Born June, 12th 1985 with brown eyes and hair, into a tub of water I arrive. The location is Perth, Australia. My parents are both Kiwis. Mum and Dad both came from around Auckland. Mum spent a little time on a farm when she was young. Dad grew up without a father. His apprenticeship was wiring up DC10 aeroplanes. He later got into under water robotics called ROV’s, basically remotely controlled submarines.

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My brother was born 2 years later, his name was Adam. Growing up was good. We had heaps of toys, Lego and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles being favourites. We had an awesome backyard. There were two big trees with a sandbox beside it. We would climb the trees and tie ropes between them and walk across. He buried my Ninja Turtles Pizza Thrower in the sandbox and it wouldn’t shoot anymore, I was a bit pissed off at him. We were good brothers, but it was a shame dad was away all the time. He had to go offshore six weeks on six weeks off. Still, we did what boys did and life was good.

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Australia was hot. My first day of school reached 45 degrees celsius. School was cancelled and we all went to the pools. You couldnt even walk on the concrete in bare feet without getting burned.

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I had a girlfriend Rachael who lived a few houses down the road. We would always hang until her parents moved houses. I was pretty sad but we still visited time to time. It was at eight years old that the parents decided it was time to move back to New Zealand, as they wanted us to spend our time there growing up, being Kiwi kids.

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We had come to Queenstown before on a holiday, and they decided they wanted to live there. It was a choice place. On my first day of school we were late. We got there and no one was in class. Turns out they’re all at the ice-skating rink. So off we go, I’ve never done it before. Bloody good fun having a wiz around it was. School here was great. We would often go on bushwalks as the Headmaster Mister Gazzard was an avid tramper. I got into cricket, didn’t really play much rugby, just a little touch.

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The school went skiing every Monday for 6 weeks during the winter. I was a little hoon. No fear. What felt like massive air was most likely nothing. Haha kids. Nothing better than being on the slopes when you could be doing maths. I did like maths though, it was my favourtite subject. We did a maths excersise that was timed and me and Ryan were always competeing for the best spot. 

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Dad was away all the time but we made do. I got angry at him once when he got back. We were playing cricket and I threw a ball real hard at his head. I was angry because he was always gone, but should have been grateful he was back. It really was tough having a dad away all the time. At least I had my brother. We had a great holiday in Fiji. Took a boat from the mainland to Plantation Island a couple hours away. There was heaps of snorkelling. We stayed a week and drank heaps of mango smoothies, raced crabs, watched people walk on fire, and toured the island.

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I had a best friend Ryan Beal. We’d ride bikes, play video games, do boy things.  One day we were on the jungle gym at school, and Ryans dad was hitting golf balls at us from a fair distance away. Ryan got hit, it didn’t hurt him that much. Bit of a fluke shot. I liked it here, we were home.

 

Then one day we were riding in the car and Mum turns around. She asks if we wanted to move to America, and that we would get to go to Disney World. Disney World sounded pretty awesome so we agreed to the move. We were off to Texas, USA!