Ivy Farewell...the Chingay Parade

As 9 exhaustingly fun days came to a close, we found the perfect way to say farewell to the Ivys...the Chingay Parade! From what I understand, the parade happens every year following Chinese New Year and it's considered to be "Singapore's largest street parade." I think it had somewhere around 7,000 performers! We went with no expectations and came out loving it! If you live in Singapore and haven't had a chance to check it out, be sure and get your tickets when it comes around next year!

So that ended the Ivy's tour of Singapore and Thailand. The week FLEW by and we absolutely loved having them with us for a little over a week. It made us that much more excited for the day that we eventually move back to TX so that we can spend more time with them when we return! Thank you IVYS for coming all the way over to the other side of the world to see us!!

Our final days with the Ivys :(

With Matt back at work, I was fully in charge of keeping the Ivy's busy during their last few days in Singapore. I thought the best way to do that was to take them to all of my favorite places! Wednesday was filled with a tour of Little India, dinner at a hawker center and a ride on the Singapore Flyer (that was new for us too b/c we've never been on it before!). Thursday was all about a trip to the zoo and on Friday we did the Henderson Waves Bridge and Chinatown :)

Listening to our guide on the Little India tour

Our guide stopped us by a fortune teller. We didn't really buy into the whole thing, but it was funny to see his little parrot pick a card from the pile!

Unfortunately, the woman's fortune was not a good one! Check out the look on our guide's face!

Keith and Sophie filled up on Indian sweets!

After our tour of Little India all 3 of us were craving Indian food

Dinner at La Pau Sat...we couldn't let them leave Singapore without eating at a hawker center. Doesn't it look like they were having a rip, roaring, good time?

View from the Singapore Flyer, the world's largest observation wheel :)

The Gipson's and the Ivy's on the flyer!

I like for all my friends to feed the giraffes when they visit!

At dinner in the Arab Quarter

Their last day in Singapore :(

Keith led the way to the Henderson Waves Bridge!

Relaxing on the bridge :)

Sophie is the master of the superman pose!

Museum and Luge and Cookout Fun!

Tuesday was the last day that Matt had off of work while the Ivys were here so we really wanted to make the most of that day. An intended early start turned into an 11 o' clock start (what can I say? I'm early riser, but that doesn't mean I move fast in the morning), but we still managed to do some fun things! We went out to Sentosa Island and walked through the Images of Singapore museum. I've blogged about it in the past...it was one of the first places Matt and I visited after we moved to Singapore. Hard to believe that was 8 months ago! After the museum we hit the luge! :) We should pretty much be in Vancouver competing in the olympics right now b/c we were that good ;) OK, just kidding, it was really nothing like an olympic luge, but it was still fun! We ended the day with a cookout and the Ivys got to meet all of the wonderful friends we've made here in Singapore. All in all, a fabulous day!

The huge merlion on Sentosa

Born in 1983, I'm the year of the pig

...and these three 1980/Jan. 1981 babies are all the year of the monkey.

We love the Images of Singapore museum...obviously!

Sophie intends on having Keith pull her around like this back in the states ;)

...or maybe Keith will make Sophie ride HIM around!

The luge!

After we finished up on the luge, we decided to head back towards our condo and go shopping for all the food we needed for our cookout. We lined up to get on the Sentosa Express, the monorail that brings you off the island, and jumped in. As the doors closed we realized we left someone behind. Oooops!! Sorry Keith!

There it is! The train that Keith is on!

Sophie waits in nervous anticipation for her husband! ;)

Ahhh, a happy reunion at last!

The Urbanathalon! The guys did GREAT! The wives are proud!

The title pretty much sums up this post! The Men's Health Urbanathalon took place this past Sunday and Matt did GREAT!! So did Jason! They both placed in the TOP 10%! Matt placed 111 out of 1137 competitors and Jason was 1 step behind him at the finish line. Way to go guys!!!

The Urbanathlon is a 12.5 km run (that's about 7.75 miles) that includes obstacles along the way. While the obstacles vary a bit depending on the city that the race is held in, the obstacles in Singapore included jumping hurdles, racing up stairs, climbing a wall, crossing monkey bars, crawling through tunnels, stepping in and out of tires, wading through a pool of water and crawling through a pit of mud before sprinting to the finish line. Amanda and I teamed up by spliting up throughout the course to try to catch Matt and Jason at as many as the obstacles as we could. The guys has SO much fun and looked great out there. We're both SO proud of our husbands and you should be too ;) Haha :)

Matt standing in our teeny tiny kitchen before the race at 5:30 a.m.!

The first obstacle was the hurdles. They were allowed to get over them any way they wanted, but both feet had to touch the ground between each hurdle.

Matt is in the orange and Jason is in the yellow on the right.

Look at that great form :)

The next obstacle was the stair climb, but neither Amanda nor I made it to that so the next one up for us was the wall. Again, they could get over it any way they wanted!

Go, Matt, Go!!!

Look at that, he even had time for a smile and a wave!

Jason's turn on the wall. Go, Jason, Go!!

Jason had time for a smile and a wave too! This race was a piece of cake for our guys :)

Next up was the monkey bars and tunnel crawl...

Jason is on the bars!

Jason on the left and Matt on the right. They made it look so simple, when really, I saw countless guys fall off the bars before they got to the obstacle!

There they go just after crawling through the tunnels.

The next two obstacles were the tires (where they just had to step in each one) and the "leap of faith" where they had to jump into a large pool of water and wade through it. We weren't able to make it to those two obstacles, but thankfully, Amanda made it to the best obstacle of all...

THE MUD PIT!!

Approaching the mud pit...

...and they're IN! Nothing like crawing through a stinky pit of mud :)

Almost through!

Jason gets out...

Matt gets out...

Run, Matt, Run!

I made it to the finish line just in time to see our mud-covered husbands sprint to the end!

Just a few more steps guys!

Matt crosses the finish with Jason right behind him. GOOD JOB MATT AND JASON!!

Worn out and muddy after a great race!

For some reason though, I didn't feel like giving Matt a hug when the race was over ;)

If any of the male blog readers want to compete in the Urbanathalon in the states, I think the next one is in Chicago!