Shanas on tour - yes she is our first grandie and she was born today. Mother and daughter are doing well although it was a c-section. Bill and Dawn, the wonderful thing is the dad can stay overnight in the room which is a great help to the mum who is attached to various tubes. That means the baby can stay with them too.

The plan always was that the birthday gift be taken after the birth of the baby and that the baby would stay with her parents in the van. That way she can be breast fed when needed. We will only turn up to look after the baby for an hour or so while they kayak or bike ride. With a caesar this may not be an option for at least six weeks.

They don't know about the birthday gift yet and and this moment our daughter especially would not be particularly interested for obvious reasons.

It's another 9 days to son-in-law's birthday so they might be in a more receptive mood by then.

Congrats & welcome to the wonderful world of grandparenting
A little girl, how special, she will have you wrapped around her little finger in no time!
Hope mum recovers quickly so they can enjoy the caravan holiday as planned, I'm sure they will love it!

Hi everyone,
It is twelve months since the "Great Birthday Gift" idea and they (my daughter and son-in-law) have finally used it just before they are due to have another lot of birthdays. The first time we booked at White Sands Van Park in November they had to urgently move house that weekend so we just enjoyed our holiday in the van by ourselves for a week. This weekend, with 11 month old Grace in tow, they finally made it. There were a few changes to the original plan. They arrived Saturday morning but instead of going home we stayed in a tent, vacating our van for the night. The weather, which had been perfect all week, changed to cloudy, wet and cool (21 degrees). However we fed them BLTs and babysat while they went bike riding and (most importantly) had a sleep. Saturday night we took them to the Stone Grill in Huskisson (baby too). On Sunday the weather improved during the day so we actually saw some sun. They went bike riding and kayaking while Grace played in the sand. The sun came out so they all had a swim. After hamburgers for lunch admiring the blue sea from outside our van they all piled in the car for the drive back to Sydney. We are lying on the bed in the van with the Sunday papers feeling very pleased with our idea, especially as we now have three days to relax before we go home.

For their next birthdays they are getting something simple like tickets to a show (with babysitting thrown in of course).