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Dubbo Weekend

I have to start the recount of our weekend with Thursday evening, where we planned to be in bed early, for an early rise and start at work on Friday. What happened was that Al rang asking if I knew my maths. About 40 mins of explaining what a vector was and how to denote vectors, I had learned vector theory, and proved a vector equation. It ended up being a late night, but I'm sooo proud that I worked it out.

Anyway we did manage to get up and out to work early enough. Only problem was that I didn't leave work as early as I had planned, and after driving like a manic to pick Mark up, we headed home, packed an then headed for Dubbo. We went via Boorwa(piddle stop) , Cowra, Forbes and then Parkes, where we stopped for fuel and then went to the Parkes radio telescope for some photos: located here. Anyway, some more crazy driving later, through rain, we made it to Dubbo just after dark. Because we had been driving through rain, we decided to scout for dinner and tarpaulins. We set up camp by headlight, and ended up having the most atrocious sleep ever. Saturday morning we decamped, found breakfast( macca's McCafe has gluten free products, although somewhat limited), dropped bronson off to the kennels (late... my bad). We were a little early for the zoo, so we decided to visit old Dubbo Gaol( Mark advises me that "Gaol" is the english spelling of "Jail"). It was quite small, well kept, but very creepy in a cool kinda way...

Anyway, after we did the gaol, we headed for the zoo. On arrival that check-in wasn't until 2pm, but we were free to go through the zoo, and utilise our bike hire. We got bikes, and did most of the zoo( slight detouring from the road meant that we missed the Lions and Zebras). Anyway, we had lunch, and checked in for our night as Zoofari lodge. It was a great experience, filled with a behind the scenes tour before our 3 course dinner, and a by spotlight tour after dinner. Food was great, and the tours were very interesting. We spent the night in permanent tents. Photos also here. As you can see the beds were nice, and sleep was great!

The next morning was an early one for our third tour... where we fed.... GIRAFFES, BONGO's and RHINOSERi! After a that it was back for a great spread at breakfast. After that we packed, checked out and met up with Kenny and Dan. We spent the day driving around with Kenny and Dan going through the exhibits again.

About 3 ken and dan left, and we went to pick up bronson. After which we headed for Orange where we camped the night at a very kind caravan site that let us stay even after they had gone home. The next morning we settled our bill, found breakfast( McCafe again, but Orange had a wider gluten free range) and headed for Bathurst. We got there and headed straight for Mount Panorama where we both did a lap! Its very cool as the track is permanently set up, however there are driveways and houses coming off the track.... ultra cool.

Anyway, we got back to Canberra by lunch, and did our grocery shopping. We got home and cleaned up. Cooked dinner and had a friend over, to which she taught me how to knit... yes I knit now.

We thats our weekend.... we are planning a road trip to Melbourne. But before then, we have a much anticipated and welcomed visit from Sandra! Yay!

anyway, i'm almost finished all my Gilmore girls and I really should go to bed.
Ciao for now!

RE Hail storms closing down canberra....

We are fine, and have suffered no damage. We live in the south and subsequently only got the wonderful Sound and light show, and heavy rain.

Driving Mark into work this morning was a totally different matter. Its only 5 km's north of us, the city was hit the hardest, and even @ 8 am this morning, it was a magical winter wonderland.

Will blog more..

On Thursday 25th, we were up in QLD over the Australia day break due to the then imminent wedding Becci and Dan.
We arrived late on Thursday night, and had dinner with some very lovely ladies.

Early Friday morning, we departed the much loved Brisvegas for Dalby. The day was a blur of meet and greet, preparation and organisation, until about 4.30pm. At this point one of the nastiest storms I've evern seen ripped through the Darling Downs... and we were without power all night.

Luckily the next morning, Saturday, the power was restored, and wedding preparations continued... The following is how my day, as bridesmaid #3 ran :

5am: Wake up
7.30am: Up and Shower
8am: Breakfast
8.30 am: To the hairdressers 11.30am: finish the @ the hairdressers, go to hotel room ready for Makeup and Dressing..
12.30pm: Makeup
1.30pm Lunch.
2.30pm Prep the flower girls and Dress the bride
3pm: Get dressed myself
3.45pm: Drive to the church
4.00pm: Ceremony
4.45pm: Photos outside church
5pm: Bridal Party Photos
6pm: Reception......
10pm: Home with Flower girl and sleep.

I believe that the mother and brother of the bride had MUCH more hectic days.
Many photos were taken, and can be viewed by following the links on www.mongdidi.com

Sunday was equally as hectic, due to the fact that the mother of the bride invited everyone at the reception back to there house to have breakfast.... I must say it went off without a hitch and I'm sure everyone involved appreciated the giant effort.
We eventually left Dalby at about 1pm.

Some rest was had sunday afternoon, and then we were up and at them on Monday....
Out to the airport with a dog, in Monday morning peak traffic.... almost didn't make the flight.

Got to Canberra by 11.30... and and I was work by 1. Mark stayed home for the rest of the day. He installed his new Hardrive( purchased specifically for the purposes of creating a wedding video extrordinaire) and got to capturing the footage.

Tuesday was made more interesting by picking up Russell Loi( a friend from primary school and high school) from the airport, and installing him in our spare room.

Wednesday was made fun by having Malloy( a friend of Ours from Work at the Library) come down from Brisbane to stay.

Thursday night I went to a farewell party of Hang(a friend from primary school and Uni that has been down in Canberra, but is headed for the UK.)

Friday night was taken up with a marathon game of RISK(a board game about Global domination).

Saturday was speckled with little chores, picking up wedding photo prints and then helping Loi move to his new address. A canoeing trip was also made on Saturday, followed by a bbq and the arrival of Shaun and Karen on their trip around Australia. They came with caravan in tow, and it was approximately 1 hour of backing up, then going forward, straighten up, back up and then going forward to inch their caravan down our driveway.

Sunday started nice and slowly... thank god... then we went to the National Gallery with our 2 sets of house guests and we saw the Egytian artifact exhibit currently visiting in Canberra from the Louvre. Sunday afternoon was filled with another canoe ride. (We have discovered that Canberra seems to have big winds come through late every afternoon, due to the varying levels of choppi-ness at the two different canoeing trips)

On Monday it was officially Mark's last day at work with 4D, but he's feeling "sick" so he's at home entertaining our house guests. I worked.... and fun it is! No really I shouldn't complain... it was 38degrees on Monday, and at least work has airconditioning!

Tuesday, we farewelled Shaun and Karen before heading to work. Me to mine, and Mark to his new work place. As a precaution, he wore long sleeve shirt, tie and suit pants, but hoped that they were like all other IT sections( Tshirt and Pants). No. They wear Long Sleeve shirt and Ties.....! So there was some made scrounging for all of his old Long Sleeve Shirt and various Non-cartoon Print Ties.... believe me its difficult to find ones that fit and look good.
I've asked dad to buy some more for him when he heads to China( which he's doing on the 18th)
Tuesday night Mark played soccer, they didn't win.... maybe next week, it would be a good way to finish the season.

Yesterday was just another day, except I started a project with regards to photoshop. After an initial huffyness with the product, I've decided its not THAT bad to use..... I'm just not liking the product of my work though, so I will start again tonight. I was up till 1am last night working on it.


Hopefully we will have a nice quiet weekend, then next weekend (the 17th and 18th of Feb), which is chinese new year, We will be going to Sydney to celebrat the year of the PIGGY!
(on this topic, you need to read this:http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=62364)

Anyways, thats enough rambling from me....

I learnt a new term this weekend...
a quote from Sandra:
"Slack-attack"... use having a slack-attack

I like it! It summarised most of our weekends...

Last weekend was somewhat different though.
We went with Leo and his mum to Young: Cherry capital of Australia.
It was good. We picked our own cherries... 2kgs! They were finished in 2 days flat!

Then my Bday on Tuesday.
Thanks for everyone that rang, emailed and smsed.
I love the thought of you guys remembering.
Otherwise it was an extremely busy day!

next week we will be camping... will have more piccies and better stories.

till then!

Time for an update again isnt it!
lets see...

Friday 29
Up at 5 to make the 6.25 flight to brisbane.
Got brisvegas, and al and I had lunch at uni with the LTS Crew.
Great to catch up with all.
Then we went shopping for a while. Then we headed for Mt Cootha and the botanical gardens to take some photos, before I headed out to have dinner with the girls

Saturday 30
Went with bec, dan and daisy out to toowoomba to meet Sandra.
We had a nice day of shopping and eating!
Daisy is such a little darling still!
Bec and Dan dropped me off and daisy got to meet mum. Daisy likes mumcause she makes alot of noise!
Later that night I went to Kates bday party.
Mark and leo set out for sydney early in the morning.
They were going to collect a trailer for the back of a bike in Sydney. From all accounts the trip was quite successful. So successful in fact that leo didn't come back with mark. He stayed the night and meet up with some old mates and possibly a new friend of the girl capacity.

Sunday 1
Went in the morning with prat and nita to see todger.
He hadn't had any treatment yet, and he was looking pretty good.
That arvo, had a relaxing one.
That night al and I went to see Re, Sammy and Ishy.
Ishy didn't cry at all this time!!!

Monday 2
Al and I did some shopping some more!
We went to uni again to print some dvd covers more marks ever expanding collection.
The green bridge to Annerley is looking good!
That night we went and saw Pat and Vincent!

Tuesday 3
Early rise, to catch another 6.25 flight to canberra.
Saw a fellow grad at the luggage travellator thing, and we gave her a lift to work.
long day at work and then to home and bronson I headed!

The rest of the week was a bit of a blur, as I was in a new section and all.

Friday6
We had leo, jiao and megan over to celebrate Moon festival.
We were going to play mahjong, however buzz and singstar won out!

Saturday 7
We didn't do much at all!
I believe at one stage we tried out the bikes and bike trailer with bronson in it. He doesn't much like the trailer, but we willhave him trained. Then my bike broke.

Sunday 8
We had megan over for breakky. but otherwise stayed in till about 2 and when we headed to floriade. We met up with Leo and Jiao eventually... arty farty photos are here.

Then it was another week at work.

Friday 13
Megan, Kayzad and Farhad came over and we played poker... badly.
Megan of course won!

Saturday 14
we headed to sydney for the day after dropping kayzad and farhad to the air port at 6.
We got into sydney and headed for china town.
Got a few things and then headed for shauny and kazza's as everyone was meeting there to see pratty!
great day was had, and we left about 6pm.

Sunday 13.
Due to the long day previously, I slept most of today.
Hoping not to get called into work, but if in 15 mins they haven't called we are going for a ride with bronson.

And that my dears is another thrilling installment of our lives.
I would describe more of what we did, but you would get bored, and its been soo long that I can't quite remember everything!

take care till next time!

Okay we've had two lazy weekends, its the week in between them that has been interesting.

Firstly, I made a surprise dash up to brisvegas for Alices Formal :

A photo of the event follows. For more photos go mongdidi.com, then to our photo page, and the Events folder.

We were up early Wednesday morning for the 6.20 flight. After fighting now unaccustomed morning traffice dropping dad to work, I had a day of having my eyes checked, meeting up with han for lunch, and seeing Sammy and Ishy. I got home about 4pm and surprised alice. Trissles came over to dosh on all the goss, and we had yummy dumplings for dinner. Inspiration stuck and we ordered some memory for dad's new camera online. Late night to bed as we had all the prep to do for al's formal.

Thursday was just as hectic. Up ealry, breakfast and then Alice drove to school. Smooth ride except for the parking at the end... she killed a hub cap. Then it was dad's turn to be dropped off to work. After two near misses with the cops, it was shoe shopping with bec and daisy. After leaving bec and daisy, I rushed off to pick up the memory for the camera... stupid me ordered a stick of SD RAM instead of SD memory. For all none geeks, RAM is for a motherboard and approximatley 2cm x10cm . Longer than a camera. Quickly reordered and then headed off to pic k up alice from school. Headed to UQ and had lunch with Han. Also got to catch up with some Library folk.
After this it was time to get Al's hair done. We headed to indro , al got her hair and make up done just in time to be dropped off to her friends, where she dressed for the formal. I raced off grabbed my new contacts and then rushed home to change. Mum and I got to the Carlton Crest a bit late. I didn't realise how bad the road works in brisvegas are getting.

Anyway photos were taken, and we had to rush back out again as our parking closed at quater to 8. We then decided to have dinner. With no better options available to us, we decided upon sushi station. DON"T BELIEVE FOR ONE SECOND that sushi shops are owned by Japanese people.... their not! Dad took a photo at one stage, and got told off in chinese by the lady.

After dinner we headed back home where I packed and waited for al to ring. I ended up picking her up at 11.30, stopped by sutling street to pick up a dvd for mark, and got home by 12.30pm. To which we had to dismantle alice's hair... she has a huge bobby pin collection now if anyone requires bobby pins. after which I headed to bed, to get as much of the remaining 4 hours sleep available to me.

Friday morning, got up at 4.30pm dressed and headed to the airport. Only when I got there did I realise that I'd left my mobile and a book at mum and dads! oh well... i've been without mobile all week. It hasn't really affected me that much I'm proud to say. Got to canberra, mark picked me up and it was straight to work.

While I was away, on thursday night Mark went over to a friends house(Megan, featured below) and they had a marathon baking session. 5 hours, 3 cakes, a packet of smarties and a bowl full of icing later they produced:
NB 8 is a lucky number in Chinese culture.
The cake was to be used at surprise birthday celebrations for Leo a work mate and as it happens distant family friend. Much covert planning was conducted prior to the event, and I say, it all went off quite well. Photos of the event are below. For more photos go mongdidi.com, then to our photo page, and the Our Life in the Can Album.
We went out for drinks afterwards, and this forced us to bring Leo back to ours to sober up for a while. We were up till about 2.30am.







Needless to say, having not got more than 5 hours sleep for 3 nights running I was knackered. Therefore, apart from 2 adventures out of our house on sunday afternoon( one ill fated attempt at Floriade), I slept all weekend...

Then the week started... and it going quite quickly. Last night we won an ebay auction on a bike trailer... very exciting... we haven't ebayed for quite a while.
Tonight, Mark played indoor soccer... they lost 8-2 but fun was had by all.
Its only a four day week for me, as I plan on heading back to brisvegas this Friday.

Mark will be in Canberra for the long weekend. He is going for a drive to sydney on saturday to pick up the bike trailer for bronson. On sunday and monday i'm sure he will be getting as much use out of the bike trailer as possible.

One Big Scare today. I fed bronson some macadamia nuts on Sunday about 11am. About 2 he vomitted and his legs were wobbly. then from 2pm to 9pm he didn't move from his bed and he was shaking. FACT: Macadamia nuts are highly toxic to dogs... DO NOT FEED DOGS NUTS! ITs okay, Monday morning he was back to his old self again. ... phew!

Anyways, I will have more info for you next weekend!

Ciao for Now!!!