Earthhour

Last night we participated in earthhour and switched off the lights from 8 to 9pm. Kids and dh had a steak and chips candlelight dinner during that time. (Usually kids would have their dinner earlier but it was a weekend). It wasn't so bad without the lights. The kids even practiced switching off all the lights the night before. Light is necessary for comfort and safety but do we really many lights in one focal point? Too many lights on can/will create light pollution . (Eg. I could hardly see the stars in the night sky at my home near the centre of KL because of the city's brightness... which is a pity.)

Chocolate eggs anyone?

Dd and ds won 2 baskets of chocolate eggs in their school's lucky draw. Their dad had submitted their tickets on the morning of the draw (in other words last minute!) and then when we picked them up from school , an admin lady was helping carry the baskets to the car. We weren't really expecting them to win anything but both of them got one each! We usually lose/misplaced the tickets somewhere and couldn't give them on time but I insisted dh to give it in this time as the school needs funds ( as they didn't do a fundraising fete last year). It seems there are all sizes of chocolate eggs in the baskets; large, medium and small. Dd who won the 2nd prize basket gave some to her fave neighbour and still there are heaps left. Does anyone want some? (Sorry I can't post them worldwide!) I think I'll give some to the family with the 6 girls whom I consider my extended family here. I sometimes give my kids' things to the family as so much of their stuff accummulates in the rumpus room.

Family Bike Outing

So dh finally bought an MTB (multiterrain bike) for himself and a new bike with gears for dd as she has outgrown her old bike. At first dh was adamant that he would only need a stationary bike for fitness and he won't have time to ride a bike around the neighbourhood but he finally succumbed to pressure to get one as all the other family members had bikes to ride now including me! We decided to venture out to the local park yesterday to see how the older kids coped biking in a group(while toddler had to sit on a mounted child seat on his dad's bike). I plan to enter them in a 10km family bike ride during the bike week if they were okay. I guess they did not too bad for a first outing. It lasted about 2hrs. (1 hr biking + 1 hr at playground for the kids.) We'll probably go for more bike trips on weekends now it is convenient that their mum and dad has one each. Anyway, when we were going out today, I noticed one of our neighbours had got all their old bikes and accessories and were fixing them up on the front porch. They never did this before! I guess our family's bike enthusiasm had caught on to these neighbours of ours!

Fun Run 1

Woohooooo! I completed a 5km fun run. I wasn't really thinking about doing one in March as am still a beginner (and I suffered shin splints ( ie horrible lower leg pains) for a couple of weeks) but what the heck, so I signed up a week ago after finding out about the International Women's Day funrun. I only jogged about 2/3km a couple of times a week for the past weeks and only managed a 5km jog 2 days before the event and the good thing is I finished the funrun 5-6 minutes than my 5km training time! How good is that! There were also hills and bridges to climb in the course when I was really hoping that it was a flat, flat course. The contor of my neighbourhood is a bit undulating (perhaps easier than the old neighbourhood I lived in which was super hilly). Now perhaps I need to fine tune my jog for the next fun run probably in April/May.

Geckobusters!

My kids on their quest to keep something (ie anything that breathes) as pets sometimes like to hunt down and catch house geckoes (or cicak in Malay). Yesterday, a gecko on the sliding door startled me. When I proclaimed it to ds, he totally forgot about his dinner and called dd to help him catch the gecko. They have become pros in catching the geckos and have handled and kept 3 or 4 big & small geckoes before dh and I asked them to let the poor things go eventually. I don't really fancy touching these creatures (ewww!) but my kids have no qualms about it. I think this was since they found a blue tongue lizard in the garage last month and had captured it with their dad and placed it in a plastic box before releasing it back in the backyard (It was as huge as a small monitor lizard but harmless and a slow moving creature obviously.) Thank goodness they decided not to keep that lizard as a pet!