Pre-wedding video montage - groomsmen

Here's a preview of what us boys were upto before Farrah arrived at the chapel =)

Please note at 1:45 Mitch on the right pulls off the best spin!

Tandoori in a hurry

Mixing all the spices together.

Lovely colour! After rubbing the spice mix into the chicken.

Last night my parents came over for dinner for the first time. I wasn't feeling very well so I made a very easy recipe of tandoori chicken served with mint sauce, salad and optional rice.

Tandoori is very healthy, it contains no oil and it's baked. When I was dieting before the wedding, tandoori was on the list of foods I could indulge on and not feel guilty about.

Normally my lovely Mum would make it for me so last night I was testing my skills.

The recipe I used is from one of my favourite TV shows, SBS Safari. All ingredients can be easily bought from an Indian supermarket, most spices can be found in powder form.

Recipe:

1 kg chicken thigh fillets or 8-9 pieces.
200g natural yoghurt
1 tbsp fresh ginger, grated finely
1 tbsp garlic, grated finely
1 tbsp tandoori paste (I use Fern's tandoori paste)
½ tsp tandoori food colouring (optional)
2 tsp cumin seeds, ground
2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp garam masala
½ tsp chilli powder (if you like it hot otherwise without it there is still a bit of spicyness)
½ tsp turmeric powder
Salt to taste
Mint sauce and roti to serve

Preparation:

In a bowl mix together yoghurt, salt, chilli, coriander, garlic, ginger, tumeric, cumin, garam masala, food colouring and tandoori paste. Then rub mixture into chicken and leave to marinate for at least 2 hours in the fridge. *or if you're in a hurry like me I just left it for 30 mins, it's a lot nicer though if you leave it to marinate overnight.

Pre-heat the oven to 190°C. Line a baking dish with foil (this prevents marinade from burning onto baking dish). Place a wire rack over top of baking dish. Remove chicken from marinade and place onto wire rack. Bake for 40 to 45minutes, or until cooked through.

Done!

xo
Farrah

Pizza making!

Wayne has been dying to make a pizza from scratch so here's his chance. I love taking pictures of him cooking, in case he gives up one day I can show him pictures of his fabulous motivation in the early stages of our marriage hehehe.

It was a yummmmy pizza.

Maid of Honour & ponderings about wedding planning

I have the absolute pleasure of being in a bridal party this year yay! which is super exciting. The bride was in fact in my bridal party too, the blondie =) tonight we went to try on some dresses for the first time.
Oh I don't think I'll ever get over planning weddings, I love it! It's seriously a secret passion of mine and I'm going through it all over again as a Maid of Honour. Though for some odd reason I seem to forget the days where I wanted to rip my hair out and give it all up haha.

The dress she picked is quite pretty and simple, she's deciding on colours and the length. I'm sure whatever she picks it will look beautiful. Would love to show you a sneak peak but she may kill me =P

While we were trying on the dresses and going over the colours a million times, I remembered my own wedding plans. I was so indecisive I just wanted everything, I wanted to do every cool idea and every colour and design. I loved it all and couldn't stick to the one theme. I spent most of my time brainstorming, looking at pretty pictures, lots of amazing weddings thinking 'I want this, and this, or maybe this' and I did very little of actual 'doing'.
In many ways, I could have saved a lot of my time but I was so stuck in that 'perfect' wedding idea and I sort of lost the meaning behind it all. Our marriage, our new lifestyle was completely blurred to me because I was so infatuated with the actual wedding planning.

But at the end of the day, it's all about the marriage. Yes, I loved the wedding planning but it shouldn't have been my number 1 priority. It created unnecessary stress for me AND I took all my frustrations out on poor Waynie about silly things we couldn't do at our wedding which was not a good start to a healthy marriage. So easy to get sucked into planning the most 'perfect' wedding. I always had to remind myself to forget about the tiny details or things we couldn't afford or things I had absolutely no time for and instead to enjoy every minute of our wedding day.

No matter how I planned the wedding and how much $$ I put into it I could see the day was perfect in the eyes of our friends and family because they simply were truly happy to see us marry! it didn't make a difference whether we were to have a 5 tier cake or a music band or more decorations. In fact I hardly looked at the details, my focus was on Wayne and so...........I've learnt my lesson :P So next time...haha okaaaaay no next times maybe when we renew our vows?

Enough ramblings for the day.

xx
Farrah

Wedding video montage with plenty of flies

This is just a small montage, video by Epik Films.

Happy Australia Day

Wayne decided to tell my family about Pavalova which they've never had, and promised them he would bring one along on Australia day.

So he bought a pre made pavalova and he decorated the whole thing himself lol too cute.

We had a bbq with the family and I was a bit frustrated because Nana had to make kibbi, so un-australian lol.

Anyway, claps for Wayne!

Change of name

Ok so first step of changing name is done and done. We had to apply to get a registered marriage certificate so that we could use it to change my name.

Then I guess it's all just the beginning, filling out forms and more forms and more forms...and possibly forgetting plenty of other forms. I can see this taking a while, am I right?

So here's a bride's dilemma: To change surname or not to change or keep both?

For me, I think I've already eliminated the prospects of just keeping my own maiden name, I'm tossing up between keeping just his name OR keeping both my maiden name AND his name.

I wish someone can make the decision for me. The problem is, I don't think my name sounds good at all with Wayne's last name, it needs a middle word BUT my last name is long and it will be make my full surname pretty long. Sigh. I know, I know very small issue...but it has been bothering me. Any opinions?

Things to do for 2010

So in the last two years we didn't really spend much quality time together, and we were on a crazy budget trying to save for the house and wedding. In 2010 we'd like to do a lot of things that we've missed out on as a couple.
Farrah's love language is quality time so Wayne will be scoring super kudos if we accomplish these :)

We see a pattern of activities involving food...and more food.

- Dancing classes
- St Kilda Festival
- Dinner at hardware lane
- Road trip to Lorne
- Dumplings at Chinatown
- Moonlight cinemas
- Bible study with BSF
- Guitaring
- Camberwell & Vic market
- Russel Peters
- Karaoke
- Werribee zoo
- Wilson's Prom
- Camping
- Skiing/Snowboarding
- Kayaking
- Arabic cooking
- Swimming and Tennis
- Couples Devotionals
- Musicals - Cats & Mary Poppins
- Moomba
- International Film Festival

I think we're going to continue adding to this list....

Us? grown up? heck nooooo

There's always time for us to be silly! it was all the sugar we had on the day. For those who know us, this is quite normal ;)

Swimming

We went to the swimming pool today. A heated swimming pool the best kind. We took Farrah's aunt, uncle, cousin and nanna and met up with her brother and future sister in law who were doing laps to get in shape for their wedding (know that feeling).

Anywho, we wanted to take Farrah's little 4 year old cousin swimming as swimming is a massive part of Aussie culture and we wanted to make sure that she wouldn't miss out when she was older. I know from my experience that if you can't swim or are scared of the water when you are younger it can really have a huge impact on your social life as kid.
I remember the first time my mum took me to a swimming lesson, I screamed the whole entire time and my mum had to take me home because I was to disruptive to the other kids. There was also another time when I had swimming lessons when I was older where I was so afraid to put my head under water that the swimming instructor told me he would knock my head off if I didn't put my head under water in turn to make me scared enough to do it and my sister cried (if my memory serves me correctly).

Every swimming carnival at school I managed to avoid having to get into the pool at all for fear of not being able to swim very well. So on the honeymoon; jumping off the big rock into a moving river and swimming with dolphins in the ocean were huge for me, I really had to push past the fears of my youth to do them.

Back to Farrah's cousin... at first she was petrified of getting in the water to the point where she was shaking I think it took about an hour to get her in with a massive group effort from Farrah and I and her parents and nanna. It was a slow process, first step involved me sitting in the kiddy pool and the others would come and splash me from the edge and I would overreact in a comical kind of way as maybe mister bean might do in the same situation. She thought this was hilarious and as everyone began to splash me she got more and more confident with the water eventually walking ankle depth then splash me, it was very cute!
It took no time from then to forget what ever fears she had to disappear until she was swimming with Farrah and I in the olympic pool it was great to see her overcome her fear of what ever it was in such a small time and be apart of that. I'm thankful for all the people who helped me overcome my fears though mine took a considerably longer time to overcome.

Stargate and Starwars

After our big day of doing jobs yesterday Farrah and I decided we would take it easy. Intergrating ourselves back into society slowly. So we sat around and watched a lot of an awesome TV series called Stargate, yes it's true. I think we watched something like 12 episodes pretty nerdy of us. I think it's great that Farrah likes Stargate there are not many women who would sit down and watch SciFi with their husbands. I know mum was never too keen on watching SciFi with dad, though she did watch tons of Starwars when I was young, to the point that she had the script memorized.

I hope after reading this it won't mean you'll stop reading this blog haha.

Back to Reality

So back to reality...I (Wayne) had alot to do today so that I can start my new job, driving to uni to get my transcript to prove that I finished my degree, things like that. It was nice when it was all over it's amazing how many things build up when you take a holiday. It has been the first holiday I had since the one my family took just after my father passed away in 2003. It was really nice to take my first holiday since then because of a happy occasion! Though the holiday is over it's nice to be back in our humble home.
Our little unit still very much reminds us of our beautiful wedding day, a lot of the deco we used at the ceremony and reception is being used in our lounge, not sure if we'll keep it for long but it's still nice to have them around and as soon as we got home and saw them we thought, WE NEED TO SEE OUR PROFESSIONAL WEDDING PHOTOS...so we've contacted our photographer and hopefully he'll have them ready soon!!!


If you're interested, we've added very few photos taken by the company running these activities:

1. Swimming with Dolphins

2. Milford Sound overnight cruise (kayaking in the middle of no where)

Back in Melbourne

Well it was time to say goodbye to the best honeymoon ever. Two weeks of adventures in New Zealand and a week of bliss in the Gold Coast. It was by far the best combo for us. We would have been bored had we just done the beach thing, so NZ was definitely worth it.

Our hotel cost much cheaper than we thought, Farrah forgot that she actually booked via internet a special deal where you get 1 night free if you stay x amount of nights and get a $50 food voucher. Very good deal, so do your research online people!

Wayne will be back to brisbane at the end of this month for work and we'll both be back again in May for a wedding in Tweed Heads so we're excited. We love Queensland!

We got home around 2-3pm, was so tired had a big nap then it was definitely exciting when we visited our land to see the building progress. Pictures above, you can see they've started on the garage.

We have a lot to do for the next few days, name changing, bills, thank you cards, wedding photos...back to reality.

Wayne & Farrah

Last day at the Gold Coast

Pretty sad... When you're having such a good time it always flies so quickly. Since we don't do much swimming back in Melbourne we decided to have a swim in the morning.
It was nice to feel like a kid again, we were competing doing flips and hand stands. Yeah we're still young at heart :P

Above pictures is Wayne posing as usual by the pool with his Heineken

We had our lunch by the pool and did some reading. I'm reading Mr. Darcy, Vampyre...Wayne keeps rolling his eyes on me BUT I get to do the same to him since he's reading a sci fi magazine! Best combo ever though, Mr. Darcy and VAMPIRE! if only the book was actually good, nothing interesting has happened and I'm upto the 7th chapter.

Went to the cinema in the afternoon and watched Sherlock holmes, not a bad movie but could have been better. Then we had the worst greek food ever in town for dinner.

Packing our bags now....waaaah wah wah wah.

Movie World to Room Service

The weather was beautiful today and we thought it would be a great day to go to Movie world being a monday as well so there wouldn't be as many kids there, boy we were wrong the weather was way too hot, we seriously drank so much water and sweat it all out and the food was a rip off but I'm guessing that's how they make their money. We went to all the shows we could and tried to enjoy them despite the heat but it was very hard.

The best thing we saw in my opinion was the Narnia; Voyage of the Dawn Treader set. Farrah took some great photos of the set pieces we got to actually stand on the actual boat, AWESOME. If I ever bought a boat it would look like this!
We went on most the rides but because the shows were all on during the middle of the day we thought we might save most of the rides to last but towards the end of the day we both got so tired and cranky that we went home to cool down.

So after cooling down we ordered room service for the very first time, it was way cool we could get very used to it you know...

Tomorrow is our last day!!

Wayne and Farrah

Pacific Fair shopping and fine dining

Farrah and I decided we would check out the local shopping centre today otherwise known as Pacific Fair. Being from Melbourne the unoffical shopping capital of Australia we weren't expecting much but Farrah did manage to buy a few outfits at really good prices. She did discover a little shop where she bought a really nice dress and it's polkadots, no surprises there. We got talking to the sales assistant and she said that the franchise is opening in Melbourne by the end of the year, so Farrah will really like that!

So Farrah made a good haul on the shopping unfortunatly I didn't do so well I looked in every book store while we were there for the book "Wheel of Time; Eye of the world (Book 1)" but alas I didn't find it... My Brother Paul and best mate Mitch Bates have been telling me I should read this series for a long time.Then we came back and relaxed by the pool before we went to dinner.

At night we went out to try some Gold Coast fine dining and Farrah got to try out one of her new outfits, which she looked absolutely geourgous in see the photos if you think I'm biase. We can't remember the name but it was in a place called the circle in a fairly new area of the CDB. We started off the night with Farrah's all time favourite entre; Bruchetta, we always like to try the Bruchetta every where we go, we weren't disappointed what so ever the bread was soft and the topping delicious. I orderd the lamb strap and Farrah ordered the Chicken, she wasn't so impressed with hers but I have to say that this was pretty close to one of the nicest meals I've ever had. The lamb was cooked perfectly and sauce was incredible as was the veggies. I would recommend the resturant but I seriously can't remember the name of the joint... sorry.


Wayne and Farrah

Total relaxation and a family visit

Today we felt so relaxed. From the early morning we headed out to be beach then we came back to the hotel, we LOVE our hotel, it's so much fun ordering drinks and food and chillaxing by the pool then having a swim....ah the life.

We were having such a good time until we realised that we were running late because Wayne's uncle was about to pick us up. We quickly got ready and met up with Wayne's uncle who drove out to pick us up all the way from Tweed Heads. He stopped at a few places to show us scenery at Coolangatta where you can actually see the Gold Coast from the distance, so cool! We got to their place and had a lovely time with his family. They cooked lamb roast on the bbq and we sat outside from around 4pm till midnight non stop chatting. Wayne's cousin is getting married in May and she was there with her fiance and it was good to get to know them both before their wedding.

It's so strange being in that beautiful area and the most amazing weather it makes you feel like you want to move there. We still love Melbourne but it's so tempting to want to live near the beach.

Tomorrow we might head out to pacific fair or movie world.

Not long till the honeymoon is over :(

Sunny Gold Coast

We are so impressed with out hotel, we have the most amazing view as you can see in the photos and there's a pic of our hote's lagoon and pool.

Today we explored the town of Surfers Paradise. We started the morning by having breakfast by the sea and walked everywhere for a very long time. Farrah bought 2 summer dresses and Wayne got some spify thongs (flip flops to our american readers lol).

Wayne encourages me to try on clothes that I probably would have never picked to wear myself but surprisingly they end up looking pretty good. However, trying to shop FOR Wayne is a bit tough, he has a very particular taste and he normally knows what he's looking for and of course he's a bit of a giant. Tall boys are very hard to shop for.

We got back to our lovely hotel, it has the most gorgeous lagoon and lots of pools so we sat by the pool and had cocktails and a swim. Later that night we went out to dinner and we were happy to have come back to awesome aussie food.

Wayne and Farrah

Best person to be stuck in the airport with.

Sorry we haven't been updating regularly. Some of you have heard of our flight being delayed, we were there at 4:30am and the flight was at 7am. It was delayed till 4pm and we had no where to go, it cost 30 bucks to go back into town and another 30 to return we just thought it wasn't worth it.

Good ole' virgin blue or pacific blue knew that the plane would be delayed at 1am and I'm just wondering why they didn't SMS their passengers and tell them that their flight is delayed?
It would have been a much cheaper option for them than to give out all these food vouchers and other discounts to their products and services. The worst of all is that we didn't know why it was delayed and not one employee
had any clue of what was going on. The odd thing was that the employees were getting frustrated that WE were frustrated. Honestly what were they thinking? knowing that we've had to kill time for over 9 hours in the most boring airport in the world with 1 cafe?????

Luckily Wayne packed a few dvd's and we watched a few episodes of Stargate and that passed the time.

No interesting photos were taken on this day :P

xx

Swimming with the dolphins at Akaroa

Hi all!

I can't believe we've nearly finished our trip to NZ, today is our last day. Tomorrow we're off to the Gold Coast to soak in a bit of sun.

Today we took a small road trip to Akaroa, about 75km from Christchurch nestled in the heart of a volcano. A popular activity in Akaroa is to swim with the rarest and smallest dolphins in the world and we were lucky enough to experience that! too cool for school.
We boarded the ship and it took us about 15 mins to find these wild dolphins, we found about 3 swimming about and we had to make sure they were in a playful mood. They seemed pretty curious so we jumped in the water and had a bit of a play with them. We were supposed to make noises under water to keep them curious so they can stay with us. Things like clicking away with an underwater camera, blowing bubbles, clicking two rocks together. They are not afraid and some were swimming very close brushing themselves against us, though we were not allowed to touch them.

We don't have any photos of the dolphins unfortunately but here's a few with our trendy wet suits.


Wayne & Farrah