MarknDi

2007-08-25T17:52:00.000-07:00

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ciao.

2007-03-20T05:02:00.000-07:00

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!

2007-02-27T17:27:00.000-08:00

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..

2007-02-07T13:26:00.000-08:00

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....

2006-11-05T03:41:00.000-08:00

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!

2006-10-14T21:01:00.000-07:00

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!

2006-09-26T05:03:00.000-07:00

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!!!

2006-09-11T01:12:00.000-07:00

Lets' do a recap of the last two weeks.... actually we work in weekends so, here is the last two weekends...
Weekend number 1, we played risk on saturday with the crew below:
It was a marathon session, we started at 5pm(after being advised the start was 4pm) and didn't finish until 11pm. We stopped breifly for dominoes pizza dinner, but the urgency of the game, and the risk of having alliances formed while you where away from the table was too dangerous so we played through.
The strongest player by far was Megan( first timer), and had it not been for mark and my upheld alliance, I do not believe I would have won after having beaten Mark for the champion's title in the game of "global domination".

Sunday ended up being a nice lazy day for dvd watching and sleeping.

Ahh I love my weekends.

This weekend just past has been a hectic one. On Friday arvo we went scouting for Indian Butter chicken ingredients, in preparation for the Bollywood night we were to attend on Saturday night. After getting home and resting for a little while, we were roused once again by a phone call advising of a new bridesmaids dress design. After quickly scooting out, trying on the dress and returning to advise of a positive fitting, we were off to bed.

Saturday we had a day of domestic bliss... we cleaned, washed, cooked and vacumned. About 2pm we were done, and that's when mark started cooking for the Bollywood night. Much time and effort was placed in the cooking of 2 seperate butter chicken recipes(one from sauce, one from paste). At approximatley 4pm a cry went up! On assertaining, it was revealed that both bases were infact pastes, and instead of putting the required 4 table spoons(approx 56 grams) of butter chicken paste, mark had put the whole jar (380 grams) in. Its was ass burning hot. Trying to correct it at much as we can with excess cream and yoghurt, and failing, we went to the bollywood night with heavy hearts.
After we had finished eating, Kayzad and Megan finally came. They, being indian, both love their spices, so we got them to try our butter chicken. While pointing out our butter chicken we were enthusiastically confronted by one of the indian hosts and the following conversation persued.
"Did you make that chicken dish there???"
-Yes my boyfriend did
"OOOHhhh My god is SOOOO delicious!! How did you make it?"
-Umm actually by mistake.
"ohhh its sooo good, I am tempted to lick the remaining sauce"

It seems that this opinion was held by a few of the authentic indians at the event.
Congratulation Mark, you have had an indie bindie say they love your indian dish!

After the meal there was to be a bollywood film, but as the place was packed and mark was cramping up, we decided to come back to our place with megan and watch a dvd on our comfy, cramp free couches.

Sunday was just about as busy. We cleaned, and shopped. The bridesmaid dress that was tried was purchased, after much confirmation of the right colour. We then went shopping for steamboat.

Having been stung by the lateness of the boys, we advised that the start time was 6pm, and advised megan of 6.30pm.
A extra special mention goes out to Leo for being the first to arrive, abeit 20 mins later than the time specified, but still the first to arrive!
Anyway, steamboat started at 7pm, intermission was at 9pm where we played buzz. Megan is just tooo quick with the buzzer and won 2 out of 2 rounds.
After intermission, most of us went back to steam boat, but Leo headed for the "Diet" Cake.

Having already eaten one slice(quater) Kayzad decided to challenge Leo to an eating competition. I think the both regretted it... so much so that Leo wasn't at work today!
Great laughter was had by all that was not partaking in the face stuffing comp!

Anyway, the eating and frivolities concluded at about 11pm, and there our weekend was over.

Till next time... Same bat time... Same bat chanel.

2006-08-29T02:02:00.000-07:00

To let you know what we've been down to.
Last Friday we had steamboat.... lots of shopping, cutting and slicing was done before hand and the result was such:

A lazy day was had on Saturday, and then on sunday we did a day trip to Sydney: experiences as below were experienced. We went to Ikea after that also and grabbed us some wooden stools(great doubles as side tables) and DVD shelves.

Bronson is a great travelling dog: A great day was had by all.

But now to the most important part of this entry. This day shall be marked down in history. After work today I gave a friend a lift to the airport, and after that I was going to drop another friend home. On the way to the airport we came to a round about and I was the only one(out of 1 female and 2 males) to know the right direction!
Two Men were out navigated by me, an female asian driver!!!!

2006-08-14T02:24:00.000-07:00

We have been thoroughly repremanded for not updating our photos and blog.
And I promised to up date so here goes.

Work has been good for me. Lots of training... but good.

We went to Sydney 2 weekends ago. Getting to Shauny and Kazza's was pretty easy. The signs for Sydney Olympic park were pretty good. We had a great weekend with the trojans, Fullertons and the Burgess. Saturday night we went into the inner city and watched the Umbilical brothers show. Then we did a loop around THE ROCKS. Its quite a pretty area. I stupidly wore shoes that weren't all that comfortable and was a pain in the ass when it came to exploring.

On the sunday we had a nice long breakkie, and then Mark and I decided to brave Sydney streets without a refidex. We made it in to Paddies market in china town and back out again, unscathed: except for the 1 hour parking for $12. For lunch we had something that we haven't had in ages.... dumplings! soooo yummy. It was a dodgy little chinese shop but sooo authentic.

The photo isnt the photo I thought I was uploading..... but cause it takes sooo long to load photos on our new interweb connection I will talk about it instead. If you want to see the photos I was planning to up load go to www.mongdidi.com and follow the first link to our photo album. Anyways the above is the view out from Anzac bridge, over Darling Harbour as we were leaving sydney heading back to canberra. There was a giant storm front coming along.

Anyway, we had a nice boring weekend just past. Friday night we went to a friends house warming. His mother was over from Darwin and he had her cook for the occasion. It was a great meal and a great night was had by all. Then at about 12 midnight we decided to go around canberra taking photos of the cities sights. In the midst of our photo taking we realised that we hadn't loaded the camera with film.... mmmm intelligent.

Anyway that meant we spent more time taking photos. If anyone was watching us that night, they would have throught us weird. Saturday we slept in, read, shopped, walked the dog and watched dvd's. We also put the photos in to be developed. On sunday we did much the same as Saturday... in addition to finding out we were not budding photographers. Not one of the photos were in focus.... at this rate it will probably save us money if we purchase a digital SLR out right. We would get our monies worth back after about 60 rolls of film.

I decided to start catching the bus to work, as we are past the dark ages where it was dark by 5pm. I caught the 8am bus and it was really interesting to see high school kids do their high school thing. Its funny watching them get on a bus and not acknowledge each other even though it was quite obvious they were from the same school. I remember being in high school and thinking I was all that as well... ahhh the good years...

I'm going to try for one more photo... one of us... so that you can see how chumpy we have gotten from not seeing any sunlight.... enjoy...
we miss you all, and hope to see you down here soon!

2006-07-07T03:04:00.000-07:00

Its about time for an update.

We've been in for just over 3 weeks now.
Al has been down, and it was great having her here.

We have all our furniture now, after a slight mishap with our bedhead not arriving.

Been working hard(End of Financial year and starting a new job), just relaxing when we get home and on the weekend. Really enjoying just being together again... playing with the dog. Will probably go canoeing this weekend.

Other wise nothing really planned at all so come one come all and visit us!!!
We already have 3 confirmed visitors.... and we expect more!

Anyway, till something interesting happens........

We have arrived.

2006-06-20T22:16:00.000-07:00

Heyall
just a quick note to let you know how we went.

Friday 16th: I arrived at 8am in Brisbane, and the jam packed day began.
There was moving and insurance ot organised, rice burger lunch and surprise going away party to organise.
That all happened before 12.
Then there was lunch, then the surprise party. It was great, Mark had his socks knocked off.
Then we had to do a mad dash to make it to our respective engagements for the evening.
me to dinner with the girls, Mark to the Broncos v St George game.
Late night had by all.

Saturday 17th
Woke up and Sandra kindly arrived from Dalby to help us pack. Thank you Sandra, I don't know what I would been up to if it weren't for your help.
We got lots done, and then headed to my mum and dad's for lunch.
After that some last minute errands were run.
Then we headed to West End for a Birthday dinner for Bec.
On the way there Sandra's car decided that having not been serviced properly it would crack a shit(and rightly so) it did.
RACQ was rung and the car was towed.
eventually we got back home and some last minute packing was done.

Sunday 18th
We had planned for a 6.30 leave, but sadly the late night before and parents made it an 8am departure.
Sandra's car was checked out, pronouced fine, and she made it back to Dably with no hassles.
We stopped in at Byron at 10 and spent a while with nan prior
at 1pm we made it to grafton to visit Auntie Maree, Uncle Geoff and Nan Cartmill.
We hit Kempsey at 4.30...
and eventually made our way to Newcastle by 8.30, after a fuel stop in Narabaic (i think thats how its spelt)
Thanks to Sheena, Bill and Harry for their wonderful hospitality!

Monday 19th
Dad was in Bris to let the removalists in. Thanks Dad!
Unfortunately the furniture won't arrive for another 10 days.
left newcastle at 9am, after a quick escape of bronson. Then had one stop just before Golburn.
We hit the 'Berra by 2pm. Met up with the landlord and got our keys.
Had a look at the place. Hired a ute and moved our bed.
crashed at about 8pm.

Tuesday 20th
Woke up early to show a person through my place at kingston.
Got everything, except my clothes moved out by 11.30, and then we went shopping for our new tv/microwave/bed and iron.
Shopping went till about 4pm. Our final stop and place of purchase was Harvey Normans. In our excitment, the headlights were left on and we cut a fine line waiting for the NRMA guy to jump start us, and then pick up our purchases.
Everything came through though, so we have most of what we need until our furniture arrives.
We have been eating out of paper plates and our fridge is in the garage(its too heavy to double move.)
The long and tiring day took it out of me and I crashed at 6pm.
Mark spent the rest of the night slowly playing around with the new tv and other things

Wednesday 21st
I'm here at work sounding like i have the plague(coughing, spluttering, sneezing and snuffling).
Mark is busy trying to bronson-proof the garden.
There is some shit going down with my Kingston place which will hopefully be sorted by this arvo.
And one final doosy, mark's phone has decided to crack a shit and not answer calls.

anyway, apart from that we are doing fine.
We will hopefully have a phone and internet soon, so images will be up soon after that.

Hope everyone is great!

di and mark!

--
this is where you meant to say that awe inspiring line, but instead i just grin :)

2006-06-13T01:49:00.000-07:00

Its official We are leaving!
Our furniture will leave bris on Friday/Saturday
Girls night out on Friday night
BP's bday celebrations on the Saturday night
Then we start driving on the 18th morning.
We hope to pop in and see Nan P, Nan C, Aunt M and Aunt G and hopefully land in the Land of the Castle-that-is-New to see the B, S and H K's.
We are due to be in "berra on the 19th.
one week of un packing and our first guest is to be AS.

mmmmm busy days!
I spent last weekend up there.... lots of packing was done... still a bit more to do.
i will be down on the Friday morning to get as much as possible done.
almost there!

2006-06-04T03:14:00.000-07:00

Ishan Patel being re-wrapped by dad.

2006-06-04T03:09:00.000-07:00

Leaving for Can-boring soon.

Mark's taken up a job down in the 'berra.
Leaving the weekend of the 17th of June.

Come one come all to visit us when you can!

2006-06-04T03:05:00.000-07:00

ReSammy has now become ReSamIsh.
Attahced are photos of us with the new Ishan Patel.
The family are all exstatic.

2006-04-07T19:59:00.000-07:00

Just updated some of our photos in our gallery, head on over to mongdidi or go directly to the gallery.

2006-03-27T02:31:00.000-08:00

All the folks partying at Al's Birthday

2006-03-27T02:29:00.000-08:00

Bronson, happy to have Di home for the weekend (and so was I).

2006-03-27T00:27:00.000-08:00

Visit ONE down

I've have visit ONE to Brisvegas down!

Sorry for those I missed, But it was a surprise for my sister's bday... and nothing was to risk the Surprise factor.

It was very much a whirl-wind trip... arrived early Sat morning, went to Mum and dads for Alice's party and had a bit of a relax. Alice got a great surprise as did mum, dad, tristan and Doris(it was very early when they first saw me, and i'm not sure all of them were awake!)

Sunday met up with the few of you that I could (i did try for more, but time and circumstance did not allow)

and then I was up at 3.30am to get back to canberra at this morning. It was straight to work.
Canberra Airport was busy, thanks to a visiting Mr Blair!

Anyways... thats about it... Weekends are too short.
Next visit, and i promise there will be no more surprise ones before then, will be easter.

soo see you then!

2006-03-15T23:22:00.000-08:00

Hey there...
Little update!
I have the following flights booked for me coming to Brisbane.
Regards to Virgin Blue and Qantas for their cheap flights, so that I am able to see you all the more often(Except for the easter flight... Virgin Blue jerked me around for that one).
Anyways:
* Easter Friday through to the following Tuesday
* May 6-7 weekend
* June 3-4 weekend
* June 16-18 weekend

I've only booked till then as that is when the sales are, as well as the fact that the Priorshi's might just be in Canboring permanatly from june on.

2006-03-08T23:51:00.000-08:00

okay, I think its my turn to let yall know what i'm up to.
I've pretty much be living, working, eating and socializing DFAT... and when you work for someone/thing, you really notice when it gets a blasting.... and DFAT really gets a blasting.
Apart from that its all pretty good.

Weather has been reallly nice here, except for the 2 REALLY cold mornings so far, everything has been great. There was one morning that looked like it would be a rainy one, but turned out sun shiny. Sorry to hear that its been all gloomy and muggy up yonder.

I've been keeping busy in kind. Work is pretty interesting and has kept me moving and learning through the day, and when i knock off at 5, i get home and relax, watch my tv shows, cook, read and then sleep. I go out with the graduate crew on friday nights, and on the weekend i do my chores and grocery shopping. Sundays are nice and boring... thats when i catch upon my sleep. You all know how important sleep is to me!
Last Saturday I went to a past year's grad's house and had a bbq. There was "skylights" that night. Canberra's version of Riverfire. we watched it from his balcony, and it would hve been great except there was a great big oak in the way. we could just tell the colour of the fireworks. Otherwise it was great.

Mark's coming down this weekend.... that much welcomed. He's bringing down some very needed crockery and a heater! His presence is also welcome, as he will be able to carry some groceries home for me also!

anyway, its canberra, so its all abit boring... i will let you know something interesting happens
till next time....
same battime same batchannel

2006-03-05T02:14:00.000-08:00

Well Di and I have been living in seperate towns now for almost 2 years (actually it's only been two weeks, it feels like longer, but also feels shorter - it's bizzare). Di has recently moved into her new place, just 5 minutes down the road from where she was and 15 minutes walk to work. From all accounts she is loving her new job, when she gets a bit more seteled and stuff I am sure she will confirm that here. We have been talking every 2 days, up until we finally got her internet connected, since then we have talked every day (mind you that was only friday night). While we were paying for calls we were letting the council limit phone call nights basically if I could water the lawn, I could call Di. Thankfully instead of a total ban on monday nights I would be over at Di's mum and Dads and they would call. Hey can I help it if they break the rules ;)

I am flying back down there this coming Friday. WIll be good to get back down there. Already planning our weekend, I will be helping her cart aorund the shopping and other tasks, plus I am sure there will just be lots of sitting around talking.

Only 5 more sleeps...

2006-02-18T17:51:00.000-08:00

Hey there

we've been here for just over a week now... and we are getting into the swing of it all

I've been busy stuck at work for the last few days... having lotsa stuff drummed into me, along with the other graduates. There is alot to know and we are finding out about it.

Work, when we eventually get to do some, will be interesting. I've met lotsa really nice, extremely motivate, highly qualified and educated people in the last four days that i feel totally under qualified, under travelled and under languagised(? is that a word??)

Mark's been busy exploring canberra for me. he tells me that the buses are great during the working day(9-5) but shit afterwards... so its no use to me..

he's been to

The Royal Aussie Mint( highly recommended but best only monday to friday)

CSIRO centre(not recommended)

Questacon(very interesting, highly recommended)

National Museum(very interesting, hightly recommended)

Places we've been together:
Sydney(okay i know its not part of canberra... but we had to get out!)

Parliment House(recommended)

Old Parli House(also recommended)

Woden Shopping centre(good for me to go shopping!)
Belconnen SHopping center( huge shopping centre)
War Memorial( Very big and extremely humbling.)

Mark leaves tommorrow morning :( but we need someone back home to let the removalist's in and reclaim our dog(my mother has kidnapped poor bronson, although i'm not altogether sure he feels sooo bad about it.)

Anyways, we will be off... interweb is charged by the minute hear, and charged quite high, and as we are without tech atm we will make do as quick as possible.

Thanks to all whole are keeping us in touch, we miss you and hope everything is great!

2006-02-05T21:19:00.000-08:00

busy weekend:

Went to Toowomba on sat morning and had the day with Sandra and Graham. lotsa shops were seen, and i think we ate ourselves sick.
Got home about 5 in time to do a few things around the house, have a shower and head to dinner with the school folks...
WEnt to chinatown and saw lion dancing and firecrackers. Then we had dinner. it was pretty nice.

Sunday morning, up early to have brekkie with resam, prat and nita! boy did we get fed well, Belisi's does a good plate of brekkie! Then we picked al up and went shopping.

Today has been marks first day at home with me. Got up and walked the dog, then came home and watched some dodgie tv.... "Average Joe" Nathan won the Girl! Yay for the geeks!
Then i started packing, me packing clothes and mark packing other stuff for me...
during the intermission of packing we:
* cut marks hair... golly he looks like a skin head...
*on the internet paying bills
*posting to blogs..

okay back to it...
must finish so that when everyone comes home eventually we can go to my mums for dinner!
yummo!

off to see bec and daizy tommorrow! then we FLLLLLLLLLYYYYYYY

2006-02-04T05:56:00.000-08:00

dinner at chinatown with the folk from school!
the two most important people!
me mark!

2006-02-01T21:03:00.000-08:00

Stuff i have done in my days off:

Monday:
Walked the dog
fed the birds
Headed for Sunnybank to pick up some things,
then to Logan to meet up with allyssa.
Had a big look around logan and then had big lunch with allyssa
came back from lunch, went to bunnings then indro in an attempt to rat proof bronson's food.
came home, cooked dinner, watched tv... bed

Tuesday:
Walked the dog,
went to loganholme
bought some curtain hooks
got my hair coloured, streaked, treated, straightened and cut for $20.... nice eih!
came back to uni for a while.
got home, cooked, and then i started sewing curtains(by hand).
Watched TV, bed

Wednesday:
Walked the dog
made some broth for dori
sewed curtains(still by hand).
Got jack of sewing curtains by hand, went with doris to indro to pick up some propper sewing machine needles.
picked up the car after its service, went to spot light and picked up some fabric.
came home and sewed curtains with a machine... finished that quickly.
Sewed 3 skirts! yay for me and al.... puffy A-Line type skirts!

Thursday:
Woke up, drove mark to work, took bronson for a walk
cleaned the pantry, and started watching tv.
fell sleep watching tv.
Baked, and mixed some dough(way too wet... waiting for al to come so i can go by some more flour)
went for a swim.
Vacumed and mopped.
sat on MSN for a while... I really should be cleaning our wardrobe.... eih!

have yet to:
cook dinner
finish my chinese stuff
clean wardrobe
pack for canberrra!

this has been my week of rest!

2006-01-29T01:25:00.000-08:00

We've just come back from Grafton and Byron, visiting all the nan's and boy do we have a story to tell about it!

On the drive down there we realised that our car was unregistered.

When we called on Friday to get it registered, we found out that our can(921AAA) is not actually registered to us. It was still registered to the Civil Aviation Authority, the folk we bought it off, and we had a 912AAA registered to us.

It is exactly the same car as ours except it's silver, thats why it never flagged to them. Anyways, after a day of ringing std phone numbers, we finally got it all worked out, and only because the other people(the owners of the 912AAA rang up to complain too!

Anyways we is registered now, but there was still a cock up and my name was left off... we will work on that one later.

Either way we had a pretty good weekend. Came home to brissy by about 9.30 did the shopping and then went to my mum n dad's for Chinese new year lunch! GONG XI FA CAI

This is Di at Mainland Australia's most eastern point! (at 5amAEST!)

2006-01-24T21:35:00.000-08:00

best quote i've read for a little while:

#37028
4 steps to a happy marriage...
1. It is important to find a man that cooks and cleans.
2. It is important to find a man that makes good money.
3. It is important to find a man that likes to have great sex.
4. It is very, very, very important that these three men never meet.

*Sourced from www.bash.org (WARNING: may contain incomprehensible techie speak, and lots of bad porn/sexual references).

2006-01-23T02:59:00.000-08:00

Lotsa stuff going on.

We have been busy the last few days... doing lotsa stuff.
Mainly cleaning, making, baking, clearing, washing. A very productive household we have been.
Have lots more to get upto.

lets see exactly what we've been up to.
Did about 3 loads of washing on sat. The electricity did something freaky half way through the first lot, so we left and did the shopping. Came home, unpacked the shopping, hung the washing. I cooked and baked whilst mark cut and cleared(the outside garden).

Went over to becndan's that night to pick up the fridge(which bec soo kindly got fixed for us, thank-a-u!) Whilst there I realised that i was missing out on Gilly Girls so proceded to stay there for the next 2 hours. Mark and tris left before me.
Daisy-bu is soooo big now, sooo intelligent and loves her food. We had pizza for dinner, and she was making a grab for it!

Sunday,
had a nice slow morning, alice and dad came around. Dad came to finally clear out the display cabinet we were given. We left him to it and headed to stones corner for lunch with re, sam, prat and nita. They were a little late so we went for a walk.... and i found me some good buys! Two dresses for $30 and 2 tops for $10.... pretty much $10 a piece and i have 2 new outfits for work(i can mix and match with other stuff i already have...) i can't wait to go to canberra just for the fact that i can wear whatever i like to work(within reason ofcourse) and not a stupid red and blue polo!

At Lunch we found out that ReSam are Pregnant! 5 months! they were going to tell us before they left, but they forgot! typical :). Lots of jokes were made about the baby having to have special clothes made, for example printing on the shirts that say: my name is "Captain Widodo" and my parents number is 3878****. Please call them."

After lunch we were going to catch a movie, however Memoirs of a Geisha was sold out so we went for coffee instead.... and boy did we go for coffee.... everyone bar prat, re and i had a chocolate drink of some kind. Well that is if you call sammy's Italian Chocolate a drink.... it was highly viscous and closer to solid than it was fluid! chocolate desserts were enjoyed by all.

we got home and had a slow night... flicking through the channels we found a very wierd show on sbs.... Dr Tatiana: a highly entertaining, very informative, originally presented documentation about the role of sex in evolution! Sundays 9pm try catch it!

Today was nice and quite at work. We got home early, took bron for a walk and I got some ingredients to try and imitate the pasta i had on sunday. Not quite, but still close.... after i cooked, ate, packed and cleaned, i baked.... yeah... Nan prior sent up a whole lot of baking mix and i'm in the mood.... lotsa chocolatey cakey things.... i experiment... and where i fail, i take it into work and they all eat it there

Tommorrow will hopefully be another quiet one at work... counting down... second last day. then we head to grafton and byron to visit the aunts and the nans!

after that there remains a week to:
wash, clean, clear, sew, bake, mend, visit, pack, and all other stuff before we head!
yippee!

2006-01-19T21:34:00.000-08:00

This is something we did over xmas!

2006-01-19T00:43:00.000-08:00

WHile i'm in the whole mood for posting and stuff, i thought i may as well put up some photos of family and stuff so you know exactly who your dealing with...
* this is approx 2 days later and i've finally got the knack of multiple photos in a posting..

This is my Sister: Alice
Current Age: 16
Photo Taken: on her 16th bday, 25 march 2005

This is Mark's Brother-in-law, Niece and Sister... the day that daisy was born

Mark's father Graham

Mark's Mum, Aunt Maree and Aunt Glyn with Nan Cartmill

My mum and dad with me at my Graduation

This is our baby Bronson, being as into Computers as mum and dad. :)

2006-01-18T21:43:00.000-08:00

Hey there! This is our First Posting on the MarknDi Blog!
Yippee for us...

This blog will be monitoring what happens to Mark and Di between Brisvegas and Canboring.

Keep a tuned and see what we get up to!

Love Mark n Di
(hence this site!)