Birthday morning

Birthdays are a big thing in our family, well maybe mostly to me - and the kids of course, but they are kids and all kids like birthdays! I especially like our birthday mornings!
We always sing to each other, this birthday morning we woke up Lucas as usual with birthday song and presents:





Lucas got lots of great stuff, Ninjago Lego, books, Star Wars Tech Deck, a new bike helmet, a Lego Sorting Head, more Lego, a Halvan book, a Swedish DVD, Zumba clothes, an All Black wallet and much more.

















I got sung to too! In Swedish even, lucky me!



I got Zumba clothes from the family in Scotland:



And a beautiful ring and two charms from Pandora from my darlings:



Birthday people!



Then we watched two video greetings from Aberdeen:



Time for breakfast at the birthday table, before heading to Athletics Day at school for the kids, and Zumba session for me!

Birthday dinner

Since we were having Lucas' birthday party on his actual birthday this year, I didn't think I would be up for much later that evening. So instead we went out the night before my birthday for a bit of a celebration.

Misuzu and I:



Nicole and I:



We had so much yummy food, here's Nicole's chicken...



Misuzu's tenderloin...



Jeremy's two-way lamb...



And, here's the chef cutting up the rib-eye for two that Nathan and I ordered, yum yum!



Then I got to blow out a candle on my chocolate dessert!





It was a really good night, with a few too many bubbles..! But hey, if not on your birthday, then when?! :)

Kids CNY Hash

Ok, so a lot has been going on this week - all good, but not much time for blogging. I'll try to bombard you now with a few big posts though! Brace yourselves!

First out the Kids Hash from last weekend. One of my favourites of the year, the Chinese New Year One (on Monday we enter the Year of the Dragon!).
This year we were promised Lion Dancing again, so I was very excited!





The hash itself wasn't very long, about 25 minutes, and the kids did really well. I took some photos in the jungle for a change:









Back at the tent, all the kids got t-shirts for the run, and then they attempted a group photo:





Then the lions came and there was an enormous amount of fire crackers set off at the same time as the drums started - so noisy!!







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After a bit of "dancing" and a lot of acrobatic moves, it was time for a "snack"...:









They eat the oranges for good luck, what the other part of the snack means... I'm not quite sure! ;)
Lastly, it was the kids' turn to touch the lions for good luck, and feed them the Ang Paos (the red envelopes with money):





Such a great afternoon!

Slice of heaven

The Turners are on a little shopping trip in Singapore so yesterday we had Hannah & Ben for sleepover. The kids were so excited, they had all been at us all week about a playdate and they have so much fun together.
After an afternoon of playing, biking and running around they finally settled down with some popcorn in front of a NZ classic - "Footrot Flats".





I was in the office and could listen in and dig along to one of my favourite NZ songs, 'Slice of heaven' (often considered as an unofficial national anthem of NZ) with Dave Dobbyn, that was written for this movie:

My first SSS

I've taken up a new challenge.

In four weeks time I'm starting the TWELVE-WEEK-BODY-TRANSFORMATION challenge, run by the Australian "Biggest Loser" coach Michelle Bridges. (Well, actually, it kind of starts already tomorrow, with the four week long pre-season which apparently is just as important!)

Four of my friends did the last season of this 12WBT last year, and even though they got amazing results from it (they lost respectively around 10kg, 13kg, 14kg and 9kg (actually this girl have lost 24kg (!) in a year, that was just the last 9!!)) - I'm the first to admit I was not convinced about the program and how it is designed:
1. You are supposed to exercise six times a week, burn around 500 calories each time.
2. You are also supposed to make one of those sessions a super session where you burn double the normal amount of calories!
3. Also you are supposed to reduce your food intake to only 1200 calories (she sends you a shopping list and menu for each week) - and I just couldn't get that equation to add up. Eat 1200 and burn 1000..? Then there is no fuel in your body??

Anyway. The more I spoke with these girls I realized the program wasn't just about what you eat and how you exercise; they had found something in this program that I've been looking for for a long time - the will to be consistent.
I've lost big amounts of weight before and I've got into different exercise routines before. But, I've never been consistent and never managed to stay at one weight, it's gone up and down - it's me and Oprah, ha ha! :)
I realized I wanted to try this program to obtain those tools to get into the right mindset, for the rest of my life. It's not about motivation, it's about consistency, about doing.
I too want to get to that stage where I don't think about it but just do it. I too want to become consistent in my life, with the right habits.

So that's when I signed up.

Yesterday we did our first Super Saturday Session.
The Team Brunei have met all through the last season, every Saturday morning, and taken turns in designing workouts that would burn those 1000 cal.
Since last season Team Brunei has now grown, and we are about 16 ladies who have signed up for this season! Not everyone will come to every SSS, some work and some just prefer to do the program more on their own - but I know for me, I'll enjoy the diversity of the workouts. It'll be great getting to know new friends and having company and support, catching up with each other once a week and... I'll probably thrive on the slight competitive edge of it! ;)

This time it was a different kind of SSS though, since it was time for a Fitness Test. That's something she gets you to do every four weeks, to measure your fitness level. Whereas the scales will show us how much weight we are loosing, this test is to set a benchmark that will be used to see how much fitter and stronger we will become.
There was eight of us meeting up yesterday at 7am, to do this test. The first part was a cardio test, a 1km time trial around the track. Run, run as fast as you can!
Here is my fellow team mates after we were done:



The other parts were an upper-body strength test, how many push-ups in a minute; a lower-body strength test, how long you could do a wall sit; an abdominal/core test, the five level sit-up and finally a flexibility test where you stretch to reach your toes.
I didn't do too shabby, I already knew my flexibility is near to zero and that I suck at doing push-ups - I was a bit disappointed with my wall-sit but very happy with my 1km time trial and my abs. Although, of course, there is room for improvement!

So, there might be a few posts every now and then about this 12WBT journey of mine. Hopefully a journey that will turn into a steady, relentless, never ending journey!

Link Liebe

I've received some "link love" from a blog friend in KL - in the form of an award:



Thank you!
I'm now supposed to forward this award to five blogs I like, but I can't chose just five so I send this award on to all the blogs in my link list and to all my readers of course! I'm sending some extra 'liebe' to the ones who leave lovely comments, I like comments! :)

On the radio - oh-a-ah-ah-ah!

I - little me - got mentioned on national radio the other day!
Listen to this:



I happen to know this radio DJ (Izan, probably the closest we get to a celebrity here in Brunei!) from Zumbaing with her.
She's fun and fab, and when we were texting the other day I told her I had to drive down to do the groceries, and asked her to play me a happy song, cause I hate the drive.
So she did!

(I was at a red light when she came on so I could record this - but then had to stop since we had to drive again. Hence the abrupt finish of the song...)

Feeling good

I have bought a few new cookbooks as inspiration to create some healthy eating habits in our family, that will stick in the long run.
Made me feel really good yesterday when I did this weeks grocery shopping, and realized that nearly my whole trolley had been filled with fruit and vegetables:



We're going to eat so well this week!

Down memory lane

This afternoon Nathan and I took on the understairs storage cupboard in an attempt to find something we have been looking for for a while. (The understairs storage was the last place to look in, and yes, we found what we were looking for!)

We took the opportunity to rearrange all our empty boxes and other things under there, and the kids got hold of their "memory boxes" I have for them. Boxes filled with mementos, a little bit of everything from the scans from when they were in my tummy, to Kindy creations, special things they've made, special gifts to newspaper clippings with them and lots more.

They had such a great time looking through all their "old" things, took them most of the afternoon!

Blondes ahead

This morning while driving down the coast road with Misuzu, we seemed to hit something with the car. It went "pop", but we couldn't see anything on the road behind us, so kept driving.
Then the car started pulling heavily to the left, which I then commented on to Misuzu, and she answered she had been thinking I was holding the steering wheel in a funny position...
Still, kept driving.
But when a car came up next to us and pointed heavily on our undercarriage, the coin finally dropped - we had a flat... *Duh*

Well, to my defense this was my first time having a flat tyre! I had no idea what sensation a flat tyre would give me, that's why I didn't stop straight away.

Anyway, we pulled over and rather conveniently there was a big lay-by where we could stop; and then we called Nathan, ha ha! Wasn't going to attempt changing a tyre all on our own... :)









A little while later our roadside assistant hero had fixed the car up again, yay!

A helping hand

As long as Oliver is distracted, he will eat anything. So getting Lucas to help out with dinner proved to be a winning trick! He ate everything on his plate! It's good to have a simpang big brother!

Welcome 2012

Well, New Years Eve of 2011 wont go down in history as our most exciting, that's for sure...
Nathan was flying and had just landed in Jakarta when the year turned here - and I was home alone with the kids, having pyjama party. I considered keeping them up until 12, but they crashed just before 11, so I was all on my own.

I couldn't find any local countdown on TV, and couldn't drink as I'm on antibiotics (sure, one glass of bubbly probably wouldn't have hurt, but drinking alone is sad at any time...) - so I amused myself by taking snapshots of the iPad during the countdown...





... then I admired the firework some of the neighbours set off, kissed the kids Happy New Year, sent some Happy New Year texts and went to bed.

Ah well, but now it's a brand new, fresh new year with all the opportunities in the world open to us! I'm sure it'll be another exciting year! Bring it on!