Our married life together

New site

2011-07-12T01:21:00.002+10:00

Hi all,

My new website has now been launched! it's still in early stages but happy finally to be posting again. Yay.

Drop by and say hello!

www.farrahallan.com

xx
Farrah

New blog soon.

2011-03-09T17:58:00.003+11:00

Hello readers,

We finally have interwebs. And it's already been a full year of marriage. A bit of a fail to keep up with this blog haha.

It's crazy how time flies, busy with marriage and life in general so apologies for the quietness - I've been so into photography and most of the time I'm photographing or editing.
But stay tuned for a new photography blog which will be released soon. Can't wait to share photos with you.

Hope everyone is doing well, looking forward to catching up on blog reading.

Lots of love,
Farrah

My dears! it has been a while.

2010-08-18T17:01:00.009+10:00

Hello lovely readers, if you haven't ran away yet!

Apologies for not updating. We haven't had internet access for a while. Our world has flipped upside down while we continue to attend the million weddings we are invited to this year. It's the year of marriage, seriously. And of course, moving to our new house. Yes we are now living in our new house! too amazing and such a blessing.

So we don't have internet at our new home at the moment. Biggest problem in the world! hah. It has been a pain to try to organise it, they say it would take another 3 weeks! sigh. Whatever did we do without the internet? I guess now it's sort of like an internet ban rather than a TV ban. It sucks big time.

I can't wait to share with you some photos of our new place, we are in the middle of decorating it. My kitchen is bliss, I actually have room to fit all my appliances and there's empty cupboards....which means I got plenty of years to fill them up. woohoo! It's really weird that I take interest in my kitchen, I always used to find it incredibley boring when Mum went into kitchen-type shops but now I can't seem to stop looking at those shops. Plates, appliances, cutlery, bring them on.

I don't have many photos with me. But I thought I'd share some of these when I was up in Tamworth in June. I'm thinking of taking night classes in Photography, trying to find what my style is...I guess this takes years.

What a darling! My sister in law's puppy named Whisky. Too cute!

xx Farrah

Brother's Wedding

2010-06-28T13:01:00.010+10:00

Yes. I know. We haven't posted in ages! We have been in Tamworth for a funeral last week and 2 weeks before was my brother's Henna and Wedding so we have been busy flat out.

In fact, I think in the next couple of months we will be even busier, with more weddings to attend, one in Wagga and another one in Gympie. Of course we can't forget the house, we are hoping for 1 month till completion so that means, packing, unpacking and being totally disoriented for a while.

I thought I would share a few photos from my brothers wedding. It was quite lovely and he looked handsome as ever (picture a guy who never shaves and is always wearing tshirts and jeans) haha! I couldn't recognise him.

"WE ARE MARRIED!"

The theme was fairytale and lots of pink!

Pretty Chapel

sin, a hopeful photographer hehe

Looking forward to catching up with all the blogs, I feel terribly behind but promise to try and keep up.

Farrah

House Update

2010-06-09T13:46:00.004+10:00

So I have finally been able to grab some photos of the house. Although these ones are a few weeks old, much has been done in the mean time.

The kitchen is everything we imagined, it's spacious with lots of big drawers and cupboards. It has a bit of a heritage feel to it, but at the same time it's also quite modern which is exactly what we were after! all the appliances are in stainless steel which also adds to the modern look.

We have been visiting the house at night times after work, so it has been hard for me to take photos. The front door is in! although it will be a much darker colour than that. We chose chrome with a square edge handle, we love it.

I love the basin in our bathrooms, don't worry that blue isn't the paint! it's just white all over. I can't wait to show you the bathroom with the tiles, they look great. We have used earthy colours, with lots of ivory. We used the same heritage style cupboards in the kitchen for the bathroom, but a different bench top.

There's so much rubbish everywhere, I sure hope they do a good job of cleaning it all up.

We are expecting it to be all finished in one month, so expect plenty of updates from me.

Farrah

Sorry! we haven't been around

2010-06-04T15:11:00.004+10:00

I promise I'll do a proper update this weekend.

But it has been one of those weeks, lots of drama, lots of crying...you know... it's a classic tale of Wayne and Farrah versus the world. Thank God we have each other!

I learnt something out of it though...

No one is perfect, we are human, we make mistakes it's as simple as that. But it's hard for people to understand that, forgiveness is not easy.

I'm glad Wayne and I have each other and we can support each other through this. Love him to bits.

Looking forward to catch up with your blogs y'all.

xx
Farrah

Birthdays and Camera Ninjas.

2010-05-14T10:05:00.010+10:00

A few test pics!

My nana in the kitchen, oh bless.

I GOT A NEW CAMERA and I probably won't shut up about it for the next few months.
It's a beautiful Canon 7D which also takes HD video. *faints*
Wayne secretly organised for my family and his family to pitch in for my birthday to help us pay for it. I am absolutely so grateful for the great family I have.

This is something I've wanted for a very long time but with buying a new car and saving up for a wedding it has been at the bottom of the list.

I really enjoy photography especially when it comes to fashion and weddings so in the next few months I have a few personal projects which my lovely friends will help me out with. I want to put a folio together, and honestly it just seems like a side hobby but I'm open to where ever it takes me.

Right now I'm trying to experiment with different styles. I'd like to create a vintage feel to the photos without having to use photoshop. I don't want my photos to look exceptionally perfect, not fun for me!

So keep a look out for my projects this year. I guess it's also pretty helpful that I have 5 weddings to go to, so I'll be a 'camera ninja' as Wayne would call me. Sometimes he can't even find me when we go to weddings because I'm 'hiding' and clicking away, I just can't help myself.

xx
Farrah

Luke and Nicole's wedding

2010-05-11T09:23:00.010+10:00

Linda Gorringe dress - notice the tie matching? kudos to wayne.

The wedding had a yellow theme! very different.

Mr. & Mrs.

Diva ring, nails are OPI bling dynasty and my clutch from - davie and chiyo

Wayne and his brother with their cheesy salesman smiles.

Sorry we haven't posted in a while, we went away this weekend to a wedding :)

This is wedding number 3! It's Nicole and Luke's wedding in Tweed Heads which is located on the border of New South Wales and Queensland.

View Larger Map

Oh and it's worth mentioning that Nicole is Wayne's cousin.

We woke up at 3am and we hopped on a plane at 6am and were off to the Gold Coast! great start on a Friday morning. I must say we were both extremely tired for most of the trip and I suspect the early wake up call had something to do with it.

It's so funny that Wayne and I were decked out in jackets and scarves and when we arrived at the Gold Coast we thought it was so nice and warm with a slight breeze, it wasn't cold at all and Wayne's uncle says 'Yeah it's a bit cool today'.....WHAT? this is not cool this is hot for us 'Melbournians'.

For my overseas readers, Queensland is usually known as the 'sunshine' state, it's usually quite hot over there throughout the year and Melbourne is well known for its cold weather.

The wedding ceremony was held outside at a beautiful winery and the reception was held at the same resort Wayne and I were staying at which was was very convenient.

The theme of the wedding was yellow, summer, tropical, it was quite consistant throughout every detail.

We had a lovely time but towards the end we were ready to go home, small getaways can be quite exhausting.

Enjoy the pics xx

I suck at baking - Part 2 (Easiest cake...ever)

2010-04-28T15:31:00.010+10:00

YUM! Prepare yourselves for the easiest cake to make. It's so shiny after the icing melts.

LOL "It's MIIINE" Wayne adores this cake, all for him.

Ok, what is going on? I just can't stop baking. This is my new hobbie ever since the TV was packed away.

Now, I LOVE food safari, it's an aussie cooking show and my chicken tandoori recipe is from them as well. Last week I remembered one particular recipe and I was inspired to make it. It's the EASIEST cake recipe, an Orange and Almond Flourless cake, yum yum.

I wasn't really planning on blogging about it, but I thought it's handy if there is anyone else out there new to baking like me.

It's a very moist and dense and is perfect with a nice cup of tea.

You can watch the video on how it's made here

Recipe:

2 oranges (I used Navel oranges)
6 eggs
250g caster sugar
250g almond meal
1tsp baking powder
Extra caster sugar for dusting before baking
Icing sugar for dusting after baking
Margarine for greasing the pan (I used baking sheets)

Wash oranges and place unpeeled, in a pot of boiling water for 2 hours. Drain the water and allow the oranges to cool. This can be done ahead of time.

Preheat oven to 190°C.

Break 6 eggs into a mixing bowl or blender. Add caster sugar and beat or blend together.
Place the two oranges into the egg mix. Break up the oranges and then blend together to a smooth consistency. Add the almond meal and baking powder and blend.

Grease or add baking sheets to a 20 cm spring form baking pan and dust with caster sugar.

Pour batter into the pan and sprinkle caster sugar on top and bake for 1 hour to an hour and a half or until the top is golden brown.

Dust with icing sugar to serve. Wayne likes it cold, so we put it in the fridge for a while.

Happy Baking xx

Farrah

Cupcakes & Dresses

2010-04-27T13:46:00.030+10:00

Over the weekend, Wayne and I thought we deserved a night out so we decided to go out for dessert. This got me excited because I wanted to wear my new dress, which has *drum rolls please*............... shoulder pads! haven't decided if they suit me or not. I don't remember the shop name but I got the dress from Brunswick street, the day I visited Rose St Market. Currently I'm loving the combinations of red and blue. It's the colours we learnt to avoid when I studied web design back in high school, but in the fashion world these colours are gorgeous together.

Wayne made me pose. It's true. "Farrah put your hands on your hips".

It's great without heels too, fun in the park before going out.

Wayne still has this hat on....I think I may need to buy a new one for him

Being silly is our nature.

Okaaay, we are a bit mushy. We were enjoying a cup of
tea and a slice of cheesecake! yum

Speaking of Red and Blue, I had to sneak this picture in. First (yes first ever) batch of cupcakes I baked. They're 'red' velvet cupcakes in 'blue' polkadotted cupcake papers!

This weekend was all about red and blue. I had a blast making them with Nicole, even though it was a messy experience with the red food colouring. Practically the whole kitchen was red, I think Wayne would have freaked out if he saw what the kitchen looked like. To his surprise I cleaned up everything straight away lol. You see Wayne has threatened once that he would sneak in a picture in our blog if I leave the kitchen messy ever again. Whatever, I'm proud of my messy baking skills.

plenty of smiles and cuddles,
Farrah

Rose Street Artist Market

2010-04-27T09:20:00.027+10:00

I finally had the opportunity to visit the Rose St artist Market on the weekend! Wayne had a guitar jam with a friend so I had a free date.
My lovely friend Yael has had a stall there for a while now and I've been meaning to visit her to see her knitting goodies.

It's a gorgeous market filled with hand made crafts from local Melbournians. I always like to encourage and support local artists and it was mind blowing to see how talented they were. It was like an etsy store, but in physical form...heaven! There's 70 stalls, a cute cafe, and the best part is that it's open every Saturday and Sunday 11am till 5pm.

I highly recommend you visit the Market if you're after unique items, accessories, clothes, designer pieces, homeware and limited edition artworks. I already got my eyes on a few items for our house.

Of course I'm going to plug Yael, I love her work and she's just the nicest person ever. She's situated in the back corner of the market and she is most certainly the knitting queen. She makes gorgeous wraps and scarfs perfect for the winter season in all sorts of colours.

I ended up chatting to a few other stall owners, feeling inspired. I want to sew, or make something. My Nana was a tailor all her life, and my Mum is also fabulous at sewing. Surely they can teach me? if they are patient enough lol.

Along with many other perks of Rose St Market, Brunswick Street is just around the corner. It only happens to be my favourite street, ever. Lots of other shops to visit (vintage goodness) and plenty of food to eat! I took my friend to eat pizza's at 'Bimbos Deluxe' a quirky pub and a semi lounge/club by night that makes delicious affordable gourmet pizzas.

This top is something my grandma would wear, but I love it - by Friends of Couture & I'm looking tired.

Here we are at Bimbos! looking at their menu.

Agnello: Tomato, mozzarella, spiced lamb, rocket, pinenuts, sultanas

Melanzana : Eggplant, fresh tomato, mozzarella, mascarpone

Both Pizza's AMAZING.

I had so much fun, it was a great day. Nothing like a bit of shopping and good food accompanied by lovely people. Write it on your calender 'Must visit Rose st artist Market' because Farrah said so =P

xx

I suck at baking - but this recipe is easy.

2010-04-21T09:25:00.013+10:00

Hideous picture, I know. Can't we just eat the whole thing uncooked? yum.

I love taking pictures of people when they're not ready. Haha sorry Kate.
mario tshirt = awesome. Nerd alert.

Kate is a natural model. hehehe I love you.

Wayne had a men's bbq thing on Saturday and I invited my lovely friend Kate over so we can have a baking extravaganza.

I'm not that bad, honestly sometimes I'm just un-coordinated, is that even a word? Flour and sugar all over the bench is not a good sign of good baking skills now is it? or maybe it's a sign of my passion for cooking...let's go crazy and throw flour everywhere! woo.

We ended up baking muffins, they were nom nom and so easy that even someone like me actually ended up doing okay...thanks to Kate's supervision.

Kate: "Farrah, what are you doing?"
Farrah: "I'm sifting the flour"
Kate: "In the bowl Farrah, not on the bench"
Farrah: "Oops, I knew that, I just thought the bowl was there, er, aaah"

So if you're not much of a baker, try this recipe but make sure you sift the flour where the bowl is, not where the bench top is...................................................yeah only I can do that haha.

Chocolate Fudge Muffins

300gm self-raising flour
50gm cocoa powder
220gm caster sugar
1 egg (lightly beaten)
90gm butter (melted)
180ml milk
120gm sour cream
100gm milk choc chips
100gm white choc chips

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Line 12 muffin pans with paper muffin cases.
2. Sift all dry ingredients into large bowl.
3. Stir in remaining ingredients and mix well.
4. Spoon mixture evenly into muffin pans
5. Bake 15-20 mins. Until cooked.

We're living temporarily in this unit, and the oven looks like it needs replacing so it took us longer than 2o mins to cook but see how you go.

I'm seriously turning into a 50s house wife.

First night without TV & taking up hobbies

2010-04-15T10:41:00.019+10:00

This blog is a rambling one - and with no picture, sorry.

I have to admit it was hard coming back home from work and not automatically switching the TV on for a bit of background sound while I cooked dinner.
I felt so lonely, and when I'm alone the TV makes me feel I'm connected to the rest of the world. Does that make sense? or am I the only one? it was weird hearing the clock ticking, but ever so slowly I was eventually used to the silence in the house.
It gave me time to reflect, time to think about life, count my blessings etc. It was nice, different.

When Wayne came back home, I was so over-joyed it was quite funny. I appreciated his company to a greater level, after an hour on my own feeling disconnected from the rest of the world it was like WOW I have someone to talk to now.

We normally sit on the couch and watch TV when we eat dinner but this time we sat on the table like most normal people would do (obviously we're not normal) and talked for ages.

We talk a lot already, but it was nice to share a meal and have a chat rather than watch TV/DVDs. I thought this was truly quality time, watching a movie 'together' is not really quality time. You don't talk when you watch a movie, this is why I never understood why couples on a first date went to the movies? how do you get to know one another?

This TV-ban has been a blessing in my opinion and it will be interesting to see what will happen after 1 month. Are we desparately going to put the plug back in and start watching the rest of our Stargate dvd's? or are we going to have a much stronger appreciation to the time we've saved not watching movies, dvds, or tv shows?
I hope we do get this sense of appreciation. There's just such an obsession in this world with entertaintment, I don't want to be stuck in that bubble.

So now that we have a bit of free time I thought it would be good to take up a few hobbies:

- Sewing (Hi Mum and Nana) pretty much most of my Mum's side know how to sew and I want to learn. I actually know a bit, I just need to practice. So off I go to the op shops! and helllo spotlight! (to my overseas readers, spotlight is a fabric store)

- Wayne has an idea for a business - it's sort of a personal project and he's spending a bit of time researching on it.

- Baking - I haven't had the chance to do much baking, only when I was young to help Mum out.

- Story-writing - Wayne has a fabulous imagination and it's one of his other personal projects which I'd like to encourage him to continue working on.

- Photography - I love photography, pretty much what I'd like to do full time.

What would you take up if you had a bit of free time?

House Update: Moroccan themed outdoor area

2010-04-13T10:41:00.015+10:00

I hope you enjoy our house updates. We get excited by just one simple update.

They're going to be putting the doors and windows for lockup stage on Wednesday. But you never know with building, we'll stay optimistic about it.

They also finished adding our small deck which we're hoping to extend next year to make it bigger, I'd really like our deck to have a moroccan theme with patterned cushions, lanterns and rugs.

Here's my inspiration board I put together:

When friends come over for tea I'd love to use this silver tea set. How fabulous is the tea pot? it's too pretty to use.

Have these comfy star ottomans scattered around for a nice cosy evening.

And these gorgeous ceramic pieces, sigh.

I know it seems impossible to achieve all this in such a small space, but with this picture I've been inspired that anything is possible in small space. How good does it look? I love the vibrant bright colours.

I can't wait to star decorating the outdoor deck now, it's pretty exciting. Do you like? or do you think it's too much?

Pictures: Metroscope and Kasbah imports

Do you think it can be done?

2010-04-08T12:08:00.005+10:00

Wayne and I have realised how much TV uses up our time. It's just so easy to forget about our chores, and once you sit on that couch, oh no. It takes every bit of energy to stand up again and do other things.

So we've decided to set ourselves a small challenge, we're starting small because we have no idea how bad it will be, if we can achieve it we might extend it.

So the challenge is to not watch TV for a whole week. Starting from this Wednesday.
It's quite a challenge because every other night we watch at least 2 episodes of Stargate, so no more stargate. Shock Horror!

I think this will be good, it'll give us a chance to spend more quality time not just together but with others as well and most importantly more bible study. We can make extra time for our friends and family, just one hour will be great to catch up with a mate for a coffee. We can even have a few friends over to play board games instead of watching DVD's, at least this will encourage coversation.

Do you think it's a bit of a weak challenge? or do you think personally you'd find it hard? If you think it's weak maybe you should challenge us to extend it =P

We need your support!!!! and of course we'll let you know how we go.

UPDATE:

We don't actually watch TV channels, we use the TV to watch DVD's so that is our main killer. We've read your comments about it being a weak target and we've changed it for a whole month. How about that? The TV will be back on the 14th May (the day before my birthday) yaay.

Happy blog about happy people and happy things

2010-04-07T14:12:00.018+10:00

Best title ever right?

It's kinda cool when you know there are people out there reading your blog and then on top of that you get an award for it!

Out of boredom we made a video, it's much crazy like this one we made a few weeks ago. I find Wayne in the bathroom and tried to tell him about our award. He pulled a prank on me, yay. The video isn't the best quality made with an iPhone.

Thanks to the lovely Miss Kitty-Cat who kindly gave us the 101 happy award.
Towards the end of the video, Wayne does a TROLOLOL dance/song (all for you miss kitty) the trololo song has become a bit of an internet craze over youtube - this is the original trololol video here.

In the meantime enjoy this:

So apparently we are supposed to list the top 10 blogs we enjoy reading and also the top 10 things we love.

Here it goes!

Polkadot Bride - This beautiful blog inspired me daily with wedding thoughts and ideas and of course it is this blog that gave me the opportunity to win bridesmaids dresses by Henry Roth. Miss Polkadot is so down to earth...all you brides and non-brides who love weddings check out this blog!

Bianca Stella - This lovely chicky who I've met a few times has quite the fabulous taste, her blog brings inspiration to me like no other. She blogs about everything from fashion to design to typography to photography...everything which I am facinated about.

365 Days in the Life of Donna Clarisse I love taking a sneak peak at Donna's day to day adventures. She's planning her wedding which no doubt will be amazing.

Peonies and Polaroids Another blog which inspires me. Words cannot describe the beautful images that are used.

Miss Kitty-Cat goes to town The beautiful Miss Kitty-Cat, she just has knowledge about anything and everything and I'm forever grateful for the advice she gives. Her blog ranges from fashion to make-up to food to basically all the things I like.

Young House Love Best blog for DIY home stuff and I've loved the ideas I've been getting for the house we are building. Check it out!

Mel's 365 Day Photo Journey The lovely Mel was one of the first to give me the idea to start a blog. Her Photo blog journey is facinating especially when it involves sharing her collection of head bands. Jealous factor!

Katialo's photostream @ Flickr This isn't a blog as such but it is a flickr account of our photographer and he updates it regularly. We love his work!

Rachel and John - I've just discovered this blog, Rachel and John are also newly weds and it's nice to see their experiences and their life out in Calgary.

Darling Dee Dee - My dear friend who was part of my bridal party has recently started this cute fashion blog.

Now for the top 10 things that we love and that make us smile/happy - in no particular order.

1. Pita bread and Hummous - Wayne can live on this.
2. Eachother of course
3. Stargate
4. Our Family & Friends
5. Farrah likes Popcorn (microwaved at 2mins and 10 seconds to be exact) but Wayne is more of a chocolate person.
6. Trololol Guy - endless laughter.
7. Music - definitely up there.
8. Going out to restaurants - we just love eating out & trying different foods.
9. Being Random & super silly.
10. CUDDLES!

Easter time!

2010-04-07T12:28:00.009+10:00

We had a great time at Easter, celebrating that Christ is risen. Wayne and I went to church early morning and got to catch up with our church friends. We then got ourselves prepared for a lovely luncheon feast in my family home.

My little cousin was there, and Wayne was so persistent on doing a scavenger hunt for her with easter eggs. So that's exactly what we did! and she loved it. When she found all the eggs she came up to me and said 'QUICK we need to find more eggs' and I said 'I think we found all of them already' and she replied back with a sad face 'but we didn't find the pink egg'. So cute! she loves pink and silly us forgot to hide a pink egg for her.

I love family time, I can't wait to share memories like this with my cousin when she grows up.

We stuffed our faces with chocolate like we've never seen chocolate before. I'm sure most of you did the same. I hope you did? that way I don't have to feel so guilty about it.

Easter was the last straw for us to go absolutely nuts with food. We ate and ate and ate and then we simply just couldn't eat anymore and when we went back to work on Tuesday, it was impossible to think about food and not feel sick.

Right now we are being healthy! no more junk food for a long time. Until Wayne and I both get back to a healthy range weight. We kinda went loose after the wedding but now it's important to focus on being healthy. We need support! so please, as much as we'd like to go out and have dinner with you at KFC or Pizza Hut...it's going to have to be a no.

However we're cool with salad dates!

Hello! & happpppy eastterrrr

Look! I found an easter egg!

Spot the cadbury egg

Hey Farrah, look at all the eggs I found :)

Muuuuum look at all the eggs I got

Wayne, we need to go find some more. There aren't any pink ones!

Changes to our blog

2010-04-07T12:21:00.005+10:00

Well...it's not a major big deal but we've just removed the '365 days tag' from our blog. We just didn't want to limit our blog to just 1 year, and also at this rate writing everyday is just not possible. We are busy to the max! but we'll try to keep it consistent simply because we know how much you want to see what we're up to (I'm thinking of Mum).

Also, at some stage we are going to change the name of the URL but we have to figure out how to do that and keep all the comments.

By the way, http://www.wayneandfarrah.com still exists! and it directly takes you to this blog.

Much love,

Wayne and Farrah

Only fools can bowl

2010-04-01T13:29:00.005+11:00

I'm surprised they had bowling shoes to fit Wayne's feet

Robyn's birthday happens to fall on April Fool's Day and we were invited to play bowling. The last few times Wayne and I did bowling I was particularly lucky to win, it's all about luck because I seriously suck at bowling. So he decided it would be a good idea to tell the whole world, 'FARRAH WILL WIN'....and completely jinxed me so I didn't win this time at all. In fact I came last.

Nevertheless, we still had a fabulous night and Wayne was on a major hyper mood. He was pulling a few stunts here and there. For example, he would dance whilst bowling? only Wayne can pull off such a thing.

After we played 2 games, we decided to go out for a drink at the Coffee Club. Wayne and I always get the same thing when we go to the coffee club, it's not actually coffee because neither of us drink it but it's Iced Chocolate :) no wonder why we've been gaining weight hah!

Happy Birthday to Robyn xx

Hello there! the happy couple :)

Robyn & Dave - ready to compete.

Nicole and I - She kicked my butt.

Strike number 2 for Nicole

Wayne expresses his anger towards his bowling skills.

Don't fall over!

The birthday girl

The famous iced chocolate..nom nom

High tea

2010-03-26T15:29:00.011+11:00

Outfit for the day :) Laura Ashleigh dress

My dear friend Dana took me out to high tea at the Sofitel for a nice catch up.

We both got a bit excited, because:

1. It means we get to eat, we love food.
2. We get to dress up.

3. We can say Dahhhrlingggg in an exaggerated way & will be completely normal.

Nothing like a great friend to catch up with, while eating amazing food and sipping on a cup of tea.

Headband Miss Miranda

You've always got to capture Dana naturally. Beautiful

Crepes dipped in caramel sauce. Heaven!

Can't go to High tea and not drink tea!

Note the chocolate fountain on the left, hello!

He obviously wasn't happy that I was taking this picture. Nevermind,
he played lovely music in the background :)

xx Farrah

Kath and Matt's wedding

2010-03-26T15:27:00.012+11:00

It's wedding season! and we were delighted to be invited to Kathryn and Matt's wedding.
Can't even describe the beauty of this wedding. It was so evident how much Matt and Kath loved each other and their faith in God shined through.
The ceremony involved 3 pastors that were apart of Kath and Matt's life in some form which I thought was so special, one blessed them, one lead the ceremony message and one married them.

I loved Katheryn's natural look, her dress was satin a-line, her hair was down and curled with a flower to the side which looked divine. The bridesmaids were wearing a short strapless deep purple dress.

After the ceremony we were in awe with all the home made sweets, from cupcakes to rum balls it was the nicest afternoon tea. Wayne and I didn't know anyone at the wedding so it was nice to walk around and talk to new people.

We headed off to the Yarra Valley at the Oakridge Winery for the reception.
As you know, I have a slight obsession with wedding planning so as soon as we arrived I straight away wanted to see the table settings. The tables were dressed up fabulously with tea lights and pearls, my kind of style for sure. The placecards were adorned with lace and I was happy to see they spelt our last name right! haha. Most importantly it wasn't crammed up at all, and there was plenty of room for dancing.

The food was...amazing. We were given the choice to pick between 3 mains. I'm not normally a fan of Gnocci but apparently the chef was well known for it and I gave it a go and I'm so glad I did, theflavours were scrumcious. I think I was near to tears when I heard the speeches, all around very mushy and lovey-dovey. Matt's grandfather wrote a letter to the couple too which was read out loud by Matt's uncle, so so special.

Congratulations to Kath and Matt!

Matt and his groomsmen praying outside before the ceremony

Wayne playing guitar in the ceremony.

Wayne going through music sheet one more time before the real thing!

Outfit for the day :) Diana Ferrari dress, betts shoes on sale $20! and peacock feather head band
from the lovely Etsy seller LovMely

Afternoon tea in the church hall.

I love Kath's natural look

Best Gnocci ever!

Hearty breakfast

2010-03-26T15:20:00.018+11:00

Nothing like an amazing hearty breakfast to start the weekend off....

Poached eggs

Hashbrowns

Bacon

Mushrooms

Grilled Tomatoes

Spinash

Sausages

You generally don't need lunch or dinner after a meal like this! lol.

Doors galore

2010-03-26T15:20:00.017+11:00

Who would have thought that one day we'd be shopping for doors?
The world of doors, such a facinating and interesting world.

Who would have thought that there would be so many choices when it came to doors. Different styles, shapes, designs, era, make, and other sub-choices like door handles...there's a gazillion door handles!!!

I wonder, those who own these door-making businesses how they came about being involved in this industry? just wake up one morning and say HEY I wanna make doors and lots of them! Our sales man was incredibley passionate about doors, he was describing them as if to say that they are the most important part of a house...hmm. To be honest, we were standing there and trying to remember what our doors look like in our current unit. It's just something you don't really notice and remember?

So we're definitely not spending a lot of money on doors, or door handles for that matter. The handles are just as expensive as the doors! which I found quite hilarious.

I've got a few pics of some of the doors, some of the glass ones are adorable. But unfortunately we're not going for that look but if I ever build a cute cottage house I think those designs would be fab. We're going for more of a modern, french-chic look. But that could change so who knows!

Thank you cards

2010-03-25T14:24:00.007+11:00

Can you believe I still haven't finished? but that's because I've made it a bit of a big deal. Like I do with most things, I usually like to make life a little more complicated for myself.

I've made them from scratch and I've printed personal photos for every guest. My amazing photographer took individual/couple/family photos of all our guests and I wanted to print them out and put them with the thank you cards. I've even included some dancing shots for those who were constantly on the dance floor.

It has taken me quite a while, going through 1400 photos is a hard task but I'm nearly finished and I think the wait will be worth it for our guests.

Farrah

House update!

2010-03-25T14:10:00.006+11:00

It has been a while since we've updated you on our house. The roof is now up, the electricals are in, the windows are there and now they've nearly finished doing the bricks. It's so exciting to see it come together.

We seriously need to free up our weekends so we can start to look at tiles, bathrooms and kitchens. But every weekend we've had either a birthday, a wedding, or an engagement party. We're finding it hard to do anything these days as we are occupied with quite a few events.

How do we use our time efficiently? not sure how all you mothers out there do it!!!

xx
Farrah

Happy unbirthday to you!

2010-03-24T13:10:00.005+11:00

Twenty Six years ago a child was born with silver hair who was cute, cuddly and careless, then puberty and a bunch of other stuff happened and now you have me the Big Friendly Giant who is also quite noisy. If you haven't caught on it's my birthday. The actual day was Sunday the 21st but Farrah made me start celebrating on Friday night (which you can read about here).

Farrah took me shopping for clothes, specifically an awesome winter jacket. We had lunch at Federation Square and had a good time chatting away, being excited celebrating our first birthday together as a married couple.
We came back home to celebrate my birthday with Farrah's family, as my family are in NSW. Farrah's Mum got me a strawberry cheesecake, I love cheesecakes! and we had dinner together made by Farrah's nana.

Really awesome goodies this year! Clothes, music cuff links, a sweeeet hat (that I can't seem to take off), vest, guitar peda, a wolf mask! and most importantly I got to hang out and spend quality time with my rad-tastic wife.

HI IT'S MY BIRTHDAY! and I get to wear a hat.

Wayne's mexican chicken burger

Notice the polkadots? another addition to the pile of polkadotted clothing items.

Chicken speghettini

Would you pay $1000 for this bright purple blazer? lol
because that's how much it is. It's the perfect Willy Wonka-wannabe outfit.

Happy Birthday to me!

Farrah's brother gave this mask to me.

Wayne.

Ben and Amelia's wedding

2010-03-24T09:00:00.003+11:00

We had the pleasure of attending the wedding of one of my dear high school friends. It's so great to be able to witness such a milestone. It was located in the Yarra Valley. This is a beautiful area in Melbourne well known for their wineries. They had a garden ceremony overlooking the gorgeous view. My highlight of the ceremony is watching Amelia walking down the aisle with her Dad and seeing Ben's massive grin. When Amelia was given to Ben, he just couldn't wait and just gave her a kiss right then and there! haha not yet buddy. It was cute.

In the meantime, I was nervous the whole way through because I was to be involved in a Michael Jackson thriller dance later in the night. In my head I was trying to practice all the moves. I love dancing free style but for some reason I just suck at choreography.

While Amelia & Ben were taking photos, I decided I needed to find a place to practice, and what other place is perfect than the spare room where all the cleaning products are kept haha. It was well worth it because we pulled off the dance quite well and everyone loved it.

Note: this is quite important information. I found the cutest shoes ever with bows on them and was super excited that they were the same colour as the flowers on my dress. hehe!

B.e.auutiful

How amazing is the view in the background?

Yeah that's right, I can do thriller. Watch out!

xx Farrah

I wouldn't follow these Dreams...

2010-03-23T12:35:00.002+11:00

The brain is a funny organ, well mine is in particular. Lately I have been having bizarre dreams which I seem to remember quite vividly. Farrah on the other hand says she never remembers dreams in any kind of coherent detail. So for your reading pleasure I thought I would recount one I had the other night that was so strange...

Farrah and I were both at the Tamworth town hall going to see some kind of African Elvis impersonator I have no idea why, but he was strutting his stuff around the stage and all over the venue until my Mum turns up with a great deal of urgency to deliver a box to the Impersonator. The Impersonator opens the box to find some kind of wig fashioned in the typical unfashionable styles usually associated with male toupee.
The Impersonator continued to perform coming down into the audience to bust some more moves only who should show up but Farrah's brother who begins a dance off with the Impersonator. He begins to shimmy like there is no tomorrow, mocking Elvis with every move he makes. I was so amused by this I felt the urge to join in.

Suddenly the dream changes pace my brother and I are walking to some unknown destination and he's starting to walk very stiffly like he was doing the robot dance, I was trying to figure out what was going on then suddenly I had that horrible feeling in my stomach as I realised that my brother was actually a robot whom I had built many years ago when I was young and that for some reason I only just remembered the fact and had to break it to him. I was so worried about upsetting him and destroying his perception of reality, but I told him anyway believing that he had to know the truth. To my surprise he took the news well and he began to loosen up and stopped walking like a robot and everything was fine. ???

The end.

Surely someone must relate to me, I'm not the only one with crazy dreams am I?

Wayne.

Birthday celebrations begin early

2010-03-22T23:31:00.004+11:00

Wayne is testing out his new guitar pedal.

I want one!

Haha!

Cause he can!

His pedal collection

I can't believe I get to spend my husband's birthday for the first time as a married couple! It's exciting. I wanted him to have a perfect weekend, to do whatever he wanted.
It was his birthday on Sunday but we decided to celebrate his birthday early on Friday and we began hunting for some goodies!

Since Wayne has started playing in a band again, he thought it would be good to get a new guitar pedal which he was after for a long time. We found the best emo poster ever, it was stuck on their cash register (see pic above)

Of course when we went back home, he took out the pedal straight away and made some loud noises with his guitar. We ordered Pizza Hut (his favourite junk food) and spent the night stuffing our faces and chillaxing.

By the way, Pizza Hut's chicken wings are addictive!

Wayne and Farrah

Teppanyaki

2010-03-18T13:31:00.002+11:00

We had the most AMAZING time at Teppanyaki. It was so much fun thanks to our wonderful chef who had a fantastic sense of humour.
We all ordered a banquet style meal, which included soup, prawns, fried rice, chicken teriyaki and beef steak with tea or coffee.

The chef cooks everything in front of you but with a bit of an entertainment twist. For example, instead of just giving you the fried rice he gives you the bowl and he throws the rice at you from a distance and you have to catch it. The amount of times we got rice on our clothes was quite hilarious. We had to catch bits of fried eggs into our mouth, and we all caught one which was a surprise. I think the chef is just great at aiming.

One of our friends just copped it badly, she was the centre of all jokes. The chef gave her a mountain of vegetables on her plate and expected her to eat it all, and saying things like 'you sooo hawt', winking at her and pulling faces. When he threw the rice, he threw it at her in a really bad angle and the rice just ended up all over her hair. She was in hysterics!

We can't wait to go back again, and hopefully we get the same chef.

xx
Wayne and Farrah

Falafel time!

2010-03-17T15:02:00.006+11:00

We've been getting made fun off lately because someone made a comment that our blog is all about food...well we like food. So..ner =P

This weekend I got given the idea of making Falafels. I was thinking that, since my background is middle eastern...I should probably start cooking arabic food.
To be honest, falafels aren't really popular in our family. I don't remember eating them growing up. It's one of those things you just buy at the 'kebab' shop because they're everywhere so we never really made them. On top of that, we don't really use recipe's either...my nana never measures. She just adds and tastes...well these days she never really tastes she just 'knows'.

I looked at a few recipe's and there were so many different ways of making them. Some add dried beans, some add flour, some put pepper...I was so confused. So I asked my Nana, she gave me a very simple recipe which I thought was great for a first timer. Oh and by recipe I mean, she only just gave me the ingredients then said 'good luck'.
It was very much a trial and error thing, I would add more of this, less of that and finally got an ok mixture.

You will definitely have to taste it before frying, when I first made it, the chickpeas were a bit too much and overpowered everything else, so I added more greens (parsley). It all depends on the type of chickpeas you use and how big it plumps the next day after you soak them.

Here's my version:

1.5 to 2 cups dried chickpeas
1-1.5 cup of parsley
1/2 cup of coriander leaves (or even less if you're not a fan of coriander it can be quite overpowering)
6 garlic cloves minced
2 tsp salt
2 tsp cumin
1 large onion
1/2 tsp blk pepper
1/4 tsp paprika (optional)
2 tsp baking soda, add it before frying

Soak the chickpeas in water over night.
Next day get your food processor ready. Put the chickpeas in and blend it until the chickpeas are finely chopped, they should look like bread crumbs. Then put into a large bowl.
Next put in the garlic, onion, parsley and coriander in the food processor until they're very fine, much like a paste. Add the mixture to the chickpea bowl and now you can add the salt, pepper and paprika.
This is the part where you may need to taste it, in some instances you may not have enough greens/spices so add more.

Heat about 1 inch of vegetable oil in a deep frying pan or saucepan, medium-low heat.
Add the baking soda to the mixture and mix really well.

Mold the falafel mixture into small balls. There is a falafel maker you can buy online, but I just used two soup spoons.
Drop into oil to fry, take them out when they turn brown but not too brown! I like the falfels to be nice and soft on the inside.
Remove the falfels and drain on a paper towel for a minute.

Falafels taste best in wraps, add tomato, spanish olives, cucumber, hummous and it will be most delicious.

Chocolate goodness

2010-03-17T15:00:00.005+11:00

We ran into Farrah's brother and his lovely fiance in the shopping centre and we ended up having dinner with them which was really nice. We don't normally get the chance to hang out with them, they've been busy organsing their wedding.

We felt like dessert so they recommended we go to Theobroma Chocolate Lounge. There was plenty of chocolate to choose from but we decided to go with a pretty ordinary turtle because Wayne has a new obsession with turtles after watching the zombie kid-iliketurles youtube video which you can see HERE.

You can really tell that we haven't grown up much and everyday as we write in this blog, we make a point of this.

Hurrah for Chocolate turtles.

Post Wedding FEAST Number 10,000000

2010-03-17T14:59:00.008+11:00

First of all, SO SORRY for the major blogging delay...we feel extremely bad. We have had so much happen that it has been hard to blog everyday.

This post-wedding celebration is never ending. We were invited to another luscious dinner party with plenty of traditional dishes to stuff are faces in.
I thought I would actually run down on what the meals were. We had vegan Biryani which was delicious, some of the guests were fasting for lent so this had no animal products at all.
Daub, it's a lamb stew cooked in a lovely thick sauce of arabic spices and garlic (you can see that one in the picture).

You probably can't see it properly but there's also 2 flat chickens which all bones have been removed but the shape is still intact (no idea how they do that) and it's stuffed in rice...yummmmmmm

For dessert we had plenty of fruit, baklava, sesame biscuits and we finished off the night with a nice glass of hot chai. Yep it's glass.
This is how the Iraqi's drink chai/tea :) in the picture it looks big but it's quite small about the same size as a turkish coffee cup but taller.

Lots of lovin,

Farrah & Wayne

Home Sweet Home

2010-03-12T22:04:00.005+11:00

It's been along time since I moved away from home, since then I have managed to live on average one house per year. It's a bitter sweet time for me with my new house being built and my family home being sold.
Mum has had the house in which we all grew up in on the market for a little while and it went to auction the other week but didn't sell. However, a few days ago she received an offer that was the right price and she has sold the house.

The house was a bit of a mess as Dad didn't finish the renovations before he passed away. So I've kinda always wanted Mum to move to somewhere that was a bit nicer, but at the same time not wanting her to leave the place where my siblings and I have so many memories of growing up.

Although the house was not the nicest house in the world it was the loving family that really made the house a home, something I hope to bring to the new house Farrah and I are building.

Wayne.

For the cool lover...

2010-03-11T19:28:00.011+11:00

It's technically not an obsession but I've been going to Nando's with my dear friend Steph for quite a while now. We spend every second week meeting up and eating Nandos because it's close to her work and it's her favourite. I always end up buying the wrap and I found it to be the most BORING wrap ever. I couldn't understand why people were so addicted to Nando's?? where's the flavour??

I'll tell you where the flavour is...it's not in the wrap or the burgers as I found out a few weeks ago. It's the flame-grilled chicken pieces. The quarter chicken is my new obsession.

Too bad Wayne and I have a strict budget at the moment.

I'm thinking of you Nandos quarter chicken.

Rain drops keep falling on my head, just like the guy whos feet are too big for his bed...

2010-03-10T08:15:00.007+11:00

I know this is so last Saturday, but there was a huge storm in Melbourne, fortunately we avoided the brunt of it. In fact the most inconvenience it caused me was that I couldn't finish mowing the lawn. I hired a lawn mower after doing the edges and as soon as I got home the water just fell like someone turned a huge tap on, no drizzle just "Big old fat rain" as Forest Gump would say...

Farrah and our friend Kate went to see an art exhibition (see previous post) and nearly got caught in the downpour but left just in time thankfully because it was crazy in the city, in fact my desk got drenched when the rain decided that it wasn't enough to be raining outside so it came on to where I like to do my work see the pics. So they moved me to a new desk, the third desk in month and a bit. Unfortunately not far enough away from the stinky carpet and the loud fans that are meant to be drying the floor.

On a serious note we are thankful to God that we weren't affected by the storms and all our prayers go out to all the people who were hit by the devastating rains.

Also my shoe size is 15 UK and often my feet don't fit in my bed.

What do you do on labour day?

2010-03-08T22:47:00.004+11:00

Nothing. Today was a public holiday in Melbourne. But for us it was more like a recovery from the weekend. We ate so much food at the night of the feast that we felt so sick throughout the weekend. Somehow we still managed to do things around the house and finished our bsf questions.

Before bed time we watched Whip It, a movie directed by Drew Barrymore. It's different to your average teen movie, it's about a young girl who becomes passionate about Derby Skating but her controlling beauty-pageant obsessed mother is in her way of following her dreams. We thought it was quite entertaining :)

We were very disappointed with Ponyo. As some of you may know, Wayne and I are massive anime fans and we always get excited when new movies come out but nothing lately has been great. So that goes to the pile of anime-that-sucks. Back to watching awesome 80s anime that we never get sick off.....

Wayne & Farrah

Birthday celebrations

2010-03-08T12:13:00.007+11:00

Technically this was yesterday! after morning church we went to San Churros, spanish donuts for those who have never tried you are missing out!! We went to celebrate the birthday of a wonderful friend. Happy times indeed.

One + One = Three

2010-03-07T21:52:00.006+11:00

We had lunch today at our friends Heidi and Wes's. They both got engaged around the same time as us but had a short engagement and were married long before us. The coolest thing is that they now have a beautiful baby boy and we got to hang out with him today!
He was so much fun to play with, very facinated with Wayne's nose and kept poking at it.
It's weird to see our friends in the 'parent' role now, even though it seems so natural.

They had a gorgeous picture of all of them, and a little note to say 1 + 1 = 3
So cute!

Ron Mueck exhibition

2010-03-07T21:48:00.006+11:00

Kate and I got the chance to visit Ron's exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria today.
I'm definitely not good with words at all, honestly I just don't know how to describe how amazing it was. These masterpieces were insanely spooky sculptures, with great detail and everything from veins, creases, texture, the body's were just perfect.

I know I keep saying this but, I love it now that the wedding is over I've got time to do things like this. Being able to visit exhibitions, festivals and markets...I love it!

Post wedding feasts continue!!!

2010-03-07T21:40:00.006+11:00

The post wedding celebrations continues!!! we were invited over for dinner by family friends who hosted a fabulous dinner party. The food was amazing, every traditional meal that ever existed was laid out on the dining room table.
We spent the night chatting away, eating, more eating, and eating. We had such a lovely night!
Their house was just beautiful, so exotic and full of surprises. Farrah got some neat ideas for our house with their decor.

Green thumbs

2010-03-07T21:33:00.006+11:00

Our garden is hideous at the moment.
Woke up to see this... definitely a good thing about having a husband, they get to do the hard yard stuff. Yipee. Go Wayne!

I laugh like a donkey???

2010-03-07T21:23:00.010+11:00

Some of our friends know how crazy we both can get. Today we went to visit our house and on the way we got really hyper and started getting quite silly out of tiredness. At this stage Farrah decided that it would be a good idea ???? to film us talking about different types of laughs.

No one will find this funny but to us at the time it was and that's what's awesome. We can both make each other laugh despite the fact we were so exhausted from work, and it didn't matter what it was about.
Can't wait to watch this in 10 years time and think what was wronggggg with us?

Words of affirmation

2010-03-04T21:53:00.005+11:00

I sent this to Wayne today. I always like to send him little messages to say that I'm thinking of him so that if he's having a tough day that the least thing I could do is put a smile on his face.

In the mean time, he took a really silly picture of me when we caught the train together and sent it to my brother for a bit of a laugh :( ah boys.

Steph and Andy's Engagement

2010-03-01T11:15:00.006+11:00

It's engagement season and we were off to another engagement party of our friends Andy and Steph.

It was quite casual, lots of people, great company and a nice big maze to get lost in.

Wayne and I were so tired that we ended up being extremely hyper active.

Ensemble, marchant sur la terre

2010-02-28T23:57:00.001+11:00

Walking through a land which may have a great significance in our lives...maybe or maybe not...we're not sure yet but it's exciting.

Amelia's Hens - crazy games.

2010-02-27T23:09:00.001+11:00

Saturday morning was the beginning of Amelia's hens. We woke up to go for a lovely walk by the beach and it was a bit of a time for us to reflect and talk.
We made a new friend while walking, Mr. Donkey.

We were rushed in the morning trying to buy the groceries for the night. Unfortunatey I wasn't going to make it for the night party because of an Engagement Party so it was nice of Amelia that we could have a few hens games during the day.

I loved what Amelia was wearing, she found a super cute second hand wedding dress from St Vinnies and she dressed it up with pink accessories. Pink belt, pink shoes, pink earings, pink everything.

I'll let the pictures do the talking...enjoy.

Roadtrip begins..

2010-02-26T22:53:00.001+11:00

Beautiful Rhyll

Talking on the hello phone. So cute!

Friday night Wayne had a date with his xbox and guitar while I drove out to Phillip Island for a hens. Wayne didn't end up having dinner, this is what gaming does to you!! He was so into it.

My drive was accompanied by a friend which made the whole trip go by so quickly. We arrived in Rhyll at 7:30pm, but the bride to be didn't show up till 9pm so we had plenty of time to kill. We went to the beach and of course bought fish and chips (minus the fish haha) and enjoyed the beautiful sunset.

We were so tired that when the bride to be arrived we were ready for bed.........but that didn't happen for a while. Instead I got to help her sister in law feeding her little baby girl with a bottle, it was such awesome thing to do. Great practice of what is yet to come. ;) I also played with the her other daughter, who is nearly 2 years old, she was so cute playing with my iPhone flicking through my pictures.

Bedroom inspirations

2010-02-25T21:17:00.013+11:00

The search continues for home inspiration. Today looking at bedrooms.
One thing for sure we'd love to have is a Chandelier.

Last day of the night markets

2010-02-25T09:16:00.009+11:00

Was close to buying these cute beanies!

mr. crepe man!

I have NO idea what we were thinking when we decided to go to the last day of the Queen Vic night market. It was absolutely packed, it took us an extra half an hour to get parking and everyone was just not in a nice mood.
Anyway the journey was not pleasant but getting there was a relief, and so happy we actually did make it.
First things first, we had persian food and it was amazing then we had Sangria (spanish wine punch) and finally for dessert we couldn't go past the beautiful crepes filled with nutella and strawberry with 2 scoops of ice cream...yummmmmmmmmm.

Knowing us, after the dessert we both went a little bit crazy being silly finding the most useless items that we really wanted to buy. Luckily we had good reason to control ourselves, need stuff for the new house!

The car ride home meant that Wayne's hyperness would continue regardless of the fact that he needed to focus on driving, so he turned off the car music and started making unusual sounds.

Farrah: "Are you a bird?"
Wayne: "No! I'm making dinosaur sounds"
Farrah: (laughing) (laughing) (tears) (laughing)
Farrah: "It doesn't sound like a dinosaur to me, sounds like a bird"
Wayne: "Noooo, it's when they are born they sound like that" (DUHH expression on his face)
Farrah: "Ok" (laughing)
Wayne: "Whaaat?"
Farrah: "Nothing"
Wayne: (dinosaur sounds)

You know, I can just imagine how noisy our kids are gonna be!!!!

Cupcake Love

2010-02-25T08:35:00.007+11:00

Wayne and I can't have lunch together because it's just way too far, but maybe it's a good thing? We've been so busy the last 2 years that our social life with others has gone down the hill.

We take this opportunity to hang out with friends. Wayne has been lunching with the grads and I've been spending time with my girls. I took Kate to explore bits of Melbourne, last time we had dumplings (first time for her)... Yesterday we went to a cute lane called Block place it's a lane with a few cafe's and restaurants, we ate the cafe cortile. It was yummy and quick service too.

The tables are squished so if you don't mind people listening to your conversations then I'm sure you'll enjoy the experience.

Oh and...Kate gave me a cupcake and it was worth posting pictures of because it's Red Velvet cupcake, only the best cupcake ever.

I like Turtles

2010-02-23T14:19:00.005+11:00

We love being internet nerds. heh heh

Simon's Christening

2010-02-22T16:32:00.009+11:00

In many cultures, the christening of children is celebrated with a big reception. We had the pleasure of attending the christening of Simon, the son of one of our family friends. It was held at a small arabic church and later we celebrated at a reception venue that is located right next to their church and is used by the church community.

Wayne and I attend an english church so it was really interesting to go to an arabic sermon.

After Simon was baptised the reception started, when everyone was seated Simon did a big entrance (exactly like a wedding when the bride and groome enter). His God father was holding him up and everyone was standing around Simon clapping and dancing to celebrate.
As normal, there was entre, main and dessert. Simon had a big blue cake with his name on it.
His father is a videographer and did a fabulous video that we watched just before we were served the main meals. It was the cutest video of Simon, laughing about and hanging out with his parents.

Wayne & Farrah

Simon, such a cutie!

Prettiest ever! my darling cousin.

Simon's christening and he was looking at me!

Sam wishing Amanda was there

Wayne was hungry by 9:30, so he thought an iPhone would do.

Kitchen shopping

2010-02-22T16:28:00.009+11:00

I know these are 2 separate kitchens but if you put them together,

the shape of our kitchen would be just like that.

Ivory is dominating the market at the moment, with cute french handles

the black pearl stone on a bench top is an option

Since our house is in frame stage we thought we should start to get an idea of how we want the interior to look like. So we began our hunt for kitchen ideas. One lesson learned...most shops close at 12 midday and we were out of the house by midday so we couldn't really see much but there were a couple open.

Some things we are certain of:

- We'd like a stone bench - marble perhaps?

- We like the colours Ivory, Black and other earthy colours like Brown, lime green

- Lots of Drawers

- Plenty of bench space

- Silver appliances

A few more inspirational pictures from Porter Davis.

Dark brown cupboards are quite nice against the ivory bench top

In contrast the Ivory cupboards and the black bench top
is quite lovely too.

Advice please?

Joel and Sarah's Engagement!

2010-02-19T15:38:00.009+11:00

The lovely couple

It was a delight to be apart of Joel and Sarah's engagement. It was held at Joel's parents home, which is actually not too far from where we are building. They have such a lovely home, it has that family vibe, adorned with many photos of the kids growing up and little centre pieces.

The Mums and Auntys were stuck in the kitchen preparing all sorts of goodies, home-made sausage rolls, potato gems, spinach dip bread bowl, punch, cupcakes and so much more.

We were gathered together in the lounge room, some standing and some sitting on the floor while Sarah's brother acting as the MC lead the speeches. Both the fathers of Sarah and Joel made speeches that would make you want to cry, expressing the many qualities of Joel and Sarah and how proud they were, mushy much?

To lighten the mood, we filled out a questionaire about Sarah to get to know her a little better, and we had quite a few laughs hearing some of the answers. I pretended I didn't know who Wayne was when he was shouting some shocking answers.................boys will be boys.

The lovely couple will be getting married in July. We're so happy for them!

Gaz is leaving us!

2010-02-19T15:37:00.006+11:00

We were visited by Gaz on Thursday and we experimented on him with more pizza-making. We all made our own pizza's, Wayne and Gaz made their version of a supreme and I made a chicken tandoori topping with mint sauce...best ever!
Gaz told us that he's off to some new adventures, he's off to work as a chef in Phillip Island then there's an opportunity for him to be an intern at a Canadian church in September.
We wish him all the best!!!

There's something amazing about having our friends over, it's so much fun. We love the food, the company, the awesome chats. Such a blessing.

Recent Obsession

2010-02-19T15:28:00.005+11:00

Which is why we probably both have gained unnecessary weight!!!! But it's amazing. Anyway if you ever come over, will have a supply of these....but probably not for long.

Some of our favourite photos

2010-02-19T15:27:00.009+11:00

Some of our favourite shots! Thanks to Dreaming Tree for his amazing photography.

Running bride!

Did you say husband and wife? Farrah laughs out loud.

BSF is back!

2010-02-16T13:20:00.006+11:00

Last year I became involved in one of the most rewarding bible studies. It's called Bible Study Fellowship, it's a world-wide organisation that has been around for a while.

It has been such a spiritual uplift for me to be able to focus on the word of God. The journey has been great and of course it will continue.

BSF is structured and organised and that's what I like about it, it's also non denominational.
The main points are layed out and I suppose we are given the chance to explore further.

There are both young men and women and normally the singles are separatd from the married couples but now they are merged. Pretty exciting! because I've made lovely friends in the singles group and I didn't want to part ways with them going to the married group.

Every year is a different study, it's actually a cycle of 8 years. So if you've been going to BSF for 8 years then you've most likely finished all their studies. Last year we did the life of moses which was amazing and this year we are doing the Gospel of John, which I find the most facinating of all gospels I'm really looking forward to it.

We get given notes and of course questions that we must answer then once a week you have a discussion group to go over questions and a lecture to tie it all up. Once a month we have 'fellowship' which is like a social event, we catch up and talk about what we've been learning, the challenges and other things.

I love the friendships I've made, the girls in my group are fabulous and my previous team leaders have been amazing. I was so close to quitting during our wedding planning because I was so stressed but I didn't because the support I received from BSF was tremendous and I'm ever so grateful.

Easiest meal ever - Chicken creamy pasta + avacado

2010-02-15T14:34:00.010+11:00

Sometimes when I go to restaurants/take away shops and I order a creamy pasta I always get full when I have just one bite. They pack the creamy pasta with butter, and it tastes so oily that it just makes me feel sick.

So this is our version of lite-creamy pasta that doesn't make you feel sick and it doesn't fill you up like you've eaten a giant cow. Since neither of us are expert cooks and are quite beginners, we decided to cook this the other night because it's incredibly simple.

Now this is one of those recipes where I don't really use measurements as such, I just estimate! so with the recipe below I'm trying my best to figure out how much I actually use.

For 2 people & possibly some left overs:

1 piece of chicken thigh or fillet (generous sizes otherwise make it 2 pieces)

Half an avacado

Half an Onion

1 Clove of Garlic

Pura lite - thick cream (full tub 300ml)

1 table spoon of thinly chopped parsely

White/Black pepper & Salt to season

Olive oil

Penne Pasta

Heat a medium sized saucepan over medium heat. Add 1 tablespoon of olive oil and cook the onion, stirring, for 1-2 minutes or until soft. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for 1 minute or until it starts to smell amazing.

In the mean time, prepare the penne pasta and add to boiling water in a large saucepan.

Add the chicken stirring occasionally to the onion. I like to put the cover of the saucepan now so that the chicken cooks through really well.

When the natural juices of the chicken dry up, add the parcely and let it cook for a few seconds then add the avacado and cream. Stir and season and let it simmer for a while, but not long enough to melt the avacado! Also the sauce isn't supposed to be too thick.

Add the penne pasta to the sauce and you've just made a simple & YUM dish if you love chicken and avacado...mmm best combo ever!

low key V-day

2010-02-15T11:39:00.008+11:00

Sunday morning I saw Wayne sneak out of bed, run to the garage where he was hiding these gorgeous flowers, come back and say SURPRISE FARRAH. Sorry, not the clearest photo!

Aww I was mushed and to top it off he cooked me a hearty brekky (my favourite). We didn't have anything planned during the day because we already had lunch at the Stones the day before so we actually hung out with my dad. He came over for lunch and we went and took him to see our house, he was excited for us.

Later in the evening we went to see the movie Invictus in Gold class and we had a fabulous time. We've never been to Gold class, so it was an interesting experience. The seats are so comfy, you can lie down and order hot food or any drink you want.

Wayne's excited face.

Ah, chillaaaax.

Waynie & Rahrah

Lunch @ the Stones

2010-02-15T10:07:00.007+11:00

We had a packed full weekend!

It started of with a lovely lunch at the Stones of the Yarra Valley. Sounds familiar? well it's the place where we got married. It's a beautiful winery accompanied by a stone chapel. They serve lunches on the weekend and we had to give it a try! it was a bit of an early celebration of Valentines day.

Their Chef brings Middle Eastern flavours to the table with a bit of a Modern Australian twist.

The food was nice but we expected more, we didn't take that many pictures but here are a few of the meals.

The platter for the entre was probably the best:

Stones Antipasti Platter - Pomegranate dressed oysters, pickled local vegetables, chicken terrine, rocket and macadamia pesto, Grovedale volos olives

Mains:

I had the Seared flat iron steak with a red onion marmalade and skordalia. It was lovely, the iron steak has a strong flavour, so if you've never had it before be careful! I'm not a fan of strong meaty flavours. Luckily the skordalia and onion marmalade were a great compliment.

Wayne had Lamb noisette with organic zucchini flowers, pine nuts and currants. He thought it was a bit dull but still enjoyed the lamb, it was tender and melted in the mouth.

We later visited friends of ours who live near by who are off to Singapore next week, so it was good to say hi. When we got home we felt so sick from all the food we ate, we were so full! but then all of a sudden an hour later we managed to fit dinner in...we seriously need to focus on not eating too much.

We then gate crashed a movie night at friends place, we watched the traitor. Interesting movie about terrorists and bombs, showing 2 sides of islams the good and the bad. Basically, there's good people and there's bad people.

Next blog is part 2 of the weekend & it's Valentines day :)

Fiiine I'll get an iPhone

2010-02-15T09:53:00.005+11:00

OK so I thought I really needed an upgrade, but it was hard to let go of my Nokia. I've been using Nokia since grade 6, different phones of course but it's going to be weird using another brand.

So far the iPhone has been fun to use, I had to invest in one because apps are so handy and most companies are tailoring their apps to iPhone. Poor Wayne is stuck with Samsung Omnia which he recently bought just before our honeymoon but all the exciting gadgets attached to it aren't working so it was kinda pointless for him to buy it in the first place.

Now that I have an iPhone. everything I buy has to be apple-related. I was a bit disappointed when I tried to make one of my songs into a ringtone and it came up with an alert along the lines of 'You must have purchased this song from iTunes in order to make it a ringtone'...what's up with that?

hello iPhone, hello digital world. Suddenly I don't feel so behind anymore...

House update!

2010-02-15T09:19:00.006+11:00

Lounge room

Guest Room 1

Garage - perfect fit for our Micra lol

Lounge area looking in from the outside - big open space

Guest Room 2

Entrance to lounge Area

So excited to show you guys the update on our house. We're over the moon and so happy, we feel so blessed that this will be our first home.

Now that the frames are up, we can't describe how cool it was to be able to see the rooms planned out and have an idea of how the house will look like. Wayne's design of the house is using the land to its fullest potential. At one stage we were standing where our dining room table will be and realised that we have a gorgeous view of the town!

We now need to start thinking about kitchens and bathrooms and shop around for some ideas. Any recs would be handy!

Wayne & Farrah

Queen Victoria Market - at night!

2010-02-11T09:37:00.007+11:00

Queen Vic Market is great, lots of food, lots of little shops but the best part is that during the summer it opens at nights every Wednesday.

I remember a while ago one of my friends from high school took me there with her family, and yesterday I had a free night because Wayne was hanging out with the boys. So I decided to go again with my gorgeous friend Kate.

To wrap it up, there's PLENTY of international food from greek to african to spanish to middle eastern to asian to indian...it's the most amazing thing ever. I wish I could stay there all night to try all the food. There's also local artists and designers that showcase their work, musicians, and a whole lot of good atmosphere. I couldn't believe the amount of people were there, even though there was a huge talk up of a big storm coming but nothing happened so I'm glad we went.

So many people, so much food.

Greek food! yum

Shopping time!

Cute scrabble piece turned into a pin.

So many retro tshirts. Bought one for Wayne (see below)

Cutest shop, they sell tutu's and ballerina dresses

A few clips for the hair (of course polka dots) and 2 rings, the owl and the babushka doll pattern.

Cutest headband ever!

Tshirt for Wayne - Star Wars =P

African band I think, they were great.

Farrah xo

Bran Nue Dae

2010-02-11T09:08:00.004+11:00

Image: Roadshow Films.

We went and saw Bran Nue Dae, the new Australian movie. We weren't sure what to expect, we really didn't like the movie 'Australia' and was hoping it wasn't going to be a repeat.

Nevertheless, we like to support aussie films and we went to see it anyway hoping for the best.

Bran Nue Dae got us both hooked from the first scene. We had no idea there was going to be singing and dancing but we loved it. Plus it's always great to see a bit of Australia's indigenous culture. It was fabulous! it's a feel-good movie with lots of cheesy aussie jokes, highly recommend you see it.

Love it!

2010-02-11T08:55:00.006+11:00

We love our collage frame. Thanks to Joyce and Andrew for the frame. We mixed it up a bit and put some pro photos and silly ones as well.

Still haven't received our full wedding album yet, Farrah is dying slowly on the inside, she wants them so bad.

Couldn't help but give you another sneak peak from the slideshow we have... we took a picture of a picture it's the best we could do.

Working Class Man

2010-02-08T12:56:00.007+11:00

So I've finally started my job! Last week they flew me up to Brisbane HQ with other grads from Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane for induction. It was great to get to know the other grads and learn more about the company.

This job is a real blessing, the place is so great to work for so the people are great I realy couldn't ask for a better place to start my career.

While I was in Brisbane I missed Farrah alot it was really the first time that we have been apart since we got married. I don't think I would like travel all the time as I would miss her too much, infact one of the many reasons I went away from music as a career is the amount of travelling involved and the hours you have to work.

Looking forward to tell you guys more about my work adventures.

Wayne

Thank you

2010-02-08T10:58:00.009+11:00

I spent most of Saturday writing the Thank You cards to all our wedding guests. It was lots of fun writing little personal notes to everyone. It certainly makes it a lot more special when it's personalised.

We are so very blessed by the generous gifts we have been given from friends and family. It's amazing how much support we have. We hope we can be the same for each and every one of them.

And since we are on the subject of being grateful. This week I have received some bad news all around, from people who are seriously ill and some who won't live for long which has made me realise something. I've been in a really complaining mood in the last 2 weeks, my headache and teeth may have had something to do with it but not an excuse. My issues are no where near as what some of these people are going through, but it's so easy to be carried away and instead be grateful for what I have.

So Thank You God for the following:

- Food

- Clothes & plenty of shoes :P

- Home

- Clean water

- Work

- My family & friends

- Health

- Best husband in the world

- A working car

- My skills

- My experiences in life

- Travels

- The ability to have an education

- Speaking 2 languages + semi 3rd

- My phone which I probably rely on way too much

- Conveniently living right near the station and the shopping centre (possibly a bad thing)

- Microwave Popcorn - it's genious

- Television (only sometimes)

- Internet - because it's partially how I met Wayne & of course it's how I keep in touch with all of you BUT please control my online shopping habits.

- Ice cream (we didn't have a lot of it in Iraq so now I appreciate it more than ever)

- Being safe

- Simply that I am alive & that I can have the opportunity to be here.

and the list goes on....thank you & thank you & thank you

Farrah

Can't wait for our photos...argh

2010-02-05T14:20:00.010+11:00

Our professional photos have finally arrived, well semi-arrived. We have the slideshow but we're still waiting on the CD with all the pics. Our poor photographer took about 1400 photos and has been colour correcting them, and no doubt photoshopping all those flies. They were taken by the wonderful John from Dreaming Tree. So talented and 100% passionate about what he does.

He's already been hired out by some of our friends who are getting married soon.

Brides, please check out his incredible work here

I promise I'll put the professional pics up as soon as we get them.

Dumplings

2010-02-04T11:31:00.008+11:00

Filling up my time while Wayne is away has continued on. Kate stayed over last night and we had a lovely catch up. Kate and I have known eachother for a couple of years, we met at church when she was visiting for the first time and I was the first to chat with her. Now she's a regular attender and a Youth leader which is awesome and an amazing blessing. So nice to see her grow and to see her spiritual journey flourish.

To summarise- we spent the night talking, watching John Travolta, making smoothies and more talking...and talking :) I love talking :P AND I learnt much about Lily, Kate's kitten, isn't she adorable???? Aw look at those innocent eyes.

Here's our smoothie in the making process:

Today I wanted to take Kate to have some dumplings at Shanghai Village which is usually the place I go to for work lunches. We had fried vegetarian dumplings and steamed beef dumplings and some noodles, so yummy! I hope I made Kate addicted to them.

So much fun hanging out with kate the last 2 days =)

Tonight Wayne comes back and tomorrow we are picking up our professional wedding photos!!! so excited.

Farrah

Girly times

2010-02-03T13:43:00.004+11:00

It's the perfect opportunity to spend quality time with the girls since Wayne isn't around. Lovely Dana came over last night for a nice chillaxing dinner. We watched Sydney White movie, a romantic-comedy based on the Snow White cartoon. It's cute, possibly suited for 14 year olds not 20-somethings but whatever :P
Anyway, for some reason the movie has obviously inspired us to take a photo of dana biting me as a vampire? I think by that stage the sugar from the pepsi started to kick in.

Then of course it was time for So you think you can dance? More crying than ever. Every story is a tradegy. But that didn't stop Dana and I from dancing around the room pretending to know the choreography of matt.

I love girly nights. Tonight it's with kate, bring it on!

xx
Farrah

Miss you!

2010-02-01T14:27:00.004+11:00

Wayne is off to brissy for his work induction and since spending so much time together in the last 50 days it's crazy how much I've grown used to having him around.
Before we were married I spent a lot of time alone doing stuff and I've already forgotten how to do that! Slowly I'll get back into reading and photoshopping but for now I'm in a lot of pain from what seems to be an infected wisdom tooth but I'll find out what the deal is tomorrow at the dentist. As a kid I remember getting excited learning about 'Wisdom' teeth, oh just the idea of being wiser and older but now I've decided that they suck.

Hurry up and come back Wayne.

xx
Farrah

Pre-wedding video montage - groomsmen

2010-01-30T23:09:00.003+11:00

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

2010-01-30T09:29:00.007+11:00

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!

2010-01-28T16:01:00.007+11:00

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

2010-01-28T14:15:00.014+11:00

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

2010-01-28T11:25:00.009+11:00

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

Happy Australia Day

2010-01-27T09:51:00.003+11:00

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

2010-01-27T09:42:00.007+11:00

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

2010-01-27T08:00:00.001+11:00

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

2010-01-24T23:12:00.006+11:00

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

2010-01-24T13:12:00.009+11:00

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

2010-01-24T13:06:00.006+11:00

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

2010-01-24T12:58:00.008+11:00

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

2010-01-21T09:44:00.004+11:00

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

2010-01-21T09:30:00.004+11:00

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

2010-01-19T10:51:00.003+11:00

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

2010-01-19T10:43:00.004+11:00

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

2010-01-17T10:40:00.004+11:00

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

2010-01-17T10:34:00.004+11:00

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.

2010-01-17T10:30:00.003+11:00

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

2010-01-14T11:45:00.005+11:00

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

Lord of the Rings Edoras tour

2010-01-12T16:47:00.013+11:00

Today we went to Edoras in Middle Earth, which is a couple of hours outside of Christchurch in NZ. The first picture you can see is from the actual movie Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
After a few hours of driving in a not a 2, not a 4 but a 6 wheel drive Toyota Land Cruiser we ended up at this beautiful location.
We took some movie like poses, the first pose is of me as Gollum holding one of Farrah's rings ("My Precious"). The next picture is of us holding the Edoras flag after climbing the mountain/rock. If you saw the first pic this is where the Golden Hall was placed. The next pic is of a random cow standing in front of the beautiful scenary... what the? Ok... The next picture is a real life representation of Farrah and mine's first real fight...

It was such a nice location we learnt a couple of facts about the Edoras location; it took them 8 months to build the set, they filmed for less than 3 weeks then it took them 3 months to pull it all down and restore the site back to normal. Now when they restored the site back to normal that included putting in the tufts of grass back in the exact spots they had moved them from, this involved recording the exact location of each plant and storing it in a nursury at the bottom of the mountain. It really blew us away at the amount of effort taken to make this movie as well as the cost... lol. Anyway we hope you enjoy all the photos as much as we enjoyed taking them.

Wayne and Farrah

Exploring Christchurch

2010-01-11T20:44:00.008+11:00

We're gonna make this blog short because we didn't really do much today. We returned our beloved rented car which we became attached to, it's so weird not to have it. We then explored Christchurch and did a lot of walking around, we saw 2 cathedrals both lovely. There's a main shopping strip on high st but it's pretty small and Farrah didn't really buy anything but Wayne found skate shoes that fit his gigantic feet and he was so excited.
We found a few lanes, very similar to Melbourne there's a few hidden restaurants and bars and interesting deco with grafitti. We thought it would be cool to have dinner there but we got lazy at night and it was raining so we ended up having pizza hut delivered to our hotel room...classsy!

Tomorrow it's Lord of the Rings tour! bring it on.

Much love,
Wayne and Farrah

Christchurch

2010-01-11T20:40:00.002+11:00

So we're in Christchurch and we're not very impressed. It's maybe too early to judge but it looks quite boring!
We've got a couple of days of exploring the city centre but there's not much! the pictures in the brochures lie!!!
But luckily we do have some tours booked for the rest of our stay here, we've still got Lord of The rings tour and swimming with the dolphins.
But for now we're going to walk around and do some shopping in Christchurch.

We're staying at the Rydges hotel and it is the worst place we've stayed at so far. It's quite noisy and we can hear the people next door which is pretty unfortunate. Our view from our window is basically a roof with bird poo all over it...so in terms of spoiling honeymooners they definitely failed in that aspect. Peppers bluewater in Lake Tekapo was the best stay,they upgraded our room which was AMAZING. Novotel in Queenstown gave us a nice room as well with a little congratulations card and a free bottle of wine IF we go to their restaurant haha good try.

We can't really complain though, we didn't really book any extremely luxurious places because we wanted our money to go towards activities, as you can tell we've done quite a lot so far so we're pretty pleased.

Travelling together as husband and wife has been A LOT of fun, we really enjoy eachothers company. Even something as simple as enjoying the driving across the Sth Island and singing along to songs that we both know and love and laughing at stupid jokes that only us can understand...these memories we'll never forget.

xoxo
Wayne and Farrah

Hanmer Springs day 2 - Quad bikes and water rafting

2010-01-10T15:26:00.006+11:00

We woke up to a sunny day in Hanmer Springs ready for some adventures. At 10am we headed down the river to do water rafting and to our surprise it was just us 2 and the guide on the boat which was pretty fun.
The actual river was pretty mellow but we did have a few fun tides. Whilst still rafting we stopped near a huge rock formation and were given the opportunity to jump off the rock into the river. Wayne was brave enough to do it from 3 metres high but I could only do it from about a metre! haha I chickened out in the end because I'm not such a confident swimmer especially because we had to swim back to base against the direction the tide was going.

Our guide was heaps of fun and we got to chat a bit during the slow tides and I got to jump off the boat and swim a bit in the water. It's really weird swimming in a moving river, you don't have to do anything but float on your back and let the water move you.
So after about an hour of rafting we got driven back to the base by a jet boat and we rested and had lunch and got ready for the quad bike.

The quad bike was a lot of fun, a very muddy and wet experience. I think Wayne enjoyed it quite a bit, he was showing off driving around heaps fast into corners. I was pretty good as well, I felt so confident at one stage that I nearly fell off my bike but I made it. We drove through rivers, lots of muddy puddles and gigantic rocks, and of course it was all backed up with the lovely scenery of Hanmer Springs.

So from 10am till 3pm we have been flat out! Tomorrow we're driving down to Christchurch and staying there for a few nights.

The internet here has been quite shocking and slowwww to the max and this is why we haven't been able to upload that many photos because it just takes forever and we'd have to try at least 3 times before one photo is uploaded.

We'll try and find better internet providers :P

Hope Melbourne is going well without us!

Lots of love,
Wayne and Farrah

Hanmer Springs - Wai Ariki nature park & thermal pools!

2010-01-08T20:47:00.006+11:00

The Sheep that snotted on Farrah

Today we left from Lake Tekapo to Hanmer Springs it was a good drive by that I mean I (Wayne) enjoyed driving all the bends and turns, NZ roads are so different from Australian roads they tend to only be one lane even on the major highways. Anyway we made Hanmer springs in great time and hit up the info centre where I (Wayne) came across something so exciting, a llama petting zoo. This was even more exciting than rafting and quad biking activities that we had just previously booked.

After we had checked into the motel we decided to go to the petting zoo and then to the thermal pools later being eclipsed by the excitement of the petting zoo, LLAMAS! Anywho, admission to the petting zoo was $10 probably the best value for any of the activities we have done on this trip also you could pay another $2 and get food to feed the animals, but we weren't allowed to feed the Donkey or Harley the pig because the food upsets their tummies. I have to mention at this point Farrah was also pretty excited but I think she would agree with me that I was the most excited... obssesed... LLAMA!

First animal we petted was these two lovely Clydesdale Horses that I have named Sally and Brittany because they were both female I think... Then we saw Bambi's mum who actually didn't die but was rescued by the owners of the farm how about that! Then we met the sheep they were quite funny characters the biggest sheep (photo above) was either really excitible or had a cold because he sneezed on Farrah and she had sheep snot on her jumper and in her hair. It was soo funny thankfully so did she despite being grossed out LOL.

Then it was time to see the Llamas! man this was probably the most exciting thing I was even allowed to go in the Llama pen and hug the Llamas. There were quite a few 6-7 I think they were mostly after the animal food I had and when ever I tried to pat them they would freak out and run away from me but that was cool, there was one Llama who let me hug him, I think I will name him Gary, Gary is a good name for a Llama. One of the Llamas was very different though, she was very proud and didn't like the animal food, she refused to eat it, I even tried to feed her the very hay she was eating before but she refused to eat it, probably because she could tell I was Aussie and she didn't like Aussie or some thing like that.
The Llama psychie is a complicated thing... I also got to pat Alpachas which kinda look like Llama but are a bit more hairy they were really scared of me unless I had food in my hands. After feeding and petting the Llamas and the Alpacha and then the Llamas again, the Donkey (who I'll name Don) started to speak up in jealous tantrum, I'm sure this is somewhere along the lines of what was going through Don's mind;
"Why don't they want to pat me, what's wrong with me? Just cause I'm not as exotic as those Llamas or the Yak, I'm still loveable?"
So to cut a long story short I went and made friends with the donkey I brought him some of the Llama's hay because he was not allowed to eat the regular animal food, I thought this might cheer him up because he was getting to eat the Llama's food, the phychie of the Donkey was far more complex than that of even Llama...

After that we went to the hot springs where relaxed and reminisced about the animals for a while, ate some over priced New Zeland pizza and called it a night, I'm hoping to have sweet dreams about riding Llamas to work when I start working in my new job and I wonder if they have Llama parking?
Here is a good song.

Lake Tekapo

2010-01-08T19:56:00.007+11:00

Thursday morning we picked up our rented car from Hertz, just wanted to say how much fun it has been driving in New Zealand. It's seriously the best drive ever, you can never get bored!
The drive to Christchurch from Queenstown takes about 7 hours and we didn't wanna drive that much on the one day so we decided to have a stopover overnight at Lake Tekapo. It took us about 3 hours to drive there and We stayed at the Peppers bluewater resort and they upgraded our room, it was amazing. Huge apartment, double storey with 2 balconys looking out to the lake.
Lake Tekapo used to be a stopover to Mt Cook, but now it's a popular destinations for lots of international and domestic visitors. The colour of the water is like a turquoise blue which is very unique and is formed by 'rock flour'. The glaciers in the headwaters of Tekapo grind the rocks into fine dust on their way down to the lake. This 'rock flour' is then suspended into the lake and when the sunlight hits the water it creates this beautiful colour.

Also unique to the area of Lake Tekapo is the church of the good shepherd, which is set in the most beautiful location on a hilltop looking out to the lake. We took plenty of photos of this church, just couldn't get enough of it!

Lake tekapo is also known for its clear and darkest sky and it's spectacular to see the stars at night. There is an observatory which is run by Canterbury University and they run Star Gazing tours at night. We had booked one for that night however it was cancelled due to high wind so we were pretty disappointed.

We had dinner at Chinese Restaurant Jade Palace, it was really good value! We had buffet for 2 and got a bit of everything...definitely recommended considering the place next door which was Pepe's Pizza were selling their pizza's for 30 bucks each!!!! and they only had 6 flavours to choose from....hmmmmmm.

So far this Honeymoon is the best!!!!!

Wayne and Farrah
xx

Milford Sound overnight cruise

2010-01-05T05:39:00.008+11:00

We just came back from an exhausting overnight cruise at the beautiful Milford Sound with Real Journeys. Our guide

who was also our bus driver, Gavin was very informative and friendly. Our trip was all up about 5 hours, the bus was

semi comfi for regular size people, being tall for poor Waynie doesn't help. The bus had huge windows on the roof

which allowed us to see the amazing scenery on the way, We jumped on the bus at around 8:30am Wednesday heading

towards our first stop at Kingston, situated at the bottom of lake wakatipu where there is an old steam train and

station worth around 1.2 million if anyone is interested in buying it :P Wayne's dream of course.
Next up we had a very small short break at five rivers, cute little cafe with a gorgrous backyard.

We had a few stops and you realise you're in NZ when you get stopped by a flock of 2000 sheep on the road!!! one stop worth mentioning is mirror lakes, I guess it's quite self explanatory. The lake is like a

mirror, in the back of the lake there is a sign that says 'Mirror Lakes' but it's written backwards and upside down

and can be read properly in the reflection of the water, pretty neat. We then stopped for lunch at Te Anau. They had

an awesome little pie shop, best pies ever! Steak and cheese and pasties mmmmmmm At that stage we were feeling

pretty tired but quite excited to get on the boat.

At around 4:30pm we boarded the Milford Mariner (our boat) and got in our cabins. The cabin and the beds were

actually quite comfy and it was good to have our own space. The crew and the skipper (driver of the boat) called us

up for a first meeting and they went through the saftey rules and we were off to Milford Sound. Out of excitment

everyone was taking photos and getting used to being on the ship. We saw some dolphins and seals and quite sure Farrah squealed a gazillion times, then we spent a while outside loving the fresh air.

When we got to Harrison Cove in Milford Sound, the skipper turned off the engine and that's where we stayed for the

night. We were given the opportunity to participate in outdoor activities and Wayne and I decided to do kayaking. It

was such a good experience to be able to kayak in the most beautiful surroundings, we wanted to stay there forever.

After about an hour and a half of exploring in the kayak we were called up to freshen up and be ready for dinner. We

got to sit with a Scottish Mum and her son travelling together and it was nice to be able to meet new people. The

crew were so lovely and the food was fabulous, they cooked us a huge buffet with lots of salads, roast and pasta

etc.

The night was finished with a presentation from the nature guide and he took us through some of his experiences and

travels around Milford Sound with great photos to accompany his stories.

The next day we had to be up at 7am for breakfast, also great buffet. The boat went by so many waterfalls, at one

point we came across a huge waterfall and the skipper decided to drive the boat right through the waterfall and the

poor people sitting outside at the front of the boat got extremely wet but surely they loved it. Shortly after that

we were off the boat around 9:30am and already on our way back to Queenstown.

We just got back and it's 3:30pm and no idea where we are going to get the energy to drive to Lake Tekapo tomorrow.
From now we are on our own, driving through South Island. We won't have much internet access, it all depends on

where we are staying and whether they have internet. But we'll try our best to keep you updated.

We've got some professional pics of us kayaking at the Milford Sound but you won't get to see that for another week

but for now here are a few snap shots of our cruise.

Lots of love,

Wayne and Farrah