Finally in Melbourne!

We made it! We got into the metro area at about 10pm and headed straight for the LORD OF THE FRIES! Hello old friend, we meet again...

While waitng for our order we saw a "gang" of teenagers on trikes crossing the road and semi drifting. it reminded me of the crazy video we saw on youtube of guys drifting on the streets of New Zealand (I think).

Anyway, our order finally arrived!

LOTF nuggets with BBQ sauce ($5.95). They have an interesting flavour. Bite size pieces of moist chicken that are crispy on the outside. They were delicious and as you can see there weren't many left for me to take a pic of. We also got large fries with the French Canadian sauce ($6.95 +$2 for the sauce, shredded cheese and hot gravy). Tongy also got a hot dog but he devoured it so fast I definately couldn't get a photo. Though he said it was pretty bad so not something worth noting.

 

Road Trip!

Driving down to Melbourne to spend Easter with some mates has been a tradition for the past 4ish years.

As usual we were late leaving the house and again I missed taking a photo of the MYASS sign.


View McDonalds Yass sign in a larger map

I've GPS tagged it now so I'll try to remember taking a photo of it on the way back.

The first hour of our trip I spent " Magyvering" a support rig for our Galaxy tab.

My tools! Not just a paper clip and duct tape but close enough :)

Along the way we discovered my old mix CD. Yay 80s & 90s mix! Spent the rest of the time surfing on my iPad and taking photos of things along the way.

Zoom zoom zoom!

Mazda! Zoom zoom zoom!....
Smokey Mountains? I think they were back burning

K's car monitoring app. Nice to know we made it Eco Warrior!

San Churros!

An oldie but a goodie, San Churros really hits the spot for chocolatey cravings.
Even on a wednesday night the parramatta San Churros was pretty busy.

Banana bomba, Mint Magnifico, Hot & Cold, Classic Spanish, Choco Loco and the Churros Fiesta

Deterring from my usual order of stealing whatever K gets, I ordered the new banana bomba. Which I was under the impression was a drink. It turn out to be much better! Layers of pikelets, cream, fresh banana covered in choc fudge caramel sauce and topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and chocolate flakes! Yum!

We also got the Churros Fiesta! 6 pots, 2 of each flavour; caramel, dark and milk chocolate with 18 churros to share.

I love going to San Churros because the churros are always consistently crispy. They are soft on the inside but not gooey and the pots of dipping chocolate just top it off.
All in all a good food filled night!

Mini Jumping Castle!

Today I brought a mini jumping castle my friend had given me to my sisters place. I'd never seen it inflated so I was surprised at how big it was when it went up!

 

The little wheel barrow was H's contribution.. she's a very helpful girl!

15 minutes later it seemed firm enough to let the kiddies play in.

The harshest way to find out your too big (heavy) is to have a jumping castle rapidly deflate underneath you. Luckily there's a crawl space for us to keep the kiddies company.

H thoroughly enjoying crawling around and playing in the ball pit. 

A little too much... =)
This is her response to "time to go have a nap" ..hehe cheeky monkey

Boy was it hot outside! a refreshing glass of milk before napping please!

Even grandma is all pooped!
I guess now we know why H is so cheeky... she just like her mummy!

 Love heart tattoo for grandma! She thought it was the baby =D

Perplexus- a belated birthday present!

A friend of mine gave me a belated birthday present yesterday ( Thanks Chucks!)

Inside after carefully unwrapping the box I found the most awesome puzzle game. The perplexus is an approximately 20cm in diameter ball with a series of paths that when followed, gets you turning it in all directions. I'm sure I'll never get through it!

Unboxing & installing my ZAGG full body invisible shield

Yesterday my ZAGG invisible shield arrived! All excited and ready to put it on, I read the first line of the the instructions " before you begin turn your device off for 12-24 hours".... drat!

Next day...

All items laid out, wash hands...check. Clean surface and towel for excess solution...check.

After completely drenching the front screen protector I aligned it with my screen and it was a little short. Sigh..I was hoping I wouldn't have to stretch it. Luckily though I didn't have to stretch it much, it stretched a little on its own while I was squidgying.

The back was a little more difficult but patience is key! A little stretching here and there and it fit nicely.

Only mishap...
They didn't account for the sim slot? Blarrrh

Besides that, I still peeled back the top plastic with as much enthusiasm and satisfaction as Raj and Howard from the big bang theory.

Nicely protected! The screen doesn't seem to feel as nice as the glass but we'll see how it goes. :)

First Year Anniversary (2) Aria Restaurant

Surprise number 2 was dinner at Aria Restaurant. After a misleading walk around the toaster and looping back around we entered the restaurant at 6.30pm.

We were seated on the Macquarie st side, close to the bar. The restaurant had a great view of the harbour.

Menu! We decided on the 3 course meal ($89 pp, pre theatre menu).

First course K got the Peking duck consommé with duck dumplings, mushrooms and shaved abalone.

I got the Kurobuta pork belly with pork croquette and caramelised apple.

After the first mouthful of my pork croquette I knew the meal was going to be fantastic! The pork was succulent with perfectly crisped crackling and was beautifully complimented by the caramelized apple and sauce.The croquette was crispy but not at all oily.

Looking over at K told me he was having a similar experience with his duck consommé. One sip of the soup and I could taste the sweetness of the shaved abalone and flavour of the duck all swimming together in it's tasty tasty broth! I couldn't wait for our mains!

First out, roast lamb rump with garlic soubise, baby fennel and mint gel.

Next grass fed scotch fillet with lyonnaise potatoes, green asparagus with bone marrow and cornichon sauce.

And a side of potato mash with truffle oil! Oh the buttery goodness

All the flavours where so rich and not too overpowering. The mint gel that came with the lamb was so minty and sweet it was surprising how much flavour they could get into those small dabs of gel. As expected it was a great addition to the lamb.

Both the lamb and scotch were tender and perfectly cooked medium rare. It was definitely maintaining a "best place we've been to so far" status.

Dessert! Mango souffle with coconut ripple ice cream.

Milk chocolate and passionfruit dumplings with yuzu (my favorite Japanese fruit!) curd and passionfruit sorbet.

I love it when they write messages on my dessert plate. It so special!

The dessert dumplings were warm and crisp on the outside with a fantastic burst of flavour when I bit into the center! The rest was also fantastic but the dumplings were my favorite.

The meal was finished with a serving of petit fours. My favorite was the coconut which is strange because I usually don't like shaved coconut.

All in all an excellent dinner!

First Year Anniversary (1) The new iPad!

Celebrating anniversaries are always fun, so celebrating our first year wedding anniversary was even more exciting!

As usual K made the arrangements because he loves surprising me. First present of the event given to me the night before...

The new iPad!! After months of unconvincingly insisting that I didn't want or need an iPad, I couldn't contain my excitement when I opened the box!!

I spent the rest of the night playing with it. The first app being eBay to get a smart case, backing and screen protector :)

Anniversary part 2 - Aria restaurant

Zorbing!!

Ever since Zorbing appeared on the Amazing race a few years ago I've been looking around for places to do it closer to home. The closest place was in Queensland so I've been hinting that we should take a holiday to New Zealand (where it all started). I guess it would be pretty cool to see the Lord of the Rings area as well but that's secondary =).

In saying that we just haven't ever gotten around to it. So I was ecstatic when my husband took me Zorbing in Sydney last year for my birthday! We arrived at Moore Park in the afternoon and headed to the top of the hill.

Waiting for us at the top was a gloriously bright blue inflated ball!

Inside were two sets of harnesses. Little did K know I wouldn't let him get away with not riding with me at least once =)... suit or no suit!

The guy inflated the ball a bit more for us before the big tumble!

 

 It was so much fun just tumbling around inside not going anywhere..

Finally all strapped in! Time to go!

... It was awesome!

A bit scary to start off because the guy rolled me head first going forward.

But it was so exciting and I couldn't help laughing out loud when I saw him running down the hill alongside the ball!

Thanks for the safety measure!

For $20 a ride it very much worth it! 2 goes was my limit but I'm glad Zorbing has finally made it to Sydney!

Horizontal Bungee!!

A friend of mine hired a horizontal bungee for her housewarming party a few weeks ago. I'd never seen or even heard of a horizontal bungee before she mentioned it.

As a person that has vowed never to try bungee jumping I went to the party with a mixture of curiousity, apprehension and excitement.

We arrived at the party early (mostly so I could get some bungeeing in first before the other guest arrived =)  and headed straight for the back yard. The thing was HUGE!

There was a bungee rope and harness attached to the end. The Horizontal Bungee also came with a few bean bags and a Velcro strip at the far side of the runway. The aim is to get the bean bag as far down the strip as possible.

After a few goes I concluded that I didn't have enough launching power to get it much further then 2/3 and by then I could feel the whiplash. It was totally worth it though so we played on it for a few more hours.

The boys were really good at the game and got it right down to the very ends of the velcro strip.

While I was mostly using it a as a long jumping castle. We only stopped playing once the sun went down and I could hardly see my hand in front of my face.

It was heaps of fun and highly recommended!