 what's going on guys welcome back welcome back to the channel i'm still here still alive still in ala springs for another couple of hours at least today um i want to come back to youtube i want to publish a video that is uh it's four months in the making i feel like it's probably being at least i don't know four four or five months since i published a video on this channel and that wasn't planned by any means but you know life life life goes on you know i've i've been playing dad for the last nine months and it's been nine of the most rewarding and enjoyable months of my life and unfortunately you know youtube and youtube videos and creating content just hasn't really come into the picture i haven't really posted on instagram or facebook um i think for a while there it was because i wasn't really proud of who i was or what i was doing and and i i was still still half in half out as far as wanting to live in ala springs again and and and you know the the draw uh for me coming back uh as my kids right they live here they were born here they still live here we have had plans of of moving um to the east coast of australia but for now they're they're staying here uh tate has started she's five years old she started transition which is basically transitioning it's a year that they do at school transitioning from preschool into actual primary school and that happens from the ages of five to six so she's halfway through her first her first year of transition and my youngest daughter tristan just turned well it's wednesday the second she turned four on saturday the 29th of july and so she well she she had to wait until she was four so she could get enrolled in preschool and she has indeed started preschool this is her third day and so both kids are at school both kids go to the same school both kids look cute as hell in their little school uniforms but they still don't like to put them on in the mornings they still don't like to get up and all those good things that you get with five and four year olds but i tell you what uh their development and their development personally and also my the development of my relationship with them over the last nine months has been so so incredible for me it's been really rewarding yeah there are hard times of course there are there's hard times in any family dynamic um but i am more confident than ever in my relationship with them and that confidence only was ever it was only ever gonna come if i really knuckled down and forgot about everything else and just focused on them and focused on try to be the best dad that i can and i'm still working on it it's still a work in progress there is no manual for being a parent um and especially no manual when it's it's it's unexpected and uh well here we are you know five five and a half years on and i am i'm probably i'm probably in the most content phase of my life that i have been in the last five or six years ever since you know my youtube channel the last time i can feel the last time i can remember feeling as content as i am now was just was at the start of 2018 when my daughter was first born um and we had a really uh large house to live in everyone had their own bedroom everyone had their own space um i was working earning quite a lot of money and things just felt right things just felt like they were falling in place you know and then the explosion of my youtube channel happened and that that that just threw everything on its head i my priorities i couldn't i couldn't decide what like i it was um it was an amazing time but it was a very confusing time because i i had this youtube channel that i that i had put so much effort into for so many years and finally i felt like i was seeing the success that i deserved and then i had this newborn baby um and a full-time job that was taking a lot of the time away from the channel and i had to try and navigate through that and share my time and in the end the family dynamic just completely broke apart my fault maybe but you know i've always stuck to my guns and i've always stuck to like trusted my gut and trusted my instinct and at that time that dynamic the way that it was just wasn't working and here we are five years later and i'm you know i'm so thankful so grateful that i'm still in their lives uh yes i have had periods of time where i have been out of their lives but that was always with the view to come back at the right time in the right place and um you know these last five years i've tried to portray through youtube and it's been it's been interesting it's been it's been fun but like i said over the last nine months i've really just put that to the wayside and um and worked on myself uh and worked on in many ways and and and worked on my relationship first and foremost with my kids and i'm sitting here right now two hours away from my flight back to christ church for a month um just feeling like i can i can go i can go on a holiday because because i i know that my kids love me and my kids know that i love them and that my friends is the most important thing in the fucking world so i'm here just to check in i'm here to tell you guys what to expect on the channel over the next uh couple of months at least uh the top 100 series is coming back for a sixth installment currently i have created the videos from number 100 down to number 67 so we're a third of the way through i've enjoyed it so far i've done that over two days i've done that over the previous two days yesterday and the day before um there's a couple of other videos that are going to be coming out in the channel prior to those the first of which is talking about my childhood talking about a collection that i've made of my all all of my most favorite and most treasured childhood toys i was able to find the majority of them on on ebay great condition decided to treat myself a bit of retail therapy and really connect with my childhood again so that is that's a that's a pretty epic video it's just going through everything that i bought and the reason for it and going back down memory lane and you know having a bit of fun with you guys so that's that's one video the second video is covering the new motorbike that i bought um don't go getting your hopes up it's a 125 but i just made a fun video just talking about it uh going out and taking it for a bit of a spin and yeah basically once i arrive in christ church i've got an all blacks match to go to this weekend which i cannot wait for a fucking oh it's going to be sick it's going to be the second ever all blacks match that i've ever been to i'm going to catch up with my mate tin we're going to go from christ church where i live down to deniden which is where the game is being played i've never been to that stadium before it's the only stadium in new zealand with the with the roof so it doesn't matter rain hail or shine the the game will go on and uh that's going to be a sick a sick time so that'll take me through to the end of next week or the end of this week sorry and then i'll be back up in christ church with you know three and a half weeks to focus on making content i mean that's that's that's that's what i want to do it's easy to say that you know i can't really predict exactly how that's going to go i hate pigeonholing myself into things i want to arrive there i want to have a really awesome weekend and i want to come back to christ church with with uh some some plans some goals you know because i'm away for a certain period of time i know what's going to be waiting for me when i get back here which is full-time work and you know playing dad again so i'm going to make the most of my holiday i'm going to really enjoy it one of the things that i'm looking forward to the most is is waking up on a cold christ church morning and stoking the fire uh that's that's just being in my mind the last few weeks and i can't wait to do it that's a really lovely way to wake up in the morning go and get some fire cut it up the axe put it in there get it going and sort of just keep that lovely ambience the entire day uh as far as content is concerned i i want to make some more content around rugby the rugby world cup is coming up i think i think it starts in september so i want to be covering a few games um through that but fundamentally the main goal is to fundamentally does it even make sense my main goal as far as content is concerned is to shoot edit and publish the top 100 videos so for anyone you know looking forward to those um stay tuned they will be coming they will be they will be published as members only videos for the first couple of weeks and then i will publish them as public videos we've got the NFL season coming up i'm going to do my very best to cover certain pre-season games it seems you know it seems i'm always really really keen to get back into creating content when the pre-season games start and then i go hard with the pre-season games and by the start of the regular season i've kind of burnt myself out so that's what i want to not do this year um i'd love nothing more than to feel really really motivated to make content as the regular season starts i'm going to follow the Jacksonville Jags once again um trevor lorence kelvin ridley etienne and the rest of the gang should be good unfortunately my fandom with the bucks is kind of i don't know it's just not what it was because tom brady's left and lennon fornette's left so it's like i don't think i'm going to rock with them anymore but a team that i am going to rock with this year is another Florida team and that's the miami dolphins so if i had two teams to follow this year it's going to be the Jacksonville Jags and the miami dolphins and i can't wait to watch some football but i also can't wait to watch some rugby the rugby world cup and i can't wait to watch the live game this weekend i keep forgetting that i'm going so that's going to be good this video was really always going to be off the cuff um each and every video that i make normally is there's two things that i want to mention that was four i mean two two things two things i want to mention before signing off uh and they are two uh two separate youtube channels that i've created over the last six months and i'm super proud to present them to you and uh some of you guys will have already subscribed but those for those who haven't for those who don't know what i'm talking about i've got one channel titled rugby player reacts and basically what i've done is you know there was a period of time there where i had a bit of copyright infringement on this main channel and there was a point there where i thought fuck i don't actually know whether my channel is going to be is going to be around for too much longer because i i kept getting these copyright not not only claims but strikes and i got two strikes and it got real dicey there for a moment and i thought fuck before my channel disappears i'm going to have to download every single rugby player reacts video and keep it in in you know on a hard drive and originally i was just going to keep it for myself but then i started uploading them to this new channel rugby player reacts and i've uploaded almost 500 videos on that channel now keeping them in chronological order and if nothing else it's been really fun for me actually to go back in time and and upload the videos in order and sort of i haven't watched any of the videos back but just seeing the titles and seeing the way that i work my way through um through the the videos over the years has been fun so if anyone wants to go and support that channel that channel is not going anywhere there will be over 1200 videos on that channel eventually i'm uploading them at two per day at the moment so for anyone who wants to go back in time and sort of relive a few of the the og moments please head over to rugby player reacts and subscribe the second channel that i want to talk about and it's been a bit of a a passion project for me it's called it's okay to talk and it's okay to talk is a platform for me to talk to talk about my problems to talk about my issues good bad and the ugly and that's exactly what i've done so for anyone who wants to um follow along for anyone who can relate to any of those videos about addiction for the most part then please head over to it's okay to talk it's my goal to get that to a thousand subscribers and monetize that channel because that is going to be my platform where i really can talk i can talk just openly and honestly and not so much to the masses you know it's a lot easier to talk like that to 200 people um than it is to talk like that to 157 thousand people and i know that 157 thousand people will not be watching this video but the ones that matter will and it's just been a it's been a real it's been an important outlet for me over the last nine months so by all means go and subscribe to those two channels i'll continue to be posting content on there as well as this channel uh major goal when i get back to New Zealand in that first week is to enjoy myself connect with everyone but also finish shooting the top 100 series i want to get that out on the channel for my members as soon as possible and it's going to be it's going to be fun you know it's going to be fun so thanks for listening guys as always and uh jeez it's it's not going to be easy leaving it really isn't even if i know that i am coming back it's never easy kids are at school at the moment they're coming back they're getting pulled out of school early to take me to the airport and say goodbye and uh i don't know whether they can really grasp the emotions around that i guess we'll see we'll see how it goes at the airport but um yeah i'm going to be sitting on that plane i already know i'm going to be sitting on that plane thinking fuck is this the right thing was this the right thing is this the right timing but you know to leave your kids for any period of time is never going to be the right time it's never going to be the right timing but it's necessary man i need some time away i've put in a fucking solid nine months and and i'm proud of myself for that and i've gotten to know myself a bit better and i've certainly got to know my kids and they're so important to me man so important to me i i love them dearly and i've had some of the best moments you know i've i'll i'll leave you with this the if you ask me when am i most happiest when am i the happiest like what is the most what is the the thing that i can see or hear or or feel that makes me the most happy and puts a massive smile on my face every single time and it is whenever my kids smile or laugh if i can make my kids laugh or if i can if i can hear them laughing it is it's the best nothing beats it nothing beats it and you know when they do want to cuddle up or whatever i'm very very conscious of the fact that they're never they're not going to be the small forever and so whenever they do want me to pick them up or put them on their shoulders a part of me says no like i might be busy at the time or i might not i might not feel like it but then i think fuck man they're not going to be like this forever take every opportunity you can to connect with them and and lift them up and make them smile so life's good there have been moments i've had my moments where life hasn't felt that good but as always guys thanks for watching you can expect those other videos to to drop um i feel like i've been doing a lot with my hands i don't know am i nervous not anymore i know every single person that clicks on this video is an actual a real supporter of mine and so what have i got to be scared of nothing so thanks for watching guys and i will see you in new zealand