January

I am sitting here in a very peaceful apartment. It's 10 to 11 on Sunday morning. Tara has gone for her morning nap. Alex and Gary have gone to the airport to take Ann to her flight home to the UK. I feel I should be tidying up a bit, but that will wait!! We have had a really nice January. When I last wrote, Ann was just coming back from Bangkok. She arrived back in Singapore on Saturday Jan 16th, 2 days after her birthday. For Ann's birthday, we bought her tickets to the musical "Merchants of Bollywood". It was a fabulous show - we went on the Saturday night and we all loved it.



This is Alex helping to blow out the candle on Ann's birthday cake (icing was melting a bit!!)

A couple of nights prior to that, Gary and I went to the Indoor Stadium to see Green Day. It was an excellent concert - we weren't the oldest ones in the crowd and the stadium was a fabulous venue. I have just subscribed to Time Out and look forward to knowing what else is on in town so we can go along!

In the past 2 weeks, Alex has been enjoying his school days. His potty training has come along very well (thank goodness) and we even venture out in taxis now. Yesterday, we went to the zoo. On the way home, around 10 minutes from home, he announced he needed to go to the potty. Aaagggghhhh, Gary and I kept him occupied, and also used bribery (if you do hold on, you'll get a treat when you get home). Thankfully, we made it!! I'm sure the day will come when there will be an accident in a taxi - I hope we have an understanding driver.

Tara is doing really well - developing so quickly. She understands so much, she is very co-operative and will try to get me a tissue or something off the bookshelf when asked. It's lovely to see her understanding as well.



One of Tara's favorite things to do is to climb in the stroller when it's not in use!

Our house has had a little sickness over the last couple of weeks. Gary caught a very bad cold and hasn't yet recovered 100%. Alex is also coughing and sneezing and I have had a sore throat that I can't seem to shake over the last couple of weeks. Fingers crossed, we will all feel much better soon.

We have had a lovely time with Ann whilst she's been here. The kids have loved having their Granny here - Alex has been sharing his room with Ann and has jumped into her bed on most mornings before coming to visit Mummy & Daddy.





Ann and I went to Johor Bahru - just across the water to Malaysia last week for a morning's shopping. Fabulous shopping over there, I managed to get a pair of shoes, a handbag, shorts and a dress! It is a fun day out - especially as this time we didn't take either of the children with us.



We had a lovely dinner at home last night for Ann's last night. Anelen cooked a rack of lamb and we had a 1998 Mildara Cab Sauv. Then I cooked a lemon delicious pudding and we had a glass of sticky with this. Yummm!!

I have managed to fit in 2 climbing courses in the past few weeks. I did the Level 1 toprope system course, and also a course on basic climbing techniques. Loads of fun -I'm really looking forward to going climbing with Gary now. Gary has started to go dragon boat racing with the British team. He has enjoyed it, but says it's pretty physical. I'm looking forward to going out too, but not too sure whether I might be a better spectator rather than participant! I have gradually got back into jogging. I need to find a 10km run to do now so that I have something to work towards. So far, I have run 8km and that felt pretty good - it's great to finally have a base back as I used to love jogging but then didn't do a lot of it in the past 3 years with pregnancy etc. It's great to get back into it.