Xmas barbecue at King Street

Sue, Alex and Amie

My housemates, Sue and Alex are leaving for Europe and taking gorgeous Amilie with them.  So sad!

My balcony

I've moved up into the top room and rented the bedroom downstairs to a nice couple called Alex and Sue.  The top room isn't as spacious but it has one strong advantage: a nice balcony looking out onto the trees of Brennan Park.  I splashed out on a table and chairs (for the princely sum of $30 at Bunnings!) and a pot plant.  So now I'm set.  All I need is summer so I can sit outside.  And a girlfriend to share my other chair.

Ally's birthday lunch

We invited Kerry, Charles and Katrin over for left overs from our dinner the night before.
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Ally's birthday dinner

We had a wondeful evening with Bruce and Christy, Ash and Clair, Yvonne and Holga. Ally surpassed herself with her dessert - creamy home made ice cream with turkish delight, pistachios, marshmallow and red berries. Yum!!
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Our new barbecue

It's official - we are fair dinkum Aussies now that we own our very own barbecue! Paradoxically it's an American brand (Weber) but it's a gorgeous and sexy beast and we are very proud of it...
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Andreas, Ingrid and Sebastian were our first friends to try out the new barbie...


Here we are enjoying the fruits - on our new dining room chairs...

Housewarming party

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Ally getting broody


Lucas loved exploring the steps
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Sebastian loves Skype
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Our first party with our new dining room table

We had our best friends over today for french toast (breakfast). Including all the kids, we had 11 and they all fitted around the table! Quite snug it was...
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Our new dining room table

Our guest room is ready...

...for Jo! This includes a very comfy bed. Ally even ironed the sheets!
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Our Peruvian art now framed and up...

We think they look great! Wish we'd bought more art in South America...
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Our new pot plants

Chinese Lantern (back courtyard)
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Lime Tree (front courtyard)
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Fern (back courtyard)
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A sneak peek inside our new home

We were allowed a sneak peak today to measure the rooms for furniture. Bear in mind the furniture isn't ours. We don't have a stick of furniture so will need to go on a furniture buying spree soon. If you get confused about which bedroom is which, refer back to Ally's masterful floor plan. I am glad to say we didn't have a single twinge of buyer's remorse on this, our 3rd view of the house. It's as wonderful as we remember it!

Front of house
.Front porch
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Lounge and dining room area
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Kitchen
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Rear porch (for our barbecue)
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Main Stairs
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Main bedroom (floor 2)
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Main bedroom balcony (floor 2)
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2nd floor landing (where our study will be)

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Spare room (floor 2)

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Main bathroom (floor 2)

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Guest bedroom (floor 3) - notice the balcony
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Gadgets make even mundane things fun.

One of our few extavagances (apart from our super dooper mattress) was this Dyson vacuum cleaner. I must admit I poo pood paying $350 for a vacuum cleaner when we could get one for $80. Ally stuck to her guns.

Well, I can now admit (after giving it a test run around the house), that Ally was right. It has three times more suction than I am used to and manouvres around like a pro. And it looks ultra cool - like something James Bond would use. It made vacuuming almost fun! From now I'll be actively asking to vacuum. So now I know the real reason for Ally's insistence.
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Our bed arrives

After a night or two of sleeping on our handy blow up mattress, our bed has finally arrived. We splurged on a good mattress and I can honestly say its the most comfortable thing I have ever lain on. Can't wait for our first proper test of it tonight (in all senses of the word!).

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Moving into our new home

We have just spent an exhausting but exhilerating weekend moving into our new house - transporting boxes, unpacking boxes and assembling much furniture.

All our good friends came around to visit and help. A particularly huge thanks must go to Doug and Claudia and Andreas and Ingrid who spent many hours helping us to assemble furniture. This is not my god given talent in life and without their help, I'd only be a quarter finished with much furniture screwed inback to front.

Ally was in her element - how she managed to immaculately pack 10 boxes worth of stuff into her lovely new kitchen I'll never know - a most impressive feat indeed. We are both still in the throes of huge excitement and have to keep pinching ourselves.

Thanks to everyone for all their well wishes and texts - we really appreciate it and can't wait to have you all to stay one of these days...

Our boxes ready to go - at Mc Mahons Point. We also needed to transport all our boxes from Cambridge and Willow Road that we have been holding in storage.
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Our cheerful and extremely professional "man with a van", Stuart. I love the name of his company "I like to move it, move it." Despite the amazing abilility of Stuart's van to swallow huge amounts of stuff, we needed to do to trips to move everything. It started at 2:30 pm and as you can see, it was dark by the time we finished...
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All the boxes in our new place. This was when things got rather exhausting - lugging heavy boxes up the stairs to their appropriate rooms. Believe it or not, we managed to do the lion share of this on Friday night! We were itching to start unpacking! There was stuff in some boxes that I hadn't seen for over 8 years.



The fun began with the assembly of the furniture which mostly arrived during Saturday. Each delivery caused new excitement - like Xmas it was. Here is Ingrid, our IKEA assembly guru. SHe has built two IKEA kitchens from scratch in her day and seriously knows how all this stuff fits together. We watched her in awe as she juggled massive piles of wood and turned hundred of screws into furniture. She was a master of turning chaos into order.
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Our new lounge suite - leather in "pebble" colour, and so very comfortable. We love it...
. Our wicker basket drawer unit under the stairs. Notice the beautiful orchids that Eva brought us and the family heirloom (statue of boy and horse) in pride of place....
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Our study area with book case and computer desk -lots of space
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Here is the spare room - the book shelves and small table are not new (we had them at Mc Mahons Point)...
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...but the camera drawer unit that holds all my realms of camera gear is new - and I love it.
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Our dining room table only arrives in a couple of weeks, so in the meantime we are using our "outside table" to do the job. This will move to the front courtyard when the dining room table arrives.
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Look how Ally has immacualtely packed the kitchen drawers! The kitchen is only two years old and Ally keeps oohing and aahing at the clever the ways the inner draws and cupboards have been designed.
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And specifically for all you girls out there who like the detail on these things, here is the inside of our fridge which we inherited from the previous owners. Lots of space as you can see - particularly the freezer portion at the top...