Condensed milk choc chip biscuits

Today my boys and I decided to do some baking, and what better for 2 x year olds to make but the easiest recipe ever! It isn't the healthiest but it's school holidays and we did a big run/bike ride (I ran, the kids rode their bikes), so we could afford a few unhealthy biscuits!

Condensed Milk Choc Chip Biscuits

Ingredients:
1 cup caster sugar
500g butter
1 tin condensed milk
3 cups self-raising flour

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. Cream butter and sugar.
3. Add condensed milk and combine well.
4. Stir in sifted SR flour and your choice of additions e.g. choc chips.
5. Roll into balls and place on a greased tray.
6. Press with a fork. Bake until brown.

As you will see Mr Keenan was a little bit enthusiastic with the kitchenaid and after adding the flour put it on a bit too high.. so we had a major flour catastrophe. I was very patient and amazingly didn't lose it with the mess! The boys of course thought it was hilarious! These moments are the ones we remember so I need to remind myself to be calmer as it really was quite funny and not something to go cranky over.. something I am trying hard to work on!

We are moving!

We have been waiting on news as to where we are moving to at the end of the year for ages! I have been quite anxious and impatient which I shouldn't have been as it doesn't make the decision makers decide where we are off to any faster! So yesterday BJ rang me at around 9am to tell me he had received an email and we are moving to Penang, Malaysia at the end of the year, and will be staying there for 3 years. This was our number 1 choice and I had done a ton of research into Penang - schools, housing options (even though we are allocated housing with no choice, I wanted to see what kind of accommodation other families in our industry are housed in), and of course restaurants/shops etc. It looks amazing. I have been told by so many people that it is a great place but it can be like Darwin. You either love it or hate it. I am not going to be working for 3 years there (there is potential for work, but I am going to see how I go first and prioritise the children & family over my work so that we can all be settled and happy), so am keen on getting into the whole lady of leisure lifestyle!

Over the next 6 months I will be sharing information as we decide on housing, schools etc and once we get to Penang I will be reviewing everything we do so that future expats have somewhere to go to look for information. I have been lucky in just over 24 hours a few Facebook friends have passed on details of friends of theirs in Penang and I have been chatting to them. They have been really helpful and given me lots of things to start googling, and also helped me out with some boring admin stuff which I am happy to know so I can help BJ with it. Since admin is my area at work it is kind of good to be able to help BJ at home to make sure we are all organised!

I thought I'd share some pictures of Penang I found on the internet to whet your appetites! I can't wait to get there.. We just worked out we have 22 weeks until our children finish school here for the year on 12 December, and it is likely that we will be moving around that time.. so 22 weeks seems like a long time, but when you are preparing to move overseas and sell your cars, uplift your whole life it isn't all that long!

Stretching the legs and watching Rio 2!

I have had a few weeks of little activity as I have been a little under the weather, I still have a sore foot and it has been school holidays so I've been focusing on the kids. I have been feeling better health wise and my foot while still sore is ok, so thought I'd get out this morning and test it out. I felt great, and will be trying to up my kms again to average 5km per run. I am not looking to do any longer runs at the moment - just really run for enjoyment and to keep my weight in check! I have noticed I am very bloated and that is not good - and obviously a major reason is because I have been lazy, and of course when I am lazy I eat for comfort, and then it is a very vicious cycle!

So on top of exercising this morning I also got back onto myfitnesspal and my goal is to record everything I eat over the next month or so to get me back on track.

Here is today's details. I was a bit slower than normal but really just wanted to stretch my legs. It was a gorgeous day. I started off with a gorgeous fruit salad for breakfast. I always find if I have a nice healthy breakfast that I am off to the best kind of start. :)

After devouring breakfast I headed out to stretch my legs. It was a lovely 19 or so minutes (well a bit more with a warm up and cool down walk), and was lovely to run around where I live when it is so nice and quiet.

After the run I headed home and chilled out a bit before we decided to set out for the day. On the agenda was a trip to our local large shopping centre, lunch and a movie - Rio 2. The kids were quite excited to be watching this movie, and mostly to be able to spend some of their well earned chore money. Their Aunts (well my best friends of over 20 years - so their honorary aunts, and their Mum who is like my second Mum), are visiting so they spoiled the kids by buying them a new outfit and something from the shop, so they ended up not needing to spend any of their chore money, which made them quite pleased. The kids had Subway for lunch (which amazingly always wins there over McDonalds), and I had Sumo Salad which I just love. I had the Peri Peri Wrap which while a few more calories then I usually would have is worth it!

Mango & Passionfruit Smoothies

I have been a bit MIA recently from the blog with school holidays upon us. I have been having a lovely time with the children. We just got home after a few days away which I will blog about over the next few days.

I have been making lots of smoothies for the kids as they love them and they're delicious!

Here is my current creation for my three starving children:

Mango & Passionfruit Smoothies

Makes 3 Large Cups

Ingredients
200g passionfruit frozen yoghurt
1 Tbsp passionfruit pulp
1 Banana
200g Frozen Mango
300ml Mango Nectar

Place all in your blender / thermomix / bellini and blend until combined.. then serve up!

Enjoy!

Half Marathon Training update

I am a bit under the weather this week which sucks! I had my work fitness test on Thursday which was fine and I passed with flying colours.. but apart from that I am having second thoughts about future plans for my running.

I am just not sure about whether I should do the 10km or 1/2 Marathon this year as I have had a little bit of pain in my foot (which has been there for ages but feeling a bit worse).. and not sure if I should push it! Thinking doing one marathon in 2014 is a great achievement so I don't really need to do any more and maybe I can put that as a goal for 2015 or even 2016 depending on circumstances and where we are living!

Still pondering... now to lie back on the couch and rest up!

I am thinking maybe I have just pushed my body a bit too hard this year with so much running.. I will update when I have made a decision!

Half Marathon Training - Week 3 long run

I can't believe I have completed the end of Week 3 of the Half Marathon training.. I must admit I haven't been thinking too much about the Half Marathon coming up.. I have been doing my runs but not really with all that much effort!! This will all change at the end of Week 4 when I am on leave from work for 4 weeks and can focus on training and diet a lot more. I have lots of plans for the holidays - mainly to keep the children busy and will be sharing those in the next week or so. I am also going to be testing out lots of Thermomix recipes.

Yesterday I did my 15km long run and it wasn't too bad. It was pretty windy and my time was a bit slower than I like (a bit of walking here and there!), but all in all I am pretty happy with it! :)

Here is this week's exercise plan:

Tuesday: 5km run with bootcamp
Wednesday: 2 x 10 min HIIT treadmill run (goal to get as close to 2km in each 10 min)
Thursday: Work fitness test instead of 5km run. So will be doing 45 sit-ups, 8 pushups and 2.4km run.
Friday: Work 5km run/walk
Saturday: 5km ParkRun plus 4km return walk to and from ParkRun
Sunday: 16km Run

I will report back in later this week with what my plans are for the holidays!

4 weeks of fun coming up! :)

HIIT Treadmill Session

Well today my plan was to do my 5km HIIT Treadmill session, followed by a practice 2.4km run with a colleague and then do a walk and situps/pushups with my boss. I was up at 5am and at the gym at 5.30am to meet my friend Kylie to kick off the HIIT session. :)

All I can say is that it was amazing!

I started off doing 400m at level 12, then walking 100m at level 7, and repeated with my run speed between 12-14. I was so buggered but did a great time of 27:34 for 5km which I thought was great since I did walk for 1km all up! :) You can see the intervals in the Garmin data below with my heart rate.. loving the look of this!

After that session I was pretty tired but felt energised. I then did a practice 2.4km run/walk outside with a colleague to help him to be motivated, and then after that I walked 2.8km with my boss and did some sit-ups and pushups to practice for my fitness test next week. So all up just over 10km done before breakfast!!!

Feeling amazing and so motivated to keep up with this training! :)