One of our favourite weekend breakfasts (or brunches) is home-made hash browns.  They are *so* simple - just grate some potato and fry in your favourite oil.  Or for a completely evil variation, add shredded cheese and bacon bits.  Soooo good!!

We also got some salad bits on Saturday, so had a nice (if not authentic) caesar salad for second lunch yesterday.

For dinner yesterday Stu roasted a bunch of veggies and a veggie roast.  Quite yum, but the potatoes could have done with *something*... not sure what..

Tonight I did a satay tofu stirfry.  Dug out the wok for this, which is much easier to use with bok choy than a small frying pan!

And last night we watched Happy Feet.  Meh.  I think it tried too hard.  It was almost like a Moulin Rouge wanna-be.  So it just didn't quite work for me.  Stu thought it was a little strange too.  Shrug :)

School kids are infesting the buses again.. sux majorly :(

Tonight a bunch of us went to Ruchi's in Belconnen to celebrate Damien's birthday next week.  It was a very pleasant evening :)  And got to know Amanda a bit better which was lovely :)

While the food was pretty good, and the service not too bad, they did charge us corkage for five bottles of wine, when we only had three. Bastards. So we didn't give them a tip. They can take the tip out of the $9 extra dollars of corkage they charged us. That makes two strikes for Ruchi's in my book :)

As we arrived home, saw a rather spectacular moon bow. This is a hand held shot (cause it was all too hard to come and get my tripod).. mind you the moon already did look hazy behind the cloud. That's Jupiter up the top.

So this week had me on a six day SANS security course.  It was pretty good.  Although it did vary too much between really technical stuff and more management-level stuff.

We saw this dude on the first day and asked him where he got his t-shirt from.. :) (apparently it was a one-off limited run - doh!)

We had the biggest room at the Convention Centre which gave us a nice walk up to get our food at breaks

So since I was going to be out most of Saturday, Stu invited Damien over for a war game.  I came home part way through it.

Stu's friends Ro and Alex came over last night to stay a night.  Much food was ate and alcohol was drunk.

Then we subjected them showed them our wedding and honeymoon photos, and they humoured us by oo-ing and ah-ing in the appropriate places :)

Was a very pleasant night.

Except I was rather tired today heh

Went to Ruchi in Belconnen last night.

I might have enjoyed it had it not been for the fact that:
* they put heat warnings on other dishes, but not the particular dish I had
* my dish seemed quite expensive for what it was (smallest bowl of food ever it seemed)
* I got a bad case of the hiccoughs after the shock of the first mouthful

So this was all too much for me and I had a little meltdown.  The good news was, that crying hard seems to be fairly quick cure for the hiccoughs.  I never knew this.

So when they hit again at Scotty's later, I did it again, and sure enough it worked... bizarre...

So the day of the wedding dawned still and foggy.  Always a great sign.  I had a lazy morning.  Although I did wake up early and not get back to sleep.  So eventually got up and had bacon, eggs and croissants for breakfast.  Very yummy. 

Got myself ready, then went for a drive in Scotty's new car because we had nothing better to do :)

Josie came around 10am and then the process of curling my hair began.

An hour and a half or so later....

Then my head became a pincushion for all the pins to hold up my hair.  hrmm.. heh.  Josie also did up all my makeup. 

So Kerry cooked us up some lunch while we waited for my parents to turn up (with the bouquet and flowers).  They eventually did but very late.  They ate their lunch then rushed off to get Stu's bag to take to the reception venue/hotel.  While I sat there at about 1:30 thinking it's really time to be getting dressed now, but George and Kerry were all "no you'll have to sit around for too long in it" .. hrmm.  At 1:45 I said no really, let's get dressed, so we did.  And a good thing too, as it still ended up being rushed at the end :/  Because they all had to get ready too, then people were coming and going and my parents still hadn't returned and it was starting to get stressful.  Eventually the parents got back, but then they had to get ready too.  So the whole last half hour was very rushed, and didn't get all the photos I would have liked.  Oh well.

So we packed off J&G, and mum and then Dad and I hopped in the car with "other Stu" for the ride to the church.  Stu had had some trouble attaching the ribbons to the car, and one actually came off at one end during the trip.. oops!  So we stopped just round the corner from the church to reattach it heh.  Arrived at the church pretty much dead on time.  To be met by the paparazzi.  Honestly it was hilarious, so many photographers there and lots of very nice cameras!

Managed to get my dress out of the car, had some more photos, then it was up to the church....

It was all very exciting.  Think we walked down the aisle a little too quickly though.  And so many cameras!! 

We should have had leaders for the singing, as people didn't "get" the boy/girl bits.. so it was a little silly, and the organist played them a little too slowly too which didn't help. 

I remembered my vows.  But after a little hesitation on the second line when Stu was doing his, the minister prompted Stu all the way through his.  Oh well.  So we were married!!

Then it was things like lighting the Unity candle, signing of the register etc.  And walked back down the aisle to Saint-Saëns' Symphony #3 (what else?? :) ).

Even more photographic chaos outside.  We didn't know where to look!  Lots of various family type shots were had and eventually we decided to head off to Lake Ginninderra for the "official" photos.  We went to this lake rather than Lake Burley-Griffin because the tower would be in better light from that direction (and there was a nice park with lots of autum trees - all very pretty).  So there were at least ten people all lined up taking photos, which was such a crackup.  And they were all comparing the size of each others' .. lenses... hehe (my brother won! :) )

When we'd all had enough and run out of light, we all piled back into cars and headed off to the reception.

I had "A Touch of Elegance" do up fairly lights all around the hall, and they looked fantastic!!  That and with the candelabras they provided, as well as 96 tealight candles I got off ebay, the room looked amazing. 

Entrees then dinner was served in quick succession.  People said the food was good, and what I ate of it was good, although I couldn't really fit much in given how tight my dress was, so I really just had a taste.  But then they brought out the desserts almost immediately afterwards, which was very upsetting for me because they weren't paying any attention to my schedule for the night :(:(  sigh.  So that really stressed me out for the rest of the night, because then it felt like the whole night they were trying to rush us out the door (in the end most people had left well before the official 10:30 finish).  *And* they ran out of some desserts, so people didn't get to choose at the end :(:( 

So after dessert Damien did a speech, then Stu did one too, then we cut the cake and did the bridal "waltz" which was nothing like a waltz, but people thought it was amusing.  At least it will be remembered!!

After the dance, took off back to our room and got out of my dress and slipped into something more comfortable.  *Much* more comfortable!!  Was able to walk around more, and even joined in some of the dancing.  My playlist was relatively well received, although they did complain that some of the tracks were too slow to dance to!  oops.  But I really wasn't even expecting people to dance much at all.. so there you go.  So deleted a few tracks towards the end and added some different ones in. 

Stu and I stayed til the bitter end so we could collect everything up and take it back to our room.  Because I was so stressed I didn't feel like being sociable, which meant a tonne of people just didn't get talked to by me, which was upsetting in itself.  I felt really bad afterwards that I'd been so neglectful, and so the whole thing left me feeling very bitter about the night.  Not helped by a massive pillow that I couldn't sleep well on.  So in the morning we didn't even stay for breakfast we just took all our stuff and left very early.  Thank goodness for maccas drive through! lol.

Anyways.  Noone else really noticed the problems with the scheduling, and everybody that I did talk to said it was a great wedding and good food, so I was glad about that.  Maybe one day I'll look back on it all and laugh.. hrm... hehee.  (We went back today to pickup some things we left behind and settle accounts, and they were very apologetic about everything and took off some of the cost of the additional pre-dinner drinks, so that was all very much appreciated and left me feeling a lot better).

So we're now very happily married.  Not that it feels a whole lot different.  I suppose it'd be different if we hadn't been living together first. 

We watched "The Wedding Singer" (or I listened to it rather as I didn't have my glasses on and couldn't see it) at Kerry's on the morning of the wedding while having my hair done.  There was a part were Drew Barrymore's character said she didn't think the butthead dude was the right man for her.  Which made me realise I never once had those thoughts about Stu.  And I asked Stu if he'd ever had any thoughts like that either and he said no.  So I reckon that's pretty darned cool!

Think the sparrow might be dead somewhere.  It didn't come out for food yesterday.  So it might have gotten trapped somewhere.  Great.  If we don't find it it'll prolly stink the house out somewhat :/

Stu and I went to Au Lac vegetarian restaurant in Dickson for dinner tonight.  Though fairly basic, the service was efficient and our food came very quickly.  We had a chili "squid" and soy roast "duck" and both were remarkably well done, approximating the taste and texture of the real thing.  And quite cheap too, the whole meal was only $32 for the two of us.

It's been in my head for a long time that "numbers" in food are bad.  After talking with Ali on Saturday, reading recent articles like "Don't eat anything that doesn't rot", and constant barrages from FlyLady/Leanne about sticking to the outsides of supermarkets, we're now trying very hard to avoid food with numbers in the ingredients.

So in our entire shopping trip yesterday, only three things had numbers in them - a box of breakfast cereal, some hummous and some soy ice cream.  One is obviously a luxury, one borderline, and one which will take a bit more research to find preservative-free alternatives.  Admittedly we didn't look too closely at the cereal options.

From all of that, as well as some things out of the pantry, after two nights of cooking we have a weeks worth of leftovers to tide us over til at least the weekend, probably longer.

Really must figure out how to blog from my Blackberry...

So Friday we tidied house and did fishy-type things before heading for the Big Smoke. 

Stopped in Goulburn for lunch, and got an alternative view of the Big Merino.  And strangely enough this was the only photo I took all weekend!  How unlike me! :)


Dropped in on D&Y, and even remembered to take my toaster oven, which me little brother fixed for me... he rocks!  Had afternoon tea there before heading to my parents'.  Dropped off my Lego cake-topper and picked up pinking shears and had a very Stu-unfriendly dinner which he suffered over for the next day or so :(

Then headed up to J&G's where much wii-ing was to be had.

Needed to point out that Sydney roads are horrendously bad.  The physical state of them that is.  The car rattled and bumped like you wouldn't believe. Had forgotten how awful some Sydney roads are.

Saturday we went on a shopping mission to Bondi Junction.  Stu got the hiking shoes he was after.  I tried on some too, but they didn't have as good arch support as my runners, so didn't get any.  We even ran into John, which was pretty cool.. as I thought it might have been nice to have lunch with him but it was all too hard by the time I thought of it.  Oh well.

In the evening Ralph and Ali and Luc and Liz came over with various kidlets and George did a massive roast in three ovens!  We played Emporer-Scum as that was the easiest game that scaled well to eight people.  I went from middle to third to fifth to Scum, then back to third.  Stu went out as Emporer :)

After the others left, we played more wii, and had wii-shoulder the next day to prove it :)

On Sunday I went to church with J&G while Stu recovered.  Then a quiet afternoon.  Stu went and visited Tim and Dave and Dave gave us a jackstone!  Which are devilish little things to make.  I went with J&G to A&M's where much wine was drunk and food eaten. 

And then sadly it was time to come home.  I lost it going past the airport.  I *miss* Sydney, and Sunday night dinners, and my friends and living next to the airport.  *sigh*  Managed to stay awake til Sutton Forest, but after that I collapsed and didn't regain consciousness till our street.

Today was spent recovering and tidying and shopping and honeymoon planning.

And have to go back to work tomorrow :(