Trip to the Gold Coast and Max Brenner Overdose

As I have mentioned in my last few posts, my sister came to visit! We had plenty of activities planned and just one of those activities was to jump in the car and head of to the GC for a day of shopping!

I don't have any pictures of the actual shopping in action but I did manage to snap a few of our foodie finds during the day.

We started off at Harbour Town which is a factory outlet for many, many shops that I love, everything was kinda meh though. I don't think Georgia or I bought anything...

We decided to go to Shokuraku for lunch. Shokuraku was a Japanese fusion style restaurant with an abundance of sushi, noodle and rice dishes. I ordered Karaage Chicken Fried Rice which was ok but maybe a bit bland for me and George ordered Teriyaki Chicken with noodles and fried vegetables - it looked much more appealing and I kinda regret not ordering the same... oh well.

We then headed onto Robina shopping center which is probably the biggest shopping center I have ever visited. We roamed the levels but were pretty over shopping and really just hanging out to get to the bottom level to visit MAX BRENNER!

This place is seriously chocolate heaven. We spent about 10 minutes gaping at the menu before we ordered.

Georgia ordered The Spectacular Choc-Fudge Brownie Sundae - as you can see it was massive and tasted ridiculously good. Double choc icecream with Fudge Walnut Brownie on top with caramelised pecans. If that isn't enough you also get a bowl of melted chocolate and chocolate waffle balls as well! George got about half way through before she admitted defeat.

I ordered The Chocolate Soufflé and because my eyes are too big for my stomach I thought I could handle the Peanut Butter Iced Chockie too. I tell you what it tasted soo good just pure chocolate indulgence. As hard as I tried I didn't get through it all... It was way too rich and sadly I only made it a quarter way through my 'choctail'.

Seriously an amazing chocolate experience for anyone out there and I will be back again but I think I will need to build up quite an appetite so I can completely enjoy it next time (or just don't order so freakin' much)

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Coffee Date with Mum ❤

As I mentioned earlier in the week, my sister came to visit!

She left on Thursday and I had so much fun with her while she was staying with me. She also helped ease my loneliness since Josh went away with my dad for a big fishing trip and won't be back for another week.

I have a few posts planned for next few days re: my sisters visit so keep an eye out for them.

However, today I thought I would share some pictures from a coffee date I had with my lovely mum last weekend.

While I was home in Bundaberg last weekend, she took me to this adorable new cafe near Bargara (Queensland, Australia). It was this homewares/gift/cafe shop and the decor was adorable! We ordered some cappuccinos and a slice carrot cake to share (it was bloody amazing!) and did some much needed catching up!

Now that I live a good 5 hours drive away from my parents I really value any time I can spend with them and it was so nice to have this little outing with my mumma - the majority of our conversation was about wedding stuff! So much wedding planning on my mind at the moment!

Do you guys have a good relationship with your folks? Does absence make the bond grow stronger?

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Anniversary Dinner at Gips Restaurant

 

 A few nights ago, Josh and I celebrated our 7 year anniversary with a very indulgent dinner at Gip's Restaurant. A while ago I posted a sneak peak at our Wedding Venue but we had still never dined at this highly regarded restaurant. This was for a few reasons, we wanted to make it a special event if we did go there AND Gip's is a little out of our wining and dining budget. 

Just before we were about to head off, Josh surprised me with Peanut Butter M&Ms. These actually are pretty hard to come by in Australia, only a few stores in Toowoomba sell them so I was so excited that he got some for me. We had previously decided no presents since we knew our dinner would be expense enough but I guess he just loves me (and knows how much I love PB M&Ms)

While we were trying to decide what to order, I asked for a Champagne cocktail which contained Raspberry Sorbet, mixed berries and champers of course!  The boy is very happy with a beer so Corona it was for him :)

At the start of the night, I was determined I would make this a three course event so for my entree I picked the 'Seared Scallops, cauliflower puree, pinenut texture, watercress, currants, persian feta & lemon air' The dish was divine - perfectly cooked scallops and all the other elements were perfect. Josh was super impressed by the foam (or lemon air) because we are avid viewers of the Masterchef series so we were able to try something similar to what they do on the show.

The boy ordered 'Seared tiger prawns, prociutto wrapped monkfish, green pea risotto, creme fraiche & micro herbs'  He was pretty happy with his dish, of course it was delicious but Josh is always disappointed by the difference in quality of seafood from where we used to live (a coastal town with an abundance of fresh seafood) to where we live now.

Onto mains, I ordered the 'Orange & thyme duck breast, braised French lentils, wilted spinach,celeriac puree, cherry & walnut pie, cherry jus'  I always pick duck if I can and this was a lovely dish but probably my favourite part of the whole dish was the cherry & walnut pie. It was so sweet and delicious.

I knew the boy would pick 'Rib eye on the bone 400g, potato & thyme rosti, roast swiss brown mushrooms, paris butter, dutch carrots, béarnaise sauce' for his main. He was not disappointed. The steak was cooled perfectly and he really liked the accompaniments :)

I was absolutely stuffed by the end of dinner and desperately wanted to try a dessert but I knew I wouldn't be able to fit it in. Josh was eager to continue though and ordered Brioche bread & butter pudding fine chocolate sauce with maple & walnut icecream. All I could manage was to eat the strawberry on his plate and a tiny spoonful of icecream haha.

I forgot to take a picture of the boys dessert before he dug in!

 Overall, it was a perfect night (♥ with an absolutely perfect man ♥) and so fun because it was something completely out of the ordinary for us. We are so happy we picked Gip's for our wedding and now know our guests are going to have an awesome time :)

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Preston Peak Winery - Parental Outing

My parentals came to visit on a recent weekend so we thought we would take them for a drive and explore our lovely town.

Generally, the boy and I keep to our regular favourite places to have coffee and brunch but we decided to go crazy and try somewhere else :) So happy we did because Preston Peak Winery & Cafe was delicious and the location was completely gorgeous!

Be warned I am about to photo bomb you into another dimension :)

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Bridesmaid Trip to Brisbane ~ Day 3 ~ Sunday

Our final day in Brisbane was quite relaxed. Both George and I were a bit tired from our escapades from the night before so we checked out of our hotel and took a morning stroll over to South Bank.

 

We checked out the sights, strolled though the Sunday markets and saw this awesome beagle convention (seriously there were like 50 beagles and their owners gathered!). Our tummies were rumbling so we found a cute street-side cafe and stuck into some breakfast.

I got poached eggs, haloumi and mushroom along with a huge iced coffee and my lovely sister ordered a big breakie along with her English breakfast tea.

After another wander through Queen Street Mall we made our way to the Transit Centre where we said our goodbyes. The weekend was so much fun and it is always so great to catch up with my sister and also to see friends that I haven't seen in a long time!

Catch up on Day 1 of our trip by clicking here

or

Day 2 of our trip by clicking her

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Bridesmaid Trip to Brisbane ~ Day 2 ~ Saturday

My goodness, it has taken me so long to continue this little post about a fun weekend I had a little while ago. I still want to share so here is the second day, Saturday. Click here to catch up on day 1!

We met up with my other bridesmaid, Caiti in the morning and started off with a thoroughly delicious breakfast before tacking some dress shopping. We had breakfast at this really cute cafe called Room with Roses which is located in the Brisbane Arcade. The cafe had the nicest breakfast menu and such awesome table service. Caiti and I both ordered the googy eggs and Georgia ordered the big breakfast.

We then made our way main event of the day to firstly try on my gown and then find bridesmaid dresses.

~~I have paid the deposit and ordered "the dress" since this weekend! Eeekkk!. The girls (and my mum) really liked it so I am super happy with my dress. I can't wait until is made and in my local store! !!

We found a style of bridesmaid dress that suited both the girls but I am trying to see if we can get something similar in the town they live in so the dress fitting etc is easier for them. Fingers crossed we do!

That evening we organised to have some quality catch up with our friends that live in the lovely city of Brisbane. My buddy Heath suggested we go to Vapiano which is this amazing Pizza and Pasta bar. I am so glad we did. The food was amazing and the mojitos!!! Oh la la!!! Did I love the mojitos?!! (yes, yes I did... maybe a little too much....)

For dinner I ordered the small antipasto platter which was delish but I needed a bit more bread-age to be honest. Everyone else ordered Pizza and they looked so yum!

We then somehow made our way into Queen Street and decided to finish our evening (or morning) with some gelato (to keep with the Italiano theme). I picked chocolate pistachio and it was delicious. We said our goodbyes before Georgia and I stumbled our way back to the hotel. It was a great night and it was so great catch up with our old school/work/uni friends!

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This is what I wake up to every morning

This is my little cutie, she has her own blankie but still tries to sneak up for a cuddle (most of the time she gets away with it).

I'm trying to get back to regular blogging very soon! On the phone to our ISP every night, trying to fix our dodgy connection. Have so many things to share on my little blog!

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Bridesmaid Trip to Brisbane ~ Day 1 ~ Friday

So I have been a bit AWOL lately... sorry! Hopefully I can get into the swing of blogging again very shortly.

I thought I would share a little bit of the fun weekend I had last weekend. I am having two bridesmaids - my little sister and one of my most gorgeous high school friend's, Caiti. I love them to bits!

Unfortunately, they still live in my home town, so it is hard to organise bridesmaid-y things with them when it is a 10 hour round trip!

Over the last weekend we all headed to Brisbane and got to spend some quality time together and we may have found their bridesmaid dresses :)

So Friday was travel day - Since we weren't due to meet up with Caiti until Saturday we spent Friday having some quality sisterly time. We shopped, checked out our hotel, ate way to much food and took too many silly photos.

After a exhausting day of pounding the pavement, shopping bags in tow, we were looking forward to a cocktail or two. We made our way over to the Jade Buddha bar and restaurant for dinner and drinks.

The gorgeous night view from Jade Buddha

Our ridiculously expensive cocktails - $20 a pop!

If you ever visit Brisbane then I thoroughly recommend visiting Jade Buddha. The waiters were so friendly and the food was delicious. I chose the seafood laksa and it was amazing, I can't believe how fresh, abundant and delicious the seafood was. My sister ordered the Pad Thai and she was equally impressed.

Look out for Day 2 in the next few days!

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Where the heck have I been?

Where have I been?

Well I could lie and say I won the lottery and took a first class trip through Europe (sadly nope)...

I could contribute my crappy (and slowwww) internet connection to the lack of posts but I don't think that is a good enough excuse.

Truth is... I just haven't been feeling it. It takes a fair amount of time and effort for me to pretty up my food and a decent chunk of luck to find the perfect natural lighting to shoot my pictures.

Instead I am just going to do a mish-mash of my life over the past week. All the pictures are just shot on my iPhone and I use my 'pic jointer' and 'camera +' apps to pretty them up. 

This week...

I made veggie pizzas - perfect way to use up leftover veggies you find hiding in the back of your fridge.

The boy bid us adieu and had to go away for work for the week (YAY he is home tonight!)
Me and Milly have tonnes of fun when is he away though - I think she misses him as much as I miss him though... so cute!

To relieve my boredom of having him away, I drunk my fair share of the wine we have been accumulating and may have over indulged in some leftover choc honeycomb self-saucing pudding I made last weekend.

Of course, to make up for the over consumption of warm chocolate goodness I may have killed myself in the gym... Result? I have buggered some tendons in my back (or something like that) my physio strapped me up and has banned me from all physical exercise... Oh the dismay!

So now.. I am trying to think of what I can do with limited mobility over the weekend... Knit? Call my grandkids? Play bingo? I feel like a frickin' old grandma hobbling around.

What is everyone getting up to the weekend?

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Lazy Weekend, Coconut Prawns and Milly

My weekend has be SO lazy. Generally on the weekend I get up early, clean, tidy, grocery shop and cook. I have done almost nada of my regular weekend efforts. After a long exhausting week at work and just feeling generally out of sorts, I decided to break all my rules and veg out for two whole days!

Luckily it has been raining day and night over the weekend, so that eased the guilt. I played the Sims 3 (it's my thing, let it go), I watched my recorded episodes of the Martha Stewart show (again, let it go...) and I got to spend some quality time with my boy.

Last night I did get off my butt and try out the Skinny Taste coconut prawns (or shrimp for non-Aussies). We stocked up on prawns on our last trip to our coastal home town and I am constantly looking for new recipes to try, of course my first port of call is Skinny Taste.

If you want to try the recipe then click here to get the recipe from the skinnytaste website. 

They were a bit fiddly to prepare (peel prawns, flour - egg - crumbs, repeat) but they baked to perfection in my hot oven after 18 minutes. 

Because I was having a lazy Saturday, I went the easy way with vegetables, chopped carrots, frozen peas and crumbled feta. I also made the apricot sauce included in the recipe. 

The sauce wasn't really to our taste. It was way too tart and didn't really suit the meal. I am using what we didn't eat on toast for breakfast.

The prawns on the other hand, were absolutely brilliant and tasted so yum! I had about 6 and Josh inhaled the remaining 20!

Of course I have include some pictures I snapped of my sweet Milly. 

She is home alone for most of the week while Josh and I are at work and loves having us around on the weekend. 

She has so many toys and adores them all. I don't know if it is common knowledge but Burmese cats love to play fetch! She brings us her toys and waits for us to throw them for her... even though we have had her for the last 6 months I still find it hilarious :)

Hope everybody had a fantastic weekend xo

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Lazy Morning Breakfast

I opened a package and turned around for one second and found Milly being cute in the cardboard box. Crazy cat lady? Me?

Beloved morning coffees. Made by my darling boy <3 He added a tail to his star!

Yummy breakfast of grainy toast with my leftover bolognese mixture from my Stuffed Eggplant recipe.

Photogenic shot of the boy at breakfast :)

Me excited about my starry coffee. Excuse the morning hair!

Don't you just love lazy mornings? Where you wake up when you feel like it and don't have anything on your to do list. We love to sit outside and drink our coffees and talk about all the things we never get time to talk about. Lucky for me I have a Monday morning off! How much better can life get :)

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Birthday dinner at GPO Bar and Cafe - Toowoomba

 Last Friday night we set off to GPO Bar & Cafe for the boy's birthday dinner. My parents were visiting for the weekend and it was great that they could join us.

We had initially tried to get a table a few weeks earlier and they had been fully booked out. I was well prepared this time and when we arrived we were seated straight away at our table.

The waitstaff were attentive throughout the night and the owner even took his time to see to us and advise us on drink selections.


The birthday boy was the only one of us to get a entree (because he is fancy like that :P). We noticed another table actually got a larger serving of the same entree? Maybe they were friends of the staff?

For mains, Dad and I both got a Prawn and Rice dish. I honestly cannot remember the name. Both of us agreed, the flavours were very nice but I was still hungry afterwards :(

Mum ordered the lamb cutlets with green beans (again I can't remember the name of the dish). She was not impressed and simply stated that it was just unflavoured, fatty lamb chops with a few green beans.

Luckily, Josh was very happy with his meal. He ordered 'Angel Chicken' or a name to that effect. He complimented the meal noting it was well cooked and very flavoursome. He also ordered a potato side.

GPO was neither fantastic or terrible. Although the food was tasty, we felt the menu was quite limited, the meals were expensive for the portions that were served and the sides were an extra charge (even for dessert, which we didn't order for that reason).

I think if we were to visit again, it would not be for dinner. It would be for either breakfast or lunch as their menus for earlier in day look much more appealing.

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