Despite the fact that Die Hard 2 has plot holes large enough to drive trucks through, I still rather enjoy it and watched it again on telly tonight. 

Prior to that I was at Dave's for a Christmas/house warming drinks/afternoon tea thing.  I drank a little too much champagne .. oops..

Prior to that was tidying up the house/unpacking etc.

Yesterday was more of the same (unpacking and tidying that is).  As well as lunch at Fortune Box and Melita over for afternoon tea.

I still haven't sorted out photos from the past couple of weeks, even though that was on the todo list for today too.

Thirsty..

One of these days I'll update this blog with photos I've taken over the past month or so ...

In the fullness of time.. :)

I've uploaded interior house photos.  Email or leave a comment if you'd like access.

So settlement on our house was today.

Needless to say we are very excited :)

Went over after work and took a hundred or two photos of the place.  Discovered you *can* actually see the tower from one of the rooms, but really only if the breeze is blowing a tree out of the way :)

The real estate agent gave us not just a bottle of champagne (Moët & Chandon baby!!) but a whole platter of yummy nibblies.  We stuck the champagne in the freezer for half an hour and have been enjoying it immensely.

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.

I realised tonight I hadn't downloaded my photos in over a week.. oops!!

Last weekend was very springy...

A few of my mint seedlings survived the winter and are starting to thrive again..

This currawong sat in the back yard for quite a while, which gave me time to get a photo of it..

A young (pink) daisy..

A few shots of Canberra/Gungahlin..

I'll never tire of the blossom trees around here..

Not sure what this is..?

I like the cutlery they have in the Thai place we went to for lunch on Wednesday (Lemon Grass I think??)..

Of course the big news of this week is that we exchanged contracts for a house!! Terribly exciting for us :) Turns out our new house has a beautiful weeping cherry which is in full bloom at the moment..

Saw this on the ground on Friday afternoon, which I deemed stop-in-the-middle-of-the-city-to-take-a-photo-worthy..

Friday evening saw a bunch of us go to the Wig and Pen for after work drinks. It was a good fun night, although the place is far too pricey to be wanting to do it too often. At one point we got one beer, a plate of chips and a plate of wedges. For $21.30 ?!?!? Friggen rip-off. But the beer is pretty good.

On Saturday, Annie and most of the rest of the family came over with French champagne to celebrate our house-buying (actually the champagne was given to them when Little Squishy was born, but they hadn't gotten around to drinking it.. so we celebrated both occasions :) )

With our dinner (home-made pizzas) we opened another one of our wedding wines - a very nice Coonawarra shiraz. Quite delicious.. for a red wine ;)

Today we spent much of the day cleaning up the house in preparation for moving out.

And we went to the book fair :)

We filled up a shopping bag ($10 worth) with 38 books, so think we got our money's worth :)
Here's the ones I grabbed..

I'm most excited about "The Final Countdown". Dad and I saw this movie years and years ago, and then couldn't remember the name of it for the longest time. I've not seen it again since, so will be cool to read the book.

And so that's pretty much the last week and a bit.... :)

Some time ago I mentioned Microsoft's Photosynth.  Well I have been waiting patiently for them to release a version that I could use my own photos with.  Well a few weeks ago they released it.

My first attempt was a series of photos I took of my flat in Sydney before I moved out.  But it was only 28% synthy.  The next attempt was a group of photos I took up Black Mountain tower last year.  It was much better at 83% synthy (although no idea why it couldn't make 100%).

The third attempt was with 212 photos I took up Sydney Tower last year.  It got a 95% synthy rating, and got 10 views over a few hours today (!)

Lots of fun.. :)

View from Sydney Tower

all my troubles seemed so far away..

oh wait.. that was Frankie.. in Fruitylicious.. yesterday .... get it.... hheehe

ok so nothing to report here .. other than we (mostly) had a lovely day ... photos tomorrow...

Man I'm tired.  Just need to collapse into bed. But a few photos first.

Pool balls in the sunlight..


Tonight we met up with Nat and Andrew and went to IT in the Pub - pirate night. It was a little freaky lol. But Nat totally pulled off the pirate look :)


Then went and had a look at Pablo.. which was even freakier.. heh

Andrew and Nat went off to see a movie, so Stu and I went for dessert at Koko Black..
The iced chocolate I had was quite good - two scoops of ice cream! But they forgot about me, and Stu had finished his coffee before they brought out my thing. Oh well.

And finally took a quick snap of reflections over the lake on the way back to the car..

Sooooo tired!!

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...