This week in review

Last weekend we celebrated the Queen's birthday (even though it was back in April). Thanks to Queenie we were given a 3 day weekend, with which Andrew and I did as little as possible.

Saturday I made reservations for us to go to lunch with Andrew's parents at Silo this flash little bakery in Kingston (the Kensington type area of Canberra). I had been hearing about this place back in London so I was glad to finally give it a try. I had the meat pie because I have fallen in love with all meat pies here, in fact, I'm going to buy a meat pie maker cause it's prefect for putting leftover mince, stew, etc into and making awesome pies. I digress, meat pie at Silo, this was an incredibly meat filled pie, many kinds of, pheasant, chicken, beef, and than pheasant egg all of which was covered with pastry. So yummy and filling. Andrew and I took a lap around the plaza and shops before heading back home to grab the puppy, we had left him at Andrew's parents house so he could get a bit of play time with Jessie and Austin (Kate's dog who was there for the weekend).

My meat pie goodness

With the 3 day weekend Coopa was very lucky and got taken to the dog park twice. There were lots of dogs his size and he had a great time running around like crazy with them all, which was really good for us because we had a very sleepy puppy by the end of the day which meant we didn't have to get up as early.

And that was the extent of our weekend. Oh, except on Friday some of us from the office went over to the Woden office for drinks where I was named employee of the month, very cool to get recognized for working so hard all the time, it made me happy and Ben seemed really glad to be able to give it to me.

Sunday Judy (Andrew's mom) took me to one of the monthly markets with her sister, it was a bit of a bust so Judy and I went for coffee and did a bit of shopping at a Michael's type store that I didn't know existed. I picked up some party supplies for our housewarming/4th of July party and some clothe to use as backgrounds for my awesome new studio set-up :)

We finally found someone to work on our fence and he's started already which is great, he's pulled down half the old fence already and will pull down the rest tomorrow morning before starting on putting up the new one. Looking at it already the yard seems so much bigger, I'll take a few photos tomorrow so everyone can see how amazing our yard will be soon, Coopa is going to go a little nuts when he sees how much space he has to play in.

Off for the night to see if I can find anything interested to get up to.

Fingerprints and the FBI

So Monday morning I left work to head to the central police station in Canberra. It was nothing like what they show in movies or on tv, in fact, the lobby looked like almost any office reception, not as flash but still the same. I was there to get my fingerprint taken so I could prove to the FBI that I am who I say I am so that they can run my criminal record.

All of this is just a small blip in the extensive process that comprises my attempt to apply for a residency visa. On Wednesday I had to go to a special doctor so they could take my photo and run a whole bunch of tests before taking a chest x-ray, apparently they're afraid of tuberculosis or something. It's been a bit crazy trying to get all of this done and we have so much more to do, it's overwhelming and I'll be so happy when it's over.

For my new exciting present to myself that I just got today you're going to have to check out my other blog (I know, what a pain) but just click here.

BBQ's and rugby games, the stuff fall is made for

Last weekend Andrew took me out to dinner with Will and Pip to an amazing indian restaurant called Jewel of India, we shared a feast that included 2 courses, starting with "An assortment of corn & vegetable tikki, chicken tikka, lamb cutlets, chicken 65 & tandoori prawns with your choice of one meat and one vegetable curry, raita, naans, rice & pappadams", we chose butter chicken and palak paneer (cottage cheese with spinach). I was glad Andrew drove home that night because I wouldn't have been able to stay awake the whole time.

Wednesday night we stayed late at work so the agents could go through their database and get in touch with people they' done appraisals for or to set-up appraisals. I was in charge of keeping the tally and passing around candy. It went by real quickly as there was so much hustle and bustle in the office. We grabbed some pizza and hung around to chat for a bit afterwords which was nice.

Thursday we had a bit of fun building the bbq we bought, you can see from these instructions why we had a rough time:

this is step 1....to get an even better idea of how little they told us take a look at step 2 below

so pretty much with that first drawing we were supposed to put together almost everything except the wheels...obviously these instructions were drawn by an engineer :)

this is another favorite of mine, it's supposed to be telling you how to put the warming rack inside the grill...which as you can see is completely black in the diagram. But we powered through and ended up with our grill:

in case you're wondering, the big metal tank to the right is the gas for our grill, completely full and graciously left for us by Jeff the former owner, we will never need to buy gas, ever

Friday night Andrew had some of the guys over so I went for drinks with some of the ASADA girls in the city. I hid out at home for a bit before finally joining the guys for a few rounds of poker.

Saturday we did a bunch of housework before going to Claire and Joel's for a bbq and some cocktails, a very nice relaxing evening where we let the puppies run around like crazy, Coopa is still exhausted today.

Sunday we did a bit more housework than I got to go to my first rugby game. We got free tickets to see the Raiders play against the Gold Coast Titans and it was awesome. Our seats were 4 rows from the field, it took me a bit to get into it because I don't understand all of the rules but by the end I was yelling at stupid calls and trying to encourage the Raiders to stop the Titans from winning. It was a close game ending 28-24 Raiders but it should have been an even bigger lead because the Raiders were ahead 12 points by the end of the first half, apparently they fade on the second half traditionally. Either way it was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon and I can't wait to go to another one.

the view from our seats (no zoom)

zoomed in view from our seats

Now it's back to another week of work, they just seem to keep coming week after week, we have a long weekend in honor of the Queen's birthday next weekend though so that's something to look forward to, that and the fact I got fingerprinted today for the FBI, but that's enough to entice you to read the next entry :)

New House!

As promise, here are photographs of our new house. We're slowly still putting things together so there is a bit of a mess but I figured people would want to see photos sooner rather than later. So here we go, a tour of my house, starting with my boys relaxing on the couch:

Lounge room from the entry hall, the dining room is through the opening on the right

Our bedroom with it's lovely feature wall finished. The other walls are a light sand colour that matches the bedspread. Also, opposite the bed is a wall of closets that have mirrored doors.

My office, those bookshelves were already there which was great because all I had to do was paint and move in.

Family room/kitchen from the end of the family room, the sliding doors on the right go out into our backyard which is paved, has a two car garage and is where our driveway is.

Family room/kitchen from the dining room door, the door on the far right side leads down to the bedrooms, my office and the bathroom.

From our garage, you can see the sliding door where we enter the house, take a look at this earlier blog to see how much more open this is now that we've removed all the sails from the property. View of our deck, again without the sails. The house just looks so much brighter now.

The next step will be to move the fence so that we can have a nice big green yard as well to relax and garden in.

Coming Soon

Well this past weekend Andrew and I finally moved into our new house, big yay! The weekend was full of hard work moving all the furniture and boxes, trying to unpack (so far just the kitchen, lounge and family room are together), trying to stop the puppy from peeing on things, eating packing material and getting stuck in small spaces. We also had to buy a new fridge, which is big and amazing compared to our old one which has become the party fridge in the garage.

Andrew and his dad spent most of the time cutting away all the shade clothe from overhead, it makes such a difference, we can see so much sky now when we go outside, they even trimmed some of the planters which has made the backyard seem so much bigger now that the garden isn't taken over the space.

I managed to paint my office and desk and get 3 walls done in our bedroom, we're going to do the feature wall this weekend so we can finally move into our bedroom and unpack all our clothes, as of now they are strewn about the spare bedroom where we're set-up at the moment.

Coopa is absolutely loving the new house, he just runs all over the place happy as can be. The guy who lived there before had dogs too but didn't want them going on the grass so the backyard is all paved with even the planters fenced in. The big problem with this is that for the first day Coopa couldn't find a place to go to the bathroom because he kept looking for grass. Finally we kicked the end off one of the planters and he now trots happily in there to go to the bathroom, a fairly smart dog I'd say.

He loves to be with us at all times and has a great time when we bring him into the lounge with us in the evenings so he can nap while we watch a movie or tv. Oh, and speaking of movies and tv, the old owner left us his very flash surround sound and dvd player, this player is so good that it plays my American dvds (freakin sweet) which means that Andrew and I had to curl up the other night and watch Star Trek, because how can you pass that up with movie theatre quality surround sound.

So the bit that will be coming soon is the photographs, we're going to get everything put away and straightened into its place this weekend so I can take some photos to show you all how awesome our place looks now that it's all ours. In the mean time, if you're in need of some photographs I've started a new blog to try and keep my creative juices flowing and force myself to take photographs now that I'm out of uni. So check it out and keep an eye on my work as I try some bizarre things over the next few months: http://beautifullyunexpected.blogspot.com/

I shall call him Squishie, and he shall be mine, and he shall be my Squishie

Yesterday we picked up our puppy and he is absolutely adorable and loves us so much already. He's been fairly good so far, only going in the house twice, and once was in the night while we were sleeping but he's starting to get good about going outside. He was so timid when we first got him but it didn't long before he was crawling all over us and wanting to play.

As this is the first puppy for both of us, Andrew has had dogs before but never a puppy, we took tons of pictures and thought we'd share them with you, so enjoy the wonder that is Coopa.







That's not actually how his face is, he just got his lip caught on his tooth and Andrew thought it was cute because it looked like he was snarling.

So that is our puppy, I hope you guys like him. There will be plenty more photos of him over the next, oh, 12-16 years :)

Hit 'em up!

This is just a quick note to finally explain the mystery that is 2-Up (which apparently is also a nice Australian wine according to Jess). So, the game. Think of the stock market with everyone running around waving pieces of paper, someone yelling 'Sell! Sell! Sell!' and someone else yelling 'Buy! Buy! Buy!' and when they find that they find each other they trade. Well, this is similar, except everyone has been drinking, and instead of yelling 'buy' and 'sell' people are yelling 'heads' and 'tails' along with how much money they want to bet. If someone is yelling '$20 on head' they will find in the crowd someone else who is yelling '$20 on tails'. At this point the person who is betting tails will hold on to the money until the results are in.

This yelling goes on in one room, there are three tables set up to form a square that is open on one side, this is where the officials are and where the coins will be thrown. Once most of the bets have been made people start yelling 'Hit 'em up' (refering to the coins). A person enters the middle of the square with a flat stick that has 3 coins on it, this person then uses the stick to throw the 3 coins up in the air above their head. Since there are 3 coins there will always be a definitive winner, either heads or tails, and then the winner gets the money....and that's it.

It's such a simple game but people get right into and get very excited. You're only allowed to play on ANZAC Day so people take full advantage, I've even bet a bit myself. I came out even so I feel I did pretty well, Kate won about $100 so we started to just bet with her since she seemed to be on a streak. I don't think it's something you can really understand until you've done it because I know I was quite skeptical before I tried but it was a blast.

Besides ANZAC Day we haven't had anything exciting going on. We're moving out of our townhouse this weekend to live with Andrew's parents for a week before we can move into our house. Last night we had our first work social event that I organised with the help of Sam, one of the guys at work. We all met at a local bowling alley and played a few games while eating burgers and having some beer. Afterwords some of us went to this great ice cream shop for dessert, it was a lot of fun and I think everyone had a really good time.....and that is all for now so I'm off to do more work, oh, except for...we got a puppy :)

We haven't picked him up yet but we get him tomorrow afternoon. He's so cute and tiny. His name is Coopa (that's how Andrew spells it and pronounces it although I say Cooper and it sounds the same). He is almost 8 weeks old, a mix better kelpie, bull arab, pit bull and white pointer, two from his mom and two from his dad I just don't know which two go to which parent. I'll be sure to post pictures of him as soon as we pick him up because I want everyone to see how absolutely adorable my puppy is.

Oh, and, I have a photograph on this magazine's website, they are an academic art magazine that I'm actually trying to get an article published in. Here's the link: Afterimage
Mine is on the first page, bottom row, second from the right. Enjoy!