December 2013 Archives
Henry wanted to look really nice for Santa.
We got to Tanglin a little early so we stopped for gingerbread men & babycinnos (for the kids) & coffee for the grown-ups.
"I want a MacBook Air and an actually fancy dress."
"I want a big fat stuffed dog and a bag of Skittles that when you eat 1 it grows back."
I do love to bake Christmas cookies but I don't love to bake anything in my hot Singapore kitchen. I'm glad I did these though. I included a few no-bake recipes in my batch just to help keep the kitchen a little cooler (those items are not shown in the photo since they're chocolate and too melty to take out of the fridge).
I don't believe these two things are related, but when you're marathon-editing your blog and you're 6-9 months behind, you tend to take a few shortcuts. The shortcuts I'm taking here are: (1) putting both of these sets of photos in one post because they happened on the same day and (2) letting you know that we took Henry to the doctor, he said his rash is hives and Henry had them off & on until mid-January when they finally just went away. We never figured out why he had the rash but we're just glad it's gone! Henry always maintained that the rash didn't bother him at all throughout the time he had it.
Henry was the only one who wanted to accompany me to see the carollers at the shopping area near our house. I thought they'd be in the square but they were inside FairPrice! We enjoyed it and I think both girls regretted not coming along once we got back and told them the songs that they sang.
Santa couldn't resist picking up Henry for a photo op!
Henry sat on my foot to watch the carollers.
This took up an awkwardly large amount of space but at least we were cold in the store and not sweating outside, giving it a more Christmasy feel.
I don't think I mentioned it, but Anna did get into the talent show! They'll have weekly rehearsals until the performance in mid-February.
Sarah loves to discover snails on our walks to and from school.
Henry & I walk past this cat every day on the way to his classroom. We call him "Mr. Cat the Cat" which is inspired by Mo Willems' books. Mr. Cat the Cat reminds me of Chopstick because of his colouring but also because he has a stumpy tail.
We're getting a live tree this year! It's ridiculous, I know. The trees are imported from Oregon, USA. The kids have never had a live tree before and I'm excited to get to smell it all season!
Anna's class had a little in-class performance today; it was a really great dance and it was fun to see her class up close and personal. (Sarah was at gymnastics.)
This guy had fun making faces at himself in the mirror (see below).
In the morning on Orchard Road when there was still hope for my race.
So, I had been experiencing some IT-band issues the past couple of weeks. This was not unlike what I felt before I got diagnosed with a stress fracture while training for The Woodlands Marathon in 2012. Anyway, my plan was to run and if things got bad, I'd drop out since at this point I'd rather save my leg to start training for the half-ironman I signed up for in May next year (I'm telling you that Newton Challenge 20-mile race was awesome! So awesome it made me think that signing up for a half ironman sound like a good idea!).
My first sign that things would go wrong was when I got up this morning and my Garmin was totally dead (after spending the last couple of days on the charger). Luckily I noticed this before breakfast and with time to charge it before the taxi came. It was not, however, done charging by the time the taxi arrived. I had the taxi wait ten minutes and then we went downtown. As per usual, the Garmin could not find a satellite to save its life and this worried me but it did finally find one. Finally it was time to start so off we went. It was pretty cool to run on Orchard Road (especially since it's all lit up with Christmas lights). I felt good but noticed my watch was not holding the satellite connection and it was indicating only one of three bars for battery-life. I decided that since I knew my start time I'd just turn off the GPS and use the watch so I'd always at least know how much time I'd been out there (I could do the math myself!).
Around 5km my IT-band started to hurt but not too bad. By the time I got to East Coast Park and about half-way, I had to walk (hobble). I decided that I'd walk until I got to a medic and that I'd drop out to avoid further injury. There wasn't any first aid for a long time. When I finally did reach someone it was as if she had been instructed to encourage people to continue and "fight through the pain." I don't think she comprehended the difference between injury-pain and discomfort-pain which I tried to explain to her. The best she could offer me was a ride to the start in 3 hours. I said that that was stupid and decided I could walk the next 13 miles faster than she could/would help me.
Perhaps my annoyance fuelled me but I found a franken-walk that had me passing runners. Then there was a point where everyone around me was walking/hobbling. It was simultaneously sad (all of our dreams were dashed!) and hilarious (we looked like zombies!). Thank goodness it was overcast and relatively cool. I really wanted to run just to get the thing over with but I couldn't physically do it.
Finally I made it to the finish. The one time Craig & the kids were there to cheer me on and it was not a pretty thing to see. I don't really know what the kids thought when they saw me hobbling toward the finish but we were all happy I was done!
I'm taking at least the next 4 weeks off of running. My half-iron training plan doesn't start until January sometime (I'll figure this out while I'm recovering this coming week). 2014 will officially be The Year of Triathlon and, hopefully, an injury-free year because of it.