a good session and I'm glad I have done it. More importantly because the gym is in the garage my turn around for start to finish (gym & showered is between 30 - 45mins). No excuses now, cover model for xmas!

Motto's we use at work and that will be at the forefront of my training will be:

Passion for action

Being the best we can

Pride in what we do and how we do it

Honest, fair and determined to win

My aim is to maintain the hard work I have done over this week and keep to the training regime 4 times a week and diet.

Anyway enough of the training talk and back to the family. This second week has really been an action packed week. We visited a kiddies play house called Creepy Crawlies in York on Wednesday. Creepy Crawlies is an activity centre for kids with ball pools, slides, climbing frames and an outdoor farm with horses, pigs etc. Nyah loved it, especially on the slides where I flew down with her. Its a great chance for Nyah to interact with other kids of the same age so it is something we would definitely do again. After we had been there for a couple of hours we decided to head to my mums to feed the girls. Luckily we arrived just in time to see an old school friend Sukina and little Izac and Isabella. Its been years since we saw each other so it was really good to catch up.

Nikki is from Leeds originally and we lived together for 2 years in Colton. We had some great times when we lived in Leeds and dont really visit as often as we would both like. On Thursday we visted for the day. We arrived in good time and went to visit our good friend Grant who is the General Manager of the Malmaison Hotel in Leeds. He is a top guy and has done extremelly well for himself at such a young age to achieve this position. Having had our own personal guide of the hotel we then headed for a walk around the shops. I love the atmosphere in Leeds with its bustling coffee shops, trendy fashion boutiques and peoples individuality. Alot of window shopping was done but we still seemed to spend a fortune!

We then visited Filey on the east yorkshire coast on the Friday with my mum and dad. To say we are in October the weather was great, very windy but great. We met at 10am in a wonderful coffee shop Nikki and mum went to a couple of months ago then headed down to the beach. Nyah totally loves the beach and the sea an couldnt get for going when we could see the sea! My dad went to buy a football for Nyah to have play around with. Now I must stress, the weather was lovely but so very very windy. My dad bought the lightest inflatable ball that shop sold. He threw the ball to me and the ball took off in the direction of the wind which I naturally chased (forgetting about Nyah who was running to the sea). Needless to say I got the ball back safely and senior saved Nyah! I managed to get some great snaps with the Nikon aswell of Nyah and my mum and dad. It wouldnt be right visiting the coast and not having Fish & Chips so we headed to Browns Restaurant. I remember going their years ago with my grandma and grandad and it brought back some great memories.

Friday night saw us entertain some really good friends of ours, Dash and Nat. We met them initially through Nikki when she worked at the Student Support Centre and since then they have become really good friends. I also agreed that I would do the Great North Run next year with him and Carl his bestman so thats now in the diary!

Its now the eve before I go back to work after two weeks off paternity. The time has flown by so quickbut its been great spending quality time with the girls, family and friends. With only 10 weeks till Xmas, its going to be a real special time with Nyah been more aware of Santa and all her presents! My work load is going to be quite high and intense for the rest of month and really up until Xmas. I am determined to get my team up the dashboard ladder to finish on a high for the end of the year. Heres starting as we mean to go on with the family, gym and work.......