Have I ever mentioned that my brother rocks!!??  Yup, seems I have .. twice.. :)

He was coming down to Canberra for the week to work on a train, so last night came over to stay the night.  This morning we thought maybe he could have a look at the adsl link which is a bit flakey, and maybe replace a light fitting for us.

Instead he invited his friends over (Shane and Chris with Lowie in tow) and they wired the whole house!!!  Cleaned up the incoming phone line, cat 6ed the study, lounge room, spare room and bedroom, with everything terminating to the garage where we'll get a proper switch setup, as well as fixing up the aerial and wiring up the downstairs room with an aerial outlet...!! omigosh!!  We were so excited - this was so much more than we were expecting of the day!  And we did end up getting the study (dining room) light fitting replaced, a compact fluorescent dimmer installed (only $10 for dimmable compact fluorescents these days, although you do need a trailing edge dimmer not a leading edge one like most currently are), and the other dimmer moved to the living room chandeliers.  Totally f-ing brilliant! 

Of course having so many people in the house all day was pretty draining, so we ordered pizza and watched the first couple of episodes of Californication season 2.  And then I had a meltdown because my computer wouldn't connect to the internet.  We replaced the cable (that was working previously) and all seems well, but it was just too much to bear at the time.  

And we didn't get anything else that we'd been planning to do this weekend done, but hey, who's complaining..?? :)

Cooked 2.5 kilograms of bacon this morning.  And 9 eggs and 750g of hash browns.  All with a dozen bread rolls and 3 litres of orange juice.

Amongst seven people.

!!

What was even scarier is that we ate it all :)

Why is it I always seem to leave blogging photos til the end of the weekend..? :)

This was actually taken during the week - Canberra is so green at the moment.  Gotta love that la nina weather.  But even with all the rain we've had this year, our dams haven't risen all that much.  Which is why cramming more people into Canberra is rather a silly idea..

At work on Friday, one of the sections had some of these for their morning tea - Lolly Gobble Bliss Bombs!!  I haven't had these in years (although I've had caramelised popcorn in that time).  I instantly got a craving, so when Windy said he was going to the shops I asked him to buy me a packet...

Yum! Delicious!

On Saturday we trekked out to Fyshwick to pick up a printer for me little brother. What a beast! This stoopidly big A3 laser printer that he picked up at auction for $7 (!) We also stopped at a coffee machine shop so Stu could drool over the coffee machines and grinders. Then we went to Fisher Discounts to go to the upstairs section that we missed last time we were there (which we never would have known about had someone at work not told us). I got myself a model of the Space Shuttle which I've wanted for ages (although this one is by Revell so the quality may not be great), and Stu got a bunch of little bits and pieces to go with his wargaming stuff. But the total came to less than the price tags we added up, so we were under the voucher by like $20. To save having to come back and spend the remainder, we impulse bought a little electric screwdriver that was at the counter. Oops :)

I also took some more photos of our English Country Garden on Saturday. It's really quite a lovely garden, and things take their turns flowering all through spring to summer. At the moment the lilac is starting to bloom, the wisteria is going nuts, this big creeper thing is about to explode with flowers, irises have burst forth all over the place, some pink/purple daisies are quietly doing their thing in the shade, and lavendar and roses are getting ready to go. Some fresias I planted are also quietly blooming yellow in the shade near the daisies. Rosemary and daphne have been and gone, as have the jonquils that I planted. I'll actually kinda miss this garden when we move. Will have to try and take some cuttings of a few things...

The rest of Saturday was spent packing, cleaning, and dismantling the Millenium Falcon.

Sunday: repeat.

Monday: repeat, with weeding of the yard.
Actually didn't get much packing or cleaning done today. Oh well.

A couple of people have done this meme...

it's the "take a photo of yourself as you are *right now* and post it on your blog" meme...

*shrug* :)

Went to a trivia night tonight with Natalie and Andrew, and even Stu got back from Melbourne in time to come.  We came last the first couple of rounds, but made a comeback and ended up coming third.  Which was pretty good considering we only had six people on a table that could have had ten.  So per-capita we probably won ... heh

Sunday Stu arranged another breakfast out and about. Although this one at the slightly more civilised time of 9:30. Met up with Pauline and Brett at Satis (where yet again we were forced to perch on tiny stools while we waited for the others to arrive, but did manage to squeeze onto an (outdoor) table eventually). I swear that place needs to invest in some towels to dry up the back section which has been wet every time we've been there >:(

Had their "big" breakfast this time ($12.50).. rapidly running out of things on their menu to try...

Had a fairly quiet rest of the day before heading over to Potty's for cocktails and nibbles.

How many people do you think it takes to make pina coladas? Four apparently - three workers and one supervisor ;)

The end result was pretty cool though...

And the other ones they made were even nicer..

And Kerry had a nice selection of finger food too..

So it was all very pleasant.

We were planning on going out to dinner afterward, but Stu came down with a migraine, so we ended up just going home. Whereupon we ordered a pepperoni pizza on puff pastry... omigosh!! soooo good!! (we've had them before but had forgotten their evil goodness heh). Stu suffered on the Monday for it, but claimed it was totally worth it ;)

As an aside, on Saturday night we made home-made pizzas and opened another of our wedding present bottles of wine - this time a Pepperjack shiraz, which went surprisingly well with the pizzas.

Urghh... tiring weekend....

Saturday morning had to go shopping and clean the house.

Found this recycling bin at the markets in Gungahlin which cracked me up..

So then the parents arrived. Stu made a delicious vegan-friendly fried rice for lunch, and then we looked at honeymoon photos. Pretty much all afternoon. :/

Around 6pm we headed off to Della Rocca for dinner (our birthday dinner, the parents' shout). I had a veal dish (allan pana I think) which was pretty good. But we still had room for dessert, so had some.. heh. Even managed to convince mum to drink a little of the sparkling cabernet we took along (!)

So came back and finished going through the honeymoon photos. Mum liked the Legoland and Alps pics the most. Dad didn't really care for all the "city" photos.. but as that was about 95% of the trip, he got a little bored.. hrmm..

This morning we sat around wondering what to do when Potty called up and said they were heading out to Casuarina Sands for a picnic, so we tagged along.

The ducks came to be fed..

Walked down to the weir which was very pretty..

Scott made Jake a raft, so they brought it down to launch it..

The boys scrambled out to the middle..

It took a couple of relaunches to get it to finally go..

Having done that, we wandered home again.

The parents left, and just after that, Annie and the kids arrived. We all went for a little walk.

This galah watched us..

It was very bright in the sun..

And then home again.

I slow cooked a roast pork for dinner. We considered inviting people over, but we were a bit peopled out by this point. The pork turned out really well, and really cheaply too - the bone was very small, so mostly meat at $4.45/kilo.

And that was our weekend. I could use another one...

Remember I was excited the other week because my *car* was on Street View?!?  

Well *I AM ON STREET VIEW* !!!!

Was showing the parents street view tonight and went down the street and there I am waiting at the bus stop!!  I would have seen the Google car and not even realised!! Fail!! hehehe

I don't understand how people could be upset about themselves being on Google Earth - I think it's fricken awesome!! :)

For lunch yesterday we thought we'd try out the Billy Baxter replacement cafe - Central Cafe.  When I first saw the name I wondered if it'd be anything like the one at Queanbeyan, which is cheap and has massive sized meals.  Well this place is nowhere near as cheap and we didn't attempt any of the king size meals.

Stu got a veggie burger..



and I got a caesar salad...



The caesar salad wasn't bad, my only complaint was that the croutons were a little soggy.  I like them to be really crisp.  But there was a decent amount of bacon and cheese, so all good there.  Stu's only complaint was lack of anchovies (they were listed on the menu but not delivered.. not that I'm complaining cause I hate the things ;) )

Stu thought the coffee was ok, but not fantastic.

It was very crowded, obviously lots of people wanting to try it out.  But for the price, we won't be going there too often.

The last three mornings have had the coolest frosts here in Canberra.  I dug out my camera this morning and took a couple of snaps, before hastily hiding the camera from fellow commuters :)




This morning we decided to have a big-bang morning tea, which consisted of two kilos of bacon, two dozen eggs, 18 bread rolls, a packet of frozen hash browns and six litres of orange juice.

For nine people :)

Actually we did pretty well, having just a few eggs, three rolls and not much bacon left over.  And three litres of orange juice :) So we had that between 10:30 and 11:00.  And I didn't need to eat another thing.  All day.  In fact when Stu got home around 9:30pm I still hadn't eaten anything!


Tonight after catching up on some Amazing Race episodes, we watched Love Actually til rather late.  I remember this was Fifi Box's favourite movie for a while and she'd seen it like ten times.  The first time I saw it I enjoyed it but didn't think *that* highly of it.  Then saw it again and appreciated it more.  And now I think it's rather a lovely movie, and tempted to get it on dvd...