The life of a modern family. 'Busy' is the word so many people use to describe their life. Some wear it as a badge of honour. It's unavoidable, but I'd like to think we as a family get the balance reasonably right between the mundane 'busy' of school, work, shopping, cleaning, picking up, dropping off and just getting on with things, whilst pleasurable 'busy' involving trips to far fetched places to ride our mountain bikes, keeping ourselves fit and active and seeing different parts of the world, more than make up for any negativity we might assign to our 'busy' lifestyle. We undoubtedly live a fortunate life.

The bookends of the first six months of 2017 for the Snowballs were certainly pleasurable experiences. Beginning with an incredible adverture to Tasmania over the new year period and then culminating in another European adventure, this time destined for London, Paris, Andorra, Costa Brava and Barcelona.

Today's travels were a little tedious, but you get that when you travel all the way to the other side of the world. Besides, it's only when you are forced to do nothing else but sit, unconnected from the rest of the world, (finally getting to watch La La Land having tried and failed every Friday night for the past 2 months to convince the family that it might be a good movie - in the end I actully quite enjoyed it), that you appreciate your 'busy' life.

With an eight hour layover in Hong Kong, we even got to stretch our legs and venture into HK central, Courtney and Mitchell being shocked out of their comfort zones with the unfamiliar sights, smells and humidity of this most Asian of Asian cities.

As I sign off for this evening, I have two exhausted children sitting beside me, hunched asleep over a table, Mitchell with a shirt draped over his head as we await the hours, minutes and seconds to pass before the second leg of our journey can begin and we can be reunited with Wendy after her amzaing effort in the MTB Masters World Championships in Andorra last week. In a little over a week, she'll be back there again, this time with her family, and this time for no other purpose but to have fun.

As a family we will be 'busy' creating wonderful memories.