The food was ok (nothing super special) and the waiter we had was pretty good, but unfortunately the food service was terrible.  It was a full half hour between when my meal came out and when Stu's came out.  Pretty big fail there.  But they were nice enough to not charge us for it, plus we had an Entertainment Book voucher, so the whole meal went from being pretty expensive to actually reasonable.

I had chicken ramen ($17.50)

Stu had Yaki Soba.

For dessert I had White Chocolate and Ginger Cheesecake ($10.30).  Nice but a little dry.

Stu had Banana Katsu ($9.70)

So said dinner tonight would work :)

So he came over and we got some food from across the road courtesy of Uncle Bill and cooked it up (and it was nomm) and then we played Julia's TV Quiz Buzz (which wasn't just TV, it was actually general knowledge and we quite liked it).  I won a game and the sweetie won a game.  Fun stuff.

And now it's 10pm .. whoops..

(of course it meant all my plans for tonight including cleaning my desk and doing some washing went totally out the window.. oops..)

!!

Actually I suppose you'd call it sleet, as there was plenty of rain too, but mixed in were little flurries of snow, which was epic cool!!

Did our food shopping, then spent the afternoon trying to tidy up the house.

I like how these coins arranged themselves when I dropped them on my desk the other day.

Then headed over to Nat and Andrew's and ordered Crust pizzas for dinner.  The winner for me was the "Peking Duck" pizza - with a hoisin sauce base and duck and a couple of whole leaves of bok choy.  Yum yum yum.

Had a go at iPad scrabble since we had four i-devices to use.  Worked ok, except that the phones kept dropping out :(  

Also played all 32 races of Mario Kart in a row.

Today was final cleaning of the house, and then the Canberra Killifish Study Group which we had at our place.  Six fishy geeks plus Stu :)  After they had a tour of all our fish tanks they had their meeting.  I heated up lunch.

Afterwards headed out to Corin Dam, but will put all of that in a separate post.

Other than that.  Went and saw Not the Messiah yesterday.  Created panoramas.  Did a big tidy up of the piles of paper on top of our filing cabinet.  Panicked because I thought we'd poisoned the neighbour's goat yesterday.  Sorted out the previous house owner's mail that we still get (some SPAM to be RTS, some to take direct to outlets to change addresses, some to drop off at their new house).  Did our food shopping.  Vacuumed behind the bed (1.5 years of accumulated dust - ewwwwww!!).  Cooked a beef stroganoff.  

So sitting here waiting for dinner to be ready and enjoying the shiraz we needed for the stroganoff.  

Also enjoying our lovely cosy house on such a wet and miserable Sunday (which I should point out started off absolutely gloriously!!) :)

Thursday morning (1st July) we had a bit of a sleep in. An hour before we had to leave I thought I'd better pack heh. Left on time and arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare.

We had an Embraer E190 which is one of the smallest commercial jets flying. Two seats each side of the aisle. And surrounded by screaming kids. Yay. So a very noisy trip. And no music to listen to either - no headphone sockets. There was cloud cover over Eastern Australia so didn't have much of a view so ended up just reading the Virgin Blue magazine which kept me occupied the whole trip.

Our Embraer E-190

This sticky tape on the wing tip was a little disturbing

Canberra

Interior of the E-190

Brisbane

Brisbane Air Traffic Control Tower

Arrived just before 2pm and went and picked up our hire care. Took the scenic route through Brisbane so we could drive past Stu's old flat. There's so many new bridges and tunnels here now it was a little bit freaky!

New overpass being built near the airport

Stu's old flat

Go Between Bridge - opening the next Monday

Got to Chay and David's around 3pm and then we chatted for ages before going on a booze run. Had beer and ordered pizza and ended up watching V for Vendetta. Then the others went to bed and David and I stayed up til a bit after 1am Singstarring.

Friday had a huge sleep in (10:30!!) and got to up to find we'd kept everyone awake :( Decided to go out for coffee and shopping. Went down to the lake for coffee and other drinks. Then went to the Orion shopping centre. I got a couple of Singstars for $20 each. One of these days we'll have to get a Playstation...  Had a look in BigW at Lego prices and wandered round looking at other things too. Had a sushi snack. Looked in the Reject Shop. Then did some food shopping in Woollies. Got home at 15:45 oops :)

Boats being raced on the lake

Kailyn on a mall ride

Feeding the guinea pigs

So David and Daemon cooked a roast chicken for dinner which was highly nom. Started watching The Backup Plan but lost interest in that and ended up just playing Mario Kart and then some Singstar til midnight.

Miss Mog

Saturday had another reasonable sleep in. Went out with Chay to a few garage sales so she could look for books, but they were all pretty crap. Mostly clothes.

Feeding the guinea pigs again

Played through the 50cc Mario Kart cups to unlock all the locked ones for them then played a few rounds with the kids.

Chay made a fantastic lasagna for dinner - better than any of the lasagnas I've ever made.

Then we went out and saw Toy Story 3 which was pretty awesome but a bit dark for a G rating I thought. Came back then played some Buzz. First the general one which I was an epic loser at, then the music one which I was still a bit crap at but at least the scores were a lot closer. Then the others went to bed and David and I stayed up and did a couple of ten-course Mario Kart cups.

Sunday we got up at a more normal time, dropped Kailyn off at a friend's place and the four of us grown-ups went to breakfast at Ascot Provisions (Stu got random breath tested on the way which was a bit.. random). I tried the "breakfast pizza" because its toppings of cheese kransky, hashbrowns, cheese, egg and onion relish intrigued me. It was pretty good actually :) 

Clem 7 Tunnel

Breakfast pizza at Ascot provisions

Next we headed to South Bank. Went on a bit if a scenic tour if Brisbane cause we didn't have a real GPS but even if we did, so much has changed recently it probably wouldn't have worked anyway. So we got there and managed to find parking in one of the parking stations. Unfortunately it's a flat rate $15 which is a bit rude if you only plan to be there for a couple of hours :(

Victoria Bridge, Brisbane

Anyway, wandered our way past a Scottish festival and up to the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) to see the Ron Mueck exhibition. It was pretty awesome, I'll post pics in a separate post.

Kurilpa Bridge

Scottish Festival

We were all pretty tired and peopled out at this point so headed for home (via a short detour past The Jazzy Cat Cafe where I first met Stu five years ago but it wasn't there anymore!)

David and I went and picked up Kailyn and then to Coles for supplies. Came back and reheated the leftover lasagne with some pan bread and we made up a salad too. Watched Merlin and then Waynes World (party time, excellent) which the kids didn't appreciate nearly enough ;) Played some Mario Kart then some Singstar Eighties.

We dressed up Wallace in Kailyn's clothes

Monday morning Chay cooked up a pretty awesome breakfast of bacon, tomatoes and cheese, spaghetti and toast. Then we played a little Mario Kart before packing up our stuff and saying goodbye.

Gateway Bridge(s)  (didn't realise a second one had opened earlier this year)

Returned the rental car to the airport then caught the first of two planes of the afternoon. Was a bit bummed that our seats were over the wing (I couldn't get anything further back - looks like a young sporting team had already booked out most of the back of the plane). Then someone from my old job said "Karen" and then just stared at me. Most awkward. I of course was a bit thrown, and she wasn't any help reminding me who she was. Hrmmmmm. People. They suck sometimes.

Qantas 767

View of a wing, and the Brisbane River

Gold Coast

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Sydney CBD

Had a snack in the Qantas Lounge in Sydney but the creamy sauce I put on my salad was actually really really hot horseradish. Hurt my mouth :( Sigh.

Last plane home was a 737 and we were right near the back, but it was too dark for photos. And the flight was so short that they'd only just come round with snacks/drinks before we had to put up our tray tables. Oops. In the end I brought the little bottle of wine home unopened.

These beetroot chips were cool, but they make your poo purple - which is pretty darned freaky!

So had a really nice trip. It was very relaxing and *warm*!! Winter is definitely the time to visit Brisbane! Really not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow though.. The stress is a little bit ridiculous at the moment....

One of the jigsaws the parents started while they were here and that I finished was labelled "Switzerland".

Now remember people I have a weirdly obsessive brain.  I had to know where this photo was taken.  So out with Google Earth.  Took circling five lakes before I found it.  It's Spiez on Thunersee.  The sad thing is, if they'd just angled the photo a bit better, they could have gotten the Swiss alps in it too..

Anyways.  Really terrible jigsaw in that they obviously hadn't sharpened the cutters any time recently, so the pieces were butchered and it was hard to tell if they actually went together at all.  I was expecting the lake to be impossible to do, but actually it wasn't so bad.  Funny repeating pattern too which I discovered right at the end.  

Well anyway, "after lunch" came and went and no sign of the parents.  I eventually called the little brother to see if they'd been there, but they were out so hadn't seen them.

So by 3pm I was pretty annoyed that they hadn't called.  We'd been waiting around for hours.

*sigh*

They eventually turned up, but I was stuck monitoring a rollout that was quite fail.  The parents entertained themselves with a couple of jigsaws.

Eventually they called it, so we all went off to Dickson for dinner.  Went to that all you can eat place.  It was *packed*.  The roast pork and beef were really nice and the lasagne not bad, but most of the rest of the food was a bit meh.  Biggest problem I ate so much meat it's just sitting in my stomach.  The smell of my burps is making me a little queasy actually.  Really shouldn't eat so much meat anymore... 

(oh yeah, and they never closed the door when they came in, so we went out to dinner with the front door and screen door open.. hurrah)

Friday night we went out for dinner for Andrew's birthday.  Went to La Piazza in Erindale.  The food was decent enough (I had some really yummy lamb shanks and Stu had an impressive looking pizza) but the service was pretty abysmal.  Took forever for them to take our order and food was very slow coming as well.  

Then we went back to their place for games and dessert.  We played a bit of Mario Kart while Nat baked a cake.  Then some Hungry Hungry Hippos (!) then some Big Boggle.  All were lots of fun.  Pity mum gave our Hungry Hungry Hippos away hehe (I think the one made thirty years ago was a lot better built).  And I'd never played 5x5 Boggle before - I thought it only came in 4x4!

Then we had cake while miss monster Suki looked on

Then we went off to download photos, and when we came out, Suki had eaten the icing off the half of the cake that was left - epic tragedy!  (and this was after Nat had to make a new cake after Suki had nibbled all the muffins she had made previously .. little monster of a cat hehe)

Had an epic crap week at work.  The stress is going to kill me I'm sure :(

Attempted to make a pasta sauce on Friday night, but didn't have nearly enough tomatoes.  So used it in a lasagna tonight and it worked really well.

Did lots of tidying in the garage.  Should have taken some before and after photos..

Did a very easy 500 piece jigsaw.  

Didn't do much UK planning.  Although have a bit of a rough itinerary.  At the moment based on flights, car hire options and a Stone Circle Access visit to Stonehenge.

Very excited by the Masterchef visit to London.  We'll be there in two and a bit months!

Other than that, we only left the house this weekend to do our food shopping.

Friday night built Lego

I loved the mist coming off the pool edge and damp towel

I must have looked at them funny..


We have these gorgeous bean plants growing.  Unfortunately they're completely sterile (grown from leftovers of the original crop) and not a single bean on the plants :(  So not taking any care of them, but they're still growing like crazy..




Even had some eastern rosellas down

Nat and Andrew came over after dinner for some wiiing. That was a bit of fun.  Tried to get the sweetie to play Billionaire with us but he wouldn't so we didn't play (cause you really need at least four to play) :(  Had a repeat of the Robert Pattinson conversation that we had at Shogun, which was pretty darned funny ;)  Edward from Twilight is Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter people! :)  Baked a coconut cake, but had the oven up too high, so it was sufficiently burnt around the edges that we had to cut them off - doh!  And I also attempted to make icing, which I probably haven't done since I moved out of home ten years ago :)  First batch was a bit of a fail cause I put wayyy too much water in it (it's not like making gravy! heh).  And then just before midnight (oops, we didn't realise the time) we put on Toy Story.  Nat & Andrew fell asleep by the end (and I have photographic evidence mwoooahahah)

Got to bed very late (after 1:30), then woken up by stoopid alerts at 3:20 and 8:20, so no sleep in for me.  Got up to feed the birdies and found the beans somewhat destroyed by frost and the pool frozen over (it'd been below zero since 9:30pm last night).  Super awesome day just being at home.  Emptied, organised, rehomed and repacked ten storage boxes I'd had in the dungeon so that it would be clearer for the sweetie to have as a retreat.  The sweetie made a nice (but a bit too spicy for me) lentil dish for dinner.  Made more Lego.  Watched a very stoopid movie (cause Kristen Bell was in it and the sweetie wanted to watch it). 

At this point I'd be feeling a bit blah cause it'd be the end of the weekend.  But oh the bliss of a long weekend!! :)