2010 fun in the Sun

I can't believe it is already August as this year has gone really fast! We have been pretty busy, especially holidaying, which has been great!

In March we went to Singapore where I did a Half Ironman. It was also a great holiday, but we spent a lot of money (Singapore is quite expensive). The girls really loved the Singapore Zoo as it was so big and had some great displays and shows!

Lauren and the seal!

Macaus are amazing trained birds with beautiful colours.

Universal Studios on Sentosa Island had just been opened and we absolutely loved it!

Woody Wood Pecker and the family!

Above is a view from a very slow roller coaster which we went on so many times!

In April we had Alana's 5th birthday! She had a Princess theme with 30 of her closest girlfriends (No BOYS allowed she said).

We also went to a really cool ANZAC party where we had to dress in 1940's gear!

Kamila also went to Shanghai in May to catch up with some of our friends. It was a whirlwind stopover but she was happy to meet up with all the shopowners in the markets! (I think they were happy to see her too!).

Here we see Kamila in Yu Yuan with our good friend Dan Dan.

In June we were lucky enough to carry the Commonwealth Games torch through the streets of Bandar!

We have also been to Miri a couple of times and stayed at the Marriot Hotel.

We've just returned from another weekend there where Lauren celebrated her 8th birthday.

I am still working at Lambak Kiri school, while Kamila has been doing some great work concentrating on the girls this year. Although recently Kamila has been getting pretty fit and came second in the Standard Chartered 10.5km race. There are a few more races coming up in the next few months so we'll see what happens.

Finally here's a picture of the girls on their first day of the new school year. Alana has just started Year 1 and Lauren has started Year 3.

The girls are really growing up fast. Lauren is doing piano and horse riding which she is really enjoying. Alana spends a lot of her time playing with her friends, swimming, riding her bike and playing on the play ground.

Christmas Holidays

I have been trying to regain some fitness lately after recovering from a dismal marathon in Kotakinabalu. I had a couple of nice highlights recently including the Asian Track and Field Masters where I won a Gold Medal for Brunei in the 500om! Also over the holidays we went to Miri in Malaysia where I raced in a Sprint and Olympic triathlon with loads of prize money for age groups which was nice.

Then it was time for a family holiday so we drove to Kotakinabalu, also in Malaysia, which is about 8 hours from where we live in Brunei. We stayed at the Borneo 1 shopping center Novotel Hotel with some friends from Brunei. We also went to a terrific wildlife park which was home to lots of animals including.

When we returned we had a visit from Andrew and Amy from Shanghai and got to do the tourist thing showing them around. We went to a Mosque, to the beach, showed them church at Christmas and also took them to Temberong National Park where we climbed on a canopy walk and rafted down the river. Although one of the biggest highlights for them was the Roti, which is one of the local meals here.

Christmas was pretty different here in Brunei, but the Brunei people were lovely and wished us Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everywhere we went, which was nice. We even saw Santa at the local beach which was a bit of a hoot, especially for the locals!