As we headed off last sunday on a perfect winters day, the roads clear of snow and the sun shining with temperatures above 0 degrees celsius, I felt lucky to be out running a 10km again with Shammy beside me. As in previous years the hills took their toll on me but I had Shammy's orange jersey bopping in front of me as motivation. I was surprised at how well I did as I was sure that I was almost moving backwards on the last hill before the finish line. A minute behind my time 2 years ago which is not bad when this time last year just getting out for a walk a day was a challenge :).
The extra luxury of an hour out afterwards to stretch and shower at the gym and sit down for some lunch together and to return home to 2 smiling toddlers made my day.
We have signed up for the half-marathon in April so back to the training schedule again, and an early booking of a new baby sitter we have started using will be a must.

As of next week I'll also be doing another half/full day at work depending on how the kids go at day care. We have a couple of baby sitters up our sleeve now thanks to some connections from the creche at gym. The kids love Marlene and Shaesta who help out along with our regular baby sitter Aleesha.
We wanted to expose Sol and Safiya to some more children and allow them to benefit from different stimuli they provide at day care. It will also give them some time out from being with each other exclusively and I think they will enjoy it as I know how much they love the creche at the gym. This will mean I'll be working 3 days a week and occassionally 4 when I work the Saturday also. I'm hoping this will be a good balance for everyone and if it doesn't work we can always pull them out, I'm lucky to have such a flexible place to work.
Everyone by now has probably also heard that Shammy has accepted the offer of an EP fellowship in Hershey starting from June 2013 so there will be lots of change on the way with that.
Sol and Safiya are enjoying their motility and climbing proes and there daily gabble is starting to sound more word like. Its so cute when you ask for a book and they go and get it for you or head straight for the table when you say 'breakfast is ready'. Shaesta was saying that she was singing some nursery rhymes and Safiya went over and picked up the book on the shelf and opened it to the correct page. Some of the latest words are cwap, cwap when she claps her hands together and 'gook' for book.