Again.

I haven't even fully gotten over the last cold, and here I go getting another one.  Sick of it.

For entree, the sweetie had "Capesante Alla Grilgia - pancetta wrapped canadian scallops grilled, served with a miniature cucumber and tomato salad and lemon butter sauce"

I had "Gamberi Impanati - parmesan and herb crusted king prawns deep fried to golden crunch, served with roman lettuce, prosciutto crisps and a garlic aioli"

For mains, the sweetie had "Piato Misto - lamb cutlets, pancetta wrapped chicken tenders and king prawns, served with mash, avocado tower, miniature salad and mustard, lemon and aged balsamic sauces"

I had "Filetto Di Agnello - grilled lamb back-strap fillet marinated in garlic and rosemary served with fresh pan-fried caponata (ratatouille) and creamy potato puree"

For dessert, the sweetie had "Creme Caramello - classic cream caramel served with a brandy snap basket and vanilla ice cream"

And I had "Morello Cheesecake - white cheesecake on a chocolate biscuit base topped with morello cherry compote, toasted marshmallows and a chocolate 'stick'"

The staff even took a photo of us :)

A lovely evening with my sweetie :)

Seven of our group.  There was a lot of red!  Doc's Mad Hatter was pretty awesome.

Got to wear the Lego heart necklace Nat got for me a while back

A cheshire cat and another mad hatter

The room and tables looked lovely

For entree I had "wood roasted hot smoked king salmon, cucumber, red radish, dill scented creme fraiche, betroot jelly", which was very nice

For mains I had "prosciutto wrapped corn fed chicken breast, broccolini with almond broad bean and herb risotto, chervil oil" which was also pretty nice

Desert was the same for everyone - "chocolate pecan tart, chocolate fudge, clotted cream".  I'm not a fan of pecans so this didn't do it for me.

Stu hid out in one of the side rooms for a while to escape the noise and crowds, and ended up playing a couple of games of chess (which he won).

The band was pretty good and not too loud which made for a nice change - didn't have to yell to hear each other.  Only complaint was a tad too much emphasis on seventies music.

Was a great fun night, with good company, food and champagne, singing and dancing.

Today we didn't do much, other than going to visit Noah and Stu and do our food shopping.

We went and saw Star Trek with Potty tonight.

* loved it * !!

:)

OK so it's all Hollywood blockbuster with big CGI and battles and a pretty simple plot, but hey, it was fun.

And there's plenty of nods to The Original Series.

And of course you can see things coming a mile off.

But I thoroughly enjoyed it.

:)

(and Dave2, the lens flare is there and pretty annoying/distracting, you've been warned!)

All shall be revealed on the weekend.  Hopefully.

Not that anyone except my family will likely care..

And just to keep some colour in the blog, here's some pics..

Some leaves that were in our trolley at Coles the other week.  I thought they looked pretty.

iPhone sunset shot

Otherwise, we've been pretty boring.

Tonight I voted:

• Titanic by Horner, James as performed in Titanic
• The Hunt for Red October Score by Poledouris, Basil as performed in The Hunt for Red October
• The Man from Snowy River Score by Rowland, Bruce as performed in The Man from Snowy River
• Back to the Future Film Trilogy Score by Silvestri, Alan as performed in Back to the Future Film Trilogy
• Shakespeare in Love Score by Warbeck, Stephen as performed in Shakespeare in Love
• Music from Harry Potter Movies by Williams, Doyle, Hooper, and Desplat as performed in Harry Potter
• Jaws Score by Williams, John as performed in Jaws
• Jurassic Park Score by Williams, John as performed in Jurassic Park
• Raiders of the Lost Ark Score by Williams, John as performed in Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Gladiator Score by Zimmer/Gerrard as performed in Gladiator

omigosh it was hard!  My first cull had over thirty movies in it.  Got it down to twenty three.  Then cut out music that was not written for the film (which sadly included things like Symphony No. 3 by Camille Saint-Saëns from Babe, Finlandia by Jean Sibelius from Die Hard 2 and everything from Fantasia 2000).  Cut a couple more.  And eventually decided on the movies above.  

These were my runners up:

• Batman Score by Elfman, Danny
• Inception Score by Zimmer, Hans
• James Bond Theme by Norman, Monty
• Music from Star Trek Movies by Eidelman/Giacchino/Goldsmith/Horner/McCarthy/Rosenman  <-- be good if they'd narrowed this down to Jerry Goldsmith's
• Star Wars Score (includes music from all 6 films) by Williams, John    <-- I'm hoping this will be popular enough to make it in from other people's votes
• Superman Score by Williams, John  <-- and this too

From work - Keukenhof Gardens.  Dave2's been there and I'm pretty jealous.

One I got from Marylon in Sydney when we used to do jigsaws together on Friday lunches.  She didn't want this one, but it's taken this long to get around to doing it.

A little 300 piece puzzle from work.  This was slightly unusual in that all the pieces were the "odd" shapes.  But the pieces were pretty badly cut so kept making mistakes even on something so simple.

Another in the series of the 4x4 (16 total) repeating pattern of pieces.

A1500 piece jigsaw from work that they couldn't do because they don't have the space for it.  They hadn't even opened it! It was a bit hard because of all the purple and brown.

Spent half an hour outside taking photos.  As you do.

Luc had withdrawn it for some reason or another I can't remember (it was while I was still in Sydney).  I remember feeling super nervous carrying a couple of thousand dollars of shop takings to the bank when I was young, but this was just insane :)

Found the photo during a lot of work I've been doing recently sorting out photos into something more meaningful than by month.

So it seems my web hosting company will not allow me to post the word p0ker on my blog.

Paranoid security, much?

Let's see if this entry posts ..  nope... not until I change p0ker to something else.

And how cool is this - Andrew's building a 747 flight simulator, complete with physical controls and switches and computerised flight systems that plug into Microsoft Flight Simulater.  Extremelly cool!

And there was quite the feast of food, including a rather tasty dish of chicken, prawns and bacon .. sounds strange but it was very nice :)

After dinner we played p0ker until Tracey's chips ran out (and they had to get kids home to bed). Then we played Cranium which is a mashup of Pictionary, Charades, Trivial Pursuit and Rapidough.  The game play was a bit confusing and odd, but that might have been because we just hadn't read the instructions thoroughly.  It was fun anyway.

Saturday night we went to Josh and Ally's for a lovely evening of chatting and a very yummy middle eastern fish dish.

Then we headed to the parent's place for lunch with Aunty Rhonda.

And then across to Rookwood for Nana's funeral.

The whole family was there which was really nice.  The funeral itself was lovely.  My mum and uncles read a beautiful eulogy and Ken had put together a wonderful slide show of Nana's life.

Lots of people hung around for the wake in the Reflections cafe.

But the shocker of the day for me was finding out I have another cousin.  

!!!

Mum was reading the names of all the grandkids during the eulogy, and it included a name I'd never heard of.  Later I asked mum about it.  Turns out my uncle had had him after he'd separated from his first wife but it was all a bit awkward so he doesn't get talked about in the family.  But how did I not know about this at all??  Sheesh!  Apparently he was at the funeral too.  So that was all very bizarre.

So then we battled peak hour traffic and went with Diana and Graham to the Tradies for dinner.  Every time I've been there in the past few years it's been different.  Seems they've completed their renovations now, and there's a huge front entrance now.  The roast of the day was pork, so five of us except David had it :)  

Then back to my parents' to pick up stuff, then back to Picton to pick up my car, and then home.  I was super tired, but made it safely, with Harry to keep me company.  Got home a bit after midnight.