Friday I snapped this:
Yesterday was quite a busy day.
Went into town to spend lots of money on the Stubie. He got an Olympus E-420 digital SLR camera. He actually wanted an E-620, but that's not due out til April - after our Japan trip. He also got a couple of pairs of jeans and some underwear. Had lunch in the Canberra Centre - where I had a full roast pork meal for $8 - and it was very nom-worthy!. And then we tried to spend a DJs gift card we got for our wedding. Man that was hard work. Who knew spending money in DJs could be so hard. Unless you want to spend $300 of course :/
The rain yesterday was very cool, although we still need more of it! Hint! Hint!
(in the morning Mt Ainslie was gone, in the afternoon it was decorated with a rainbow)
For dinner we went down Northbourne Ave to find some places in the Entertainment Book to use our card for. The first place we went to (Zipp) claimed to be fully booked at 7:30pm, even though the place was only about 1/3 full. hrmmm. So went up to Breeze. The food was good enough and the service was quite good, however yet again, we came across an Entertainment Book restaurant that didn't give the deal specified in the book. We were supposed to get "buy one main course get one free", which would have been worth $28, however they only gave us a $17 discount. I wanted to say something, but Stu is more allergic to confrontation than I am, so we just gave no tip. Which made me feel a bit sorry for the dude cause he was actually pretty good. <mails the Entertainment Book people>
Then we toddled off to see The Reader (via dessert at Baskin and Robbins), and got home very late.
Today was a bit quieter. Got a bit of house tidying and Japan planning done. Did our food shopping.
And that was it really.
Less than two weeks to go! Wheeeee!!
So Friday night we left work early and headed down to the coast.
The eastern side of the Great Dividing Range, especially closer to the coast, is remarkably green at the moment.
Arrived in Bateman's Bay around sunset.
Got to the house, but decided to go back to Batehaven for dinner. Went to Ra-Cha, which we'd been to before (where previously we waited *forever* for takeaway service), but this time it was better. Ordered too much food, considering that I'd had a big lunch and several wines and beers. Oh well.
Got back to the house and was bedazzled by all the stars! So much better than even Canberra.
Got settled in, then played some Mario Kart on the Wii with Dave. I did pretty craptaculour to begin with, but then got the hang of it and was mostly equalling Dave and even won a bunch of races!
We'd been waiting around for the spa to heat up, so when it finally did we hopped in. Except it was far *too* hot! Oops. The cold spa next to the main one offered some relief so was pouring water from that one all over myself heh. Stayed up til about 1:30 and chatted (well Dave did most of the talking heh).
Saturday morning at 6:30 it was raining, so that didn't bode well. But by mid morning it had cleared up beautifully so we went for a walk down to get the papers.
Came back and then just vegged out. Stu mostly read and slept. Dave and I played Wii Play and did a 750 piece jigsaw in 2.5 hours.
Later in the afternoon we went for a walk to buy ingredients for dinner.
The weather started closing in, and saw this cool waterspout out in the ocean..
By the time we'd gotten dinner and got back to the house it had started raining.
Stu cooked dinner and we all got stuck into some beer. I lost three games of pool to Dave before deciding I'd rather play him on the Wii where I had half a chance of beating him ;)
Much beer goodness and Stu's good cooking later.
The spa had cooled down significantly by later in the evening, making it just pleasant. So we all hopped in. And stayed there til 2:45 .. oops! The poor dog (who doesn't like to miss any action) was completely wasted from trying to stay awake with us!
Sunday was grey and miserable, so we just stayed in and did pretty much nothing. Did the big sudoku and some crosswords. Played Wii. Had leftovers for lunch.
Then cleaned up and came home.
So it was just a lovely relaxing weekend. A bit tiring on account of staying up half the night ;) But very peaceful. Definitely need to do it again some time!
Had a slow morning. It was cold and grey and didn't feel like doing much.
After lunch worked on a new lego mosaic design.
Later on we went for a drive, and went down to the lake to go tweeter watching and coot and swan feeding. The black swans are a lot less agro without cygnets to care for. There was a pair that we fed and one of them even let us touch it without freaking out or trying to bite us. It was more interested in getting food than running away! :)
Then we popped into Stu's work to print out something and headed home.
This evening cooked roast veggies and worked on the Lego mosaic. Worried I'm not going to have enough blue, so have been trying to fill up the blue space with *stuff* ....
Stolen from
Fiona..
Rules: It's harder than it looks! Copy to your own note, erase my answers and enter yours. Use the first letter of your name to answer each of the following questions. They have to be real... nothing made up! If the person before you had the same first initial, you must use different answers. You cannot use any word twice and you can't use your name for the boy/girl name question.
1. What is your name: Kazza
2. A four letter word: Kite
3. A boy's name: Ken
4. A girl's name: Keira
5. An occupation: King
6. A colour: Khaki
7. Something you wear: Kimono
9. A food: Kiwifruit
10. Something found in the bathroom: Kleenex
11. A place: Katoomba
12. A reason for being late: Kids
13. Something you shout: Kamakaze!
14. A movie title: King Kong
15. Something you drink: Kahlua
16. A musical group: Kiss
17. An animal: Kangaroo
18. A street name: Kingsway
19. A type of car: Kia
20. The title of a song: Kokomo
Been trying to remember what we've been up to for the past three days heh :)
Sunday morning saw me up relatively early to go pick up Chay and David from the airport. Had a bit of a slow morning, then headed off to the Dumpling Inn for yum cha and then did some shopping. Had a swim in the afternoon then ordered pizza for dinner and played SingStar til 1am.
Monday we watched the wedding video, finished the jigsaw of Bran Castle, then wandered into town, stopping into Stu's work to feed the fishies, the Wig and Pen for some beers (including a couple of summer ones including a very sweet berry-flavoured one which didn't really taste like beer at all) and some wedges.
Wandered around the Canberra Centre, looking at DVDs, Singstars and other bits and pieces then came home.
Had another swim and David and I made a stir fry for dinner. Most of us (except David) didn't feel up to drinking much and I was falling asleep on the couch, ended up going to be around 1am.
Tuesday was a quiet day. Chay and Stu rested a lot while David and I played Carcassonne and Cribbage. Went to Kingsland in Dickson for dinner which was fantastic. We definitely need to go there more often. Food was excellent. Then we toddled off to the Dendy to see Australia. The Dodgy Dendy struck again, this time giving Chay and David tickets to the wrong movie. By the time it was all sorted out, the only seats left were in the front row.. doh! Three hours of neck craning wasn't much fun, but we did all enjoy the movie. Ended up going to bed around 1am.
Gosh what a week.
I think I blogged briefly about the moving. It was a lot of hard work and a bit stressful. Two Men and a Truck were ok, but the younger dude wasn't very professional and didn't take a lot of care with our stuff, and I don't know that I'd want to hire them again.
We were due to have an inspection of our old place on Thursday arvo, so both of us trekked out there to meet them. However they "assumed" that we wanted the inspection on the Friday since that was our last day, and didn't bother to show up. Pretty pissed off about that. Anyway, they came back the next morning without us, complained about some of the long grass at the front (prolly fair enough), and a cobweb in the living room (!?) yet didn't say a thing about the filthy disintegrating curtains.. go figure... Apart from that they said everything was excellent. So at least that's a bit of a relief. No more rental inspections ever!!!
I've spent evenings here and all day yesterday trying to get this place sorted out. Kitchen is mostly done now. We tried the dishwasher for the first time yesterday. (I've never had a dishwasher, so this is very exciting). It was a bit fiddly and didn't start working straight away. Stu fiddled a bit and eventually got it going. We also setup the amplifier and associated paraphernalia yesterday. *And* we did a big food shop. Finally have a fridge full of vegetables, which I've been craving for a week. Got very sick of fast food for a while there!
What's been with the weather this week? It suddenly got *cold* ! Top of only seventeen yesterday. Not good pool weather! heh. I shouldn't complain, it'll get hot soon enough and I'll be wishing it was cooler :)
So James is in town this week!! Very cool. So tonight met up with him and his colleague Eldon, and we wandered around til we found somewhere nice to have dinner.
We found Ardeche. And because it was in my Entertainment Book, we thought that sounded good.
I had a duck thing, and James had a veal thing, and Eldon had a barramundi thing. And we all had desserts too :)
Food was all excellent (garlic bread at the beginning was divine), although the veggies we got as a side with one of the meals were a little bland.
The waitress we had was lovely, great service there.
The only downer of the place was they didn't give us the full discount the Entertainment Book card offered. So their tip wasn't as high as it might otherwise have been.
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.
Didn't get a whole lot done this morning.
Eventually we headed out. The jonquils were begging to have their photos taken again, so I obliged them..
We went for a bit of a drive to have a look at some houses for sale, to get an idea of the neighbourhoods. There's definitely bogans all over Canberra.. :/
Then we went back to Satis for lunch. Now they do their breakfast menu til noon most days, and all day Sundays. Except on Sundays it seems you can't get anything *but* the breakfast menu. Even if you did happen to come at the right time, the "mains" menu only has about three items on it. The food is good and all, but there's not a lot of variety. But Stu loves the coffee so I guess we'll be going there semi-regularly.
Today they had these dudes outside entertaining everyone..
We also drove past the Gungahlin Starbucks on the way to do our shopping.. it was a bit sad-making.. even though Stu thinks the coffee is just ok, we do like the atmosphere there and the staff are always so friendly..... not anymore....
Did a roast chicken for dinner tonight (for me anyway). Except didn't really get to enjoy it cause had to deal with a crisis at work.. doh!
This morning we headed out into the freezing morning to go to Satis in Watson with DAB, Jo and Mandy.
Stu raved about how good the coffee was, but having to sit outside in the freezing cold wasn't much fun, even under the heater.
The others arrived and we moved to a table (still outside but at least not perched on little stools) and ordered brunch. I had a cheese and tomato toasted sandwich which was excellent..
and a side of "hash browns" that was somewhat unusual, but not too bad..
Stu had the granola, which he thought was very nice
The discussion was mostly political which I didn't find that interesting, but after I warmed up it was still a very pleasant outing.
Then we just did the food shopping and came home and pottered around the house for the rest of the afternoon. We're up to "I, Borg" in Star Trek.
oh, and I took these pics of some flowering jonquils yesterday..
oh, and this is how the sparrows get in.. they must slip on the smooth metal and fall in...
