2009 - A year in review




One hour till midnight!!! Happy New Year everyone, we hope you have a blessed year with so many adventures to come in 2010.
We are chillaxing with the family, you can tell by the photos that we are half asleep.

Two thousand and nine has been a huge year for the both of us, apart from the obvious that we both got married plenty has happened. Here's a list of achievements/goals, good things as well as the sad and milestones which have happened this year:

Farrah:

- Officially no longer a graduate
- Became responsible with my money and saved consistently.
- Planned a wedding and got married
- Bought land and started building a house
- Met my fav aunty again after 10 years.
- Have made lovely new friends but sadly lost some.
- Started using Twitter and became addicted
- Phillip Island road trip with the girlies
- I think I've read over 40 books so far this year.
- Started to wear red lipstick
- Started gym first time since highschool.
- I lost 10KG's and feel so much healthier.
- I gave away half of my clothes but still I can't find any room in my wardrobe
- Discovered the awesomeness of Thai food and Dumplings
- I didn't get sucked into Apple products trend i-what?
- Started Bible Study Fellowship at Camberwell - best ever!
- Moved houses.
- Learnt how to make chocolate truffles
- Got introduced to Stargate and became a huge sci fi fan
- Henry Roth gave me free bridesmaids dresses!
- Cape Patterson road trip
- Began my life with the most amazing man ever.



Wayne:

This year sees the culmination of 4 years of patience and
hard work paying off, it hasn't been easy but I have had so much
support from family, friends and most importantly God.

- Got Married to the amazing Farrah (Thought I would mention it again)
- Graduated from RMIT with Distinction!
- Finished up working at Big W forever....
- Scored a 2 year graduate position doing programming
- Bought Land
- Building a house
- Moved house again (since leaving home in 2004 I have moved house on average once a year)
- Watched All of Star Trek Next Generation, Enterprise half way through Deepspace 9 and Voyager.
- Attended 2 Funerals (Sad Face)
- Discovered Spicy food and we can never be friends
- Had a camera shoved down my throat and up my bum...
- Made friends with the Pizza guy!
- Surprised Iraqi's with my limited Arabic
- Made friends who also love Starwars
- Met some new musos to Jam with

Looking forward to 2010!!!

Honeymoon itinerary




There's been plenty of first-times for us, and one thing we are very excited about is our first big trip together.
Major credit goes towards Trip Advisor, we wouldn't have been able to plan this holiday without reading its reviews and other informative articles.

We planned the whole honeymoon via Internet. It would have been a lot easier to have it done by a travel agent but Farrah is big on research. We did a lot of reading online and found good places to stay, to go, to eat and we found some really good deals. But if you're planning on planning it this way, you have to have the patience. Farrah nearly ripped her hair out at one stage, booking every single thing and making sure it's on the right date, time, etc can be quite draining. It's worth it in the end ;-)

It was hard for us to decide where to honeymoon because December and January are difficult months to holiday overseas, unless you like winter. Eventually we decided to stay in Aust/NZ and save the big europe holiday for another year, maybe after we finish building our house.

So behold, our itnerary for January. If you spot us, say hello!

2/1/2009 Queenstown Arrive in QT at midday then
3/1/2009 Queenstown Dinner & Haka performance @ Skyline Gondola,
4/1/2009 Queenstown Shotover jet then [free time]
5/1/2009 Queenstown/Milford Sound Milford Sound overnight cruise
6/1/2009 From Milford to QT
7/1/2009 QT to Lake Tekapo Drive to Lake Tekapo, stay overnight.
8/1/2009 Lake Tekapo to Hanmer Springs Drive to Hanmer Springs
9/1/2009 Hanmer Springs Spa thermal all day pass - total relaxation.
10/1/2009 Hanmer Springs to Christchurch Drive to Christchurch
11/1/2009 Christchurch Shopping -Punting on the Avon.
12/1/2009 Christchurch Lord of the Rings tour
13/1/2009 Christchurch Akaroa - Swim with the smallest dolphins
14/1/2009 Christchurch to Gold Coast Catch a plane to Gold Coast
15/1/2009 Gold Coast
16/1/2009 Gold Coast Dream world theme park
17/1/2009 Gold Coast
18/1/2009 Gold Coast Movie world
19/1/2009 Gold Coast
20/1/2009 Gold Coast to Melbourne Plane back to Melbourne

Blessings,
Wayne & Farrah

Back at work




It's only for a few more days until we are off to the honeymoon :)

But it's quite depressing sitting here when there's NO ONE at the office, well that's a slight exaggeration :P Still...Can't help but imagine myself singing All by myself - Celine Dion. Actually thinking of the lyrics makes me uncertain about the relevance of the situation....haha oh well.




Enjoy...

The festive season continues



We're enjoying a lovely lunch with Farrah's Aunty, which means MORE FOOD! Hurray. Of course Nana has to be involved in the cooking process somehow, she made Iraqi kebabs.
We'll need to be on a serious gym regime after NYE and honeymoon. Phewph!

Entertaining our first guests



Last night Wayne's uncle and his wife came over for dinner, so this meant they were officially our first guests which also meant that we were due for our first grocery shopping trip togethhher. How exciting!! They were visiting from Sydney, so it meant a lot to us that we could have them over.
We had so much fun, they are such lovely people and had a lot of advice to give about marriage life.
They both work and have 3 children (very smart kids too) so it was so interesting to discuss the many implications that we may have to face with raising kids. We'll have to leave the details of the discussions for another blog!

We cooked chicken and lamb kebabs on skewers and had greek salad with hummus on the side yumm. Luckily our BBQ worked! it hasn't been used in forever.

Our humble home is slowly in functioning mode right now, and coming to terms that we are husband and wife....kind of.


With love,
Wayne and Farrah

Boxing Day



Chaos in Chadstone shopping centre! can't believe we actually managed to find a parking space...after 20 mins. Bought 2 dresses from Karen Walker's label Hi There, very different from what I normally wear especially the pink dress. I hardly wear pink. Wayne was fun to shop with but he got hungry straight away! men need their food. Again the hunt for a table to sit and eat was so bad, it's like you had to stand over people's tables and wait for them to finish and as soon as they stand up everyone bolts to the chairs.......THIS IS MINE!

After we finally ate, Wayne got trousers for work and we bought some cute table mats for our new dining room table then we went home. It's too hard to shop when there are a million people everywhere. It just gives you the biggest head ache.

Now we're back at my parents, and we are being fed again...more food and more food.

Christmas Day!




Merry Christmas Everyone! Today is the first of many Christmases together as a married couple!

More than just being a great time to spend with family, Christmas has such a great meaning to us, we celebrate the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ to reconcile us back to God through Jesus' sacrifice on the cross. That's an awesome reason to celebrate and because of God's free gift of salvation we give gifts to each other which is awesome as well!

After the wedding and setting up our house, Farrah and I decided to refrain from spending moolah on gifts for each other and put the money towards a spectacular honeymoon in New Zeland and the Gold Coast (I'm sure if you stay tuned you will hear more about it) and to everyone else... well... you will just have to wait and see.

The day has started with Farrah's mum cooking us a hearty breakfast with pretty much the lot. Then we were off to church and we sung heaps of caroles and our senior pastor talked about the importance of celebrating Christmas everyday of the year and not just going to church on Christmas day once a year and to make a commitment. We had a good time catching up with all our church mates and in the mean time we were eager to return to Farrah's place for more food and of course presents!

We had a huge lunch, Nana made so much food from roast chicken to kibbi yakhni to christmas pudding and baklava. After stuffing our faces we opened our presents and spent the rest of the day till about 9pm just chatting and eating left overs.

Some of the gifts we got were, a dining room table, perfumes, makeup, tv, starwars stuff (for wayne of course), christmas ornaments, pjays, movie tickets, lamp touch lights and mooolah. We are super blessed to have such generous family and friends.

Hope everyone had an amazing Christmas, we wish you all the happiness and may God bless you for all the years to come.

Here are a few random photos of the day from brekky to church to us posing and wayne climbing up the stairs without using his knees? haha we were a bit high on christmas spirit and hungry :P










Last bit of shopping





We finished shopping for little gifts. Last night Wayne came with me for a bit - note the picture is Wayne not being a happy chap standing next to a pink shirt...no pink for Wayne.

This Christmas it's low key for us, we're pretty poor at the moment with wedding and building a house but we've still managed to buy pressies for imediate family. It's so easy to be caught up with 'presents' and the stress of it during Christmas. Always have to remind ourselves that it's not about presents!! we're looking forward to celebrating the birth of Christ and spending quality time with the family.

Looking forward to beautiful Christmas day with Farrah's family. In the morning we'll be off to church then back to AWESOME lunch. Nana is cooking up a storm, she'll be making Kibbi Yakhni, quite the traditional dish which we both love. It's a dish that is appropriate for winter weather but we still can't help but eat it in summer.

http://iraqifamilycookbook.blogspot.com/2008/03/kibbi-yakhni-rice-kibbikubba.html

Tomorrow you'll get a glimpse of an Iraqi-Australian Christmas. Hopefully we'll post a few pics.

Wayne & Farrah

Ruffffles and our favourite girl



This morning I realised that we have pillows with ruffles, and somehow Wayne is OK with that? hahaaa oh dear.


Wayne has been working late every night which means I've had to find things to do. It's quite sad that so early in our marriage and we're hardly spending anytime together. But soon we will have same schedules when he starts his new job.

So the other day I hung out with my favourite girl (she was our flower girl) Mariam. The cutest thing alive! she is really close to Wayne and has repeatedly said that she would marry him so I guess I better watch out.
We were at the shopping centre and she wanted a new umbrella, her mum bought her one and you know when you have something new you just want to use it right then and there? well that's exactly what she did. Walking around with an umbrella inside a shopping centre, haha.



Our Satay is better than yours


At least this is proof that we're not living on just pizza and that we're more than capable of cooking BUT it's not 100% guaranteed to taste as good as it looks! lol chicken satay was first on the menu.

10 days has already gone. Yesterday I was asked how long we've been married for and I said in an excited tone '10 days' the lady rolled her eyes as if to say 'oh you have got a long way to go'. Whatever. We are loving marriage life and leaving the rest in God's hands :P

Life is so much simpler when your man is domesticated. We've been splitting up chores, actually it has happened quite naturally. Wayne has been doing all the washing, can you believe he washed all the curtains? I can't imagine Dad doing that.
Dad is proud of his tea making skills and his trifle which by the way is fantastic, but that's about it.

Wayne has been helping with dishes and other cleaning as well. I'm sure all you ladies out there are thinking he's just doing this because it's the start of our marriage. I don't know I think he will continue to be this way. He has been living on his own for a while so he's quite used to it.

As for me, I've just been sitting around watching TV and letting him do all the work hahaha I wish! I've been cooking, cleaning and decorating (because that's highly important).

There is much to be done this week and we may have a sneak peak professional shot of our wedding. So exciting!

x
Farrah

Fi's visit from Canada

Last night we went to a BBQ gathering for Farrah's friend Fiona, we haven't seen Fiona in about 20 Months. Fi has been working as a Nanny in Canada, she has had such an interesting lifestyle change and it was great to hear about her adventures. It definitely made us excited about our own trip coming up to NZ and QLD. We can't believe it's only a couple of weeks away.
We haven't travelled together yet, other than to little places like Phillip Island so it will be quite interesting.

Enjoy the pics, click on the image for larger view.





Our Christmas Tree


Since we're not going to have internet tomorrow we are fast forwarding to day 8.

Our Christmas tree! it's gold and red theme and we couldn't go past having polkadots because that's just Farrah's obsession. Hope you like :)

PS - Thanks to Brad & Deb for giving us the christmas tree.

Waiting for Farrah


Hi, this is Wayne posting today, first time, woot! It's now one week since we got married. About this time last week the nerves/excitement were really starting to set in. I never really had a doubt that Farrah would make it to the wedding, but when you are standing up there waiting for the woman of your dreams you can think up incredibly bazaar hypothetical situations as why your bride is late. Now when I say late Farrah was only late by a matter of 5 mins but at the front of the chapel that is an eternity... Even after the flower girl and all the bridesmaids had walked the aisle time slowed down almost like the bullet time in the matrix and for that moment it felt like a whole life time had passed before she emerged from behind the door, her beautiful face beaming with a smile that could bring any man to his knees. It was at this moment that the war between my irrational fear and my joyous excitement was over, leaving me with only the excitement and joy! Farrah's name translates from Arabic to Joy, with this I can truly say that the God has brought with Farrah, Joy into my life!

Wayne

Advice from our friends




As a guestbook alternative in the wedding we had set up a wishing tree for people to put up a polaroid photo and a little note typed using an antique typewriter.

Our dear friends Sam and Brenda who were also involved in the ceremony of our wedding wrote the most random and interesting note. Love it!


Brenda and I thought that as we are 6 years and 6 day veterans of the marriage game, that we should offer you some marital advice. So here goes: Always make sure you can laugh at your own stupidity, especially you Wayne. Some of our most amusing memories are of my misunderstandings and the subsequent random statements. If you ever need a laugh simply ask Bren what my definition of a lock is or whether I understand knots. We will be praying for you both as you start life together. God bless you. Love Sam & Brenda.

Wayne graduates!





So incredibley proud of Wayne, he graduated with a Bachelor of Computer Science (web systems) with a DISTINCTION! It's quite amazing to achieve that as he was living on his own and working till midnight most nights and somehow studying and scoring a distinction. His determination and his ability to work so hard is astounding, makes me quite speechless.

He already has a job lined up for him in Feb, starts just as we get back from honeymoon.

Love you lots Waynie.

He packed my lunch




Let's just take a break from talking about the wedding, I'm loving marriage life! woohoo Wayne packed my first lunch today. Burittos my favourite and the way he packed it was even cuter, little tubs for different sauces and toppings. So lovely <3
Looking forward to packing him lunch, ah the life.

We don't have internet at home at the moment so Wayne can't blog yet, but he will and he is looking forward to it a lot!

xx
Farrah

The Ceremony (Farrah)




My heart started pounding when we arrived at Stones of the Yarra Valley chapel. I always feared the idea of walking down the aisle and everyone’s eyes would be on me. Thankfully I wasn’t going to walk down on my own, dad was right by my side and I didn’t have to worry about tripping over.
I’m not a fan of tradition but there are a few things that I absolutely adore, I like the symbolism of dad giving me away. My parents both looked after me so well and were extremely generous and supportive throughout my whole life. It was so special to have dad stand next to me.


The music of Phil Wickham started to play, we chose the song Beautiful. It’s an amazing song which represents the beauty of God and his awesome creation. It always gives me goose bumps when I listen to it so you can imagine what it would have been like when I heard it play at the chapel…I was holding back my tears.

The girls walked into the chapel gracefully and dad and I followed along. Wayne’s face expression was precious, he was happy and I could see his eyes shimmering as he was also developing tears in his eyes. I had to look away because he would have made me cry, so I managed to look to my left and right to see all the guests and their big grins which I’ll never forget.
A lot of my married friends told me to take it all in, best advice ever given. To be able to remember everyone’s faces is quite priceless.

Dad and I stopped when we reached the first pew up the front and Wayne walked towards Dad to shake his hand and Dad said ‘Take care of her’ and I can’t remember what Wayne said exactly but he agreed of course and we had a bit of a giggle. He grabbed my hand and we walked to the front and he whispered ‘You are so beautiful’…He continuously repeated this throughout the whole ceremony, what a sweet heart. He looked so handsome!

When we started singing the hymns I got a bit overwhelmed. The lyrics to the songs meant a lot to me and at that moment I just felt that both Wayne and I were extremely blessed. I’ve done pretty well holding back my tears up to this stage but when I was singing I couldn’t help but sob and I pretty much balled my eyes out. I could see Wayne’s Mum and sister starting to cry too. One thing I didn’t even think about is tissues!!! I stood there sniffing for a bit after the song was over and lucky my aunty noticed and handed me over a tissue. It was a bit embarrassing! Thankfully my makeup was still intact though ;)

During the message we were distracted a little bit by my cheeky cousin, Mariam. She kept pulling faces at us and at one stage ran up and gave us a big cuddle. She kept asking us why we were getting married. I don’t know if many brides would have been upset if something like that happened to them. But for me it was special, she put a smile on our faces and it was so her, it’s definitely a story I’ll share on her 21st.


Ok I need to learn to stop writing essays so I’m going to go through the rest quickly.

Our vows were quite traditional, John originally didn’t want to compromise with the vows. We changed them a little bit, added a few lines and showed it to him and he was quite impressed.

I, Wayne, take you Farrah as my best friend to be my wedded wife,
To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness or in health, to love and to cherish you as Christ loved the Church sacrificing Himself for it, to lead and share all of life's experiences with you with God’s guidance. That through His grace, Farrah, we may grow together into the likeness of Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord, 'till death do us part. And hereto I pledge you my faithfulness.



I, Farrah, take you Wayne as my best friend to be my wedded husband,
To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness or in health, to love and to cherish you, to submit myself unto you in all things, and to follow you through all of life's experiences with God’s guidance. That through His grace, Wayne, we may grow together into the likeness of Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord, 'till death do us part. And hereto I pledge you my faithfulness.


We exchanged rings and we were announced husband and wife and I giggled and bounced up and down and all the guests laughed, I couldn’t believe we were husband and wife!!!!

We walked out to Walking on Sunshine – Katrina & the Waves because it’s one of the first songs that Wayne and I remember dancing to. Everyone threw petals at us; they were music sheets wrapped as cones filled with rose petals from my parent’s backyard.

The one annoying thing about the Stones is the FLIES!


We took a few photos but not as much as we wanted to because there was a wedding straight after and they kicked us out pretty quickly. I had to do the running bride shot through the vines and it was so much fun.

Next instalment will be about the reception :)

Morning of the wedding (Farrah)


Wayne you are my husband, Farrah you are my wife. What? wait say that again. Nope still hasn't sunk in yet.

Hi! It's Farrah. I'm going to try and remember our wedding on Saturday. It's such a blur to me right now, we've waited for it for so long and it just happened in one day, just like that.

The night before I didn't get much sleep, I would put my head down then wake up and remember something I've forgotten to do. My dearest cousins Sara and Sandra from Sydney decorated the stairs with fresh roses and leaves from our garden. Dad also filled the house with roses, every colour you can imagine. I managed to get to bed around 11pm. ouch!

On the day, the wake up call for me was 5:30am, when I heard the alarm I felt like doing a million back flips...but clearly I'm incapable of doing that so I just squealed. The girls and the makeup lady (Vera) and hairdresser Sharon (from beauty247) arrived at 6am. In the mean time, Mum was running around in the kitchen making awesome food platters for us, lots of spring rolls, sausage rolls, meat pies and arabic sweets.

But Mum...it's 6am. She said she didn't have any other time. So cute. That's her middle eastern side for you! food food and more food. I definitely ate a lot at the wedding and made sure I wasn't hungry, thanks for the advice Jacqui.

We set up to get our hair and makeup done in my parents room, we had a small stereo to have music in the background. Jacqui kept singing her Panda song, and eventually we all told her to shutup haha. We still love you Jacqui ;)

Around 8am the flowers arrived, made by the lovely Debbie O'neill who did such a wonderful job. I was so happy with my peonies, roses, berries, ivy and doda vines. It looked amazing! I had a bit of a freak out when I saw some pink peonies in the bridesmaids flowers, I never asked for pink but they turned out great. Debbie also decorated the chapel beautifully, she even had a few logs and antique keys to fit with the Secret Garden theme set up on the registry table and I didn't even ask her for it. To top it off she gave me a key keepsake which I wore around my wrist. Thanks Debbie!
I highly recommend her, www.debbieoneill.com.au


Around 9:30am I received a message from Wayne to tell me the photographer hadn't arrived yet, and I panicked a little bit (A LOT) thinking what if he never shows up? and I started thinking of alternative photographers. I jump into conclusions all the time, I started to believe he wasn't coming at all...but...he came! he was just running late.

All the girls were ready by 10:30am and I was next in line...by then John the photographer came and started taking photos of me getting ready. My aunty and other family members came as well. When my aunty came she cried and the dominos effect kicked in, so I got teary and I was so close to balling my eyes out but I just had to control it to not mess the makeup. Mum started crying, Nana started crying...lots of mixed emotions, it was very special.

Dad came to give me a kiss on my left shoulder and said I was the prettiest bride and he was so proud of me. REALLY trying not to cry at this moment. Then he made me laugh by saying 'Now that I've seen you as a beautiful bride, I might have second thoughts in giving you away to Wayne'. Such a cheeky thing to say, very much like my Dad.

When the cars pulled up on our driveway that's when I realised it was really happening. Two ivory M7 Jags owned by our old neighbour Con who is just fantastic, Con and his dad drove us.

When I sat in the car I remember thinking that I want to remember this forever, so I tried really hard to focus. Dad and Mum were sitting next to me, calm as ever. Dad and I talked about how we were going to walk into the chapel and we chatted for ages with Con. Con kept asking me if I was nervous, and everytime he did I would get more nervous. The windows were open and the breeze was beautiful. Some were of course trying to get a glimpse of the bride in the car. But the sad thing was when people weren't looking I was trying to get them to look 'LOOK AT ME, I'M A BRIDE!!! hellooo? what is wrong with you'. I had to stop myself.

To be continued...

First day of our married life!!!


Well it still feels quite surreal and it has just gone so quickly. Yesterday was the best day of our lives. Everything went according to plan and we were so pleased, thank you God!

This weekend we stayed at Linden Gardens in their beautiful cottage. It has been relaxing but we're still exremely tired and still filled with so much emotions.
We can't believe we are now husband and wife. We're of course incredibley excited but it hasn't sunk in yet. It's such a weird feeling to describe.

We look forward to writing in this blog of our many adventures of our first year of marriage.

There will be more to come about the wedding day! and hopefully a few more photos we can snatch from our friends and family.




Lots of love,
Wayne and Farrah