birthday weekend

for my birthday dinner i wanted to try shakahari in carlton. it's odd we'd never gone there before last weekend because its a very vegan friendly vegetarian restaurant and only a couple kms from home (and one of the oldest veggie restaurants in melbourne). soooooo goood! we shared the avocado rolls for our entree (appetizer to north americans). i got the marcopolo gift for my main and zac had a vegan lasagna made with quinoa. the meals were the perfect size and i still had a bit of room for dessert but we decided to go for a walk down lygon street to one of the gelato places and get vegan sorbet.

my actual birthday was on sunday and we had a wedding to go to. it was the brother of the groom of the wedding we went to in february. the ceremony was at the same greek orthodox church the groom's brother's wedding was at:

the reception was at quat quatta. they did an amazing job of our vegan meals. i was a little worried about our meals because this was the first wedding i've been vegan at. in the past, my vegetarian meals have been good and filling mostly because of the amount of cheese. zac's vegan meals have always been good but very small because the chefs don't seem to take into account that when you put a few veggies on a plate (with no grain or protein) it's not going to be a filling meal like the meat mains are. we were stuffed by the end of this meal. we had 2 rolls with some veggies at the start of the meal from a share platter on the table. then we had avocado salads (with about 1/2 an avocado for each of us). the main was a stack of grilled veggies that were done really nicely. our dessert was a bowl of berries (i LOVE berries and was excited to find out that was our dessert over the usual fruit salad that zac has always had at weddings). the parents of the groom:his mom is soooo sweet. i've only met her a few times in the past but she greeted me at the church with "happy birthday, shawna!" i was pretty amazed she remembered considering her son's wedding was about to start. at the reception she came up to me a couple times and wished me a happy birthday and at the end of the nite she told me she had planned on getting me a little mini birthday cake but remembered i was vegan and didn't know where to buy a little vegan birthday cake. i was sooooo full when we left there's no way i could have eaten any birthday cake.

big fat greek wedding

we celebrated the weekend of our 1 year anniversary by going to a wedding (our actual anniversary fell on monday this year).
zac and wombat before the wedding (no, wombat didn't come, zac just ran her in the park right before we left):

the "just married" happy couple:

it was a greek orthodox ceremony

the bridal party (minus the groomsman who must have got cut off the photo) doing a greek dance:

there was lots of greek dancing.

a bit shaky (i didn't have a tripod) picture of the city from a bridge over the yarra (we did a lot of walking to eventually get public transport home-- not fun in heels):

champagne birthday

apparently when you turn the age of your date of birth it's your champagne birthday-- that's what my birthday was/is this year. so yesterday (and today) i celebrate turning 30 on the 30th (it was the 30th here yesterday but since i was born on canadian time, not aussie time, i consider today still my birthday).
we started the day by having breakfast at c.e.r.e.s. (which we'd never done before). i had hot indonesian eggs which was amazing!! a bed of rice with some sort of sauce on it it think then salad (with mint and coriander) on top with peanuts and a bit of chili the 2 perfectly fried eggs on top of that and a bit of chilli sauce on the side. zac just had a vegan brownie since he'd eaten breakfast at home before i could stop him.
after taking the dog out we headed down to brunswick street for a second coffee-- we (read: zac) got up earlier than usual so this second coffee happened around the time we would normally go for a weekend coffee. we then had a couple beers at a couple pubs before heading home for a nap.
i decided to do my birthday dinner at a mexican place i'd heard about on johnson st. zac won't usually go for mexican (other than trippy taco) since most australian mexican is just cheesy stuff and not vegan friendly. we had several friends join us for dinner at los amates. the food was sooooo good and i don't think we had to wait long considering we were a group of 10 and the menu had a disclaimer that meals may have a delay since they are all made to order (the menu also had a disclaimer that some of the prices may have gone up because of the rising cost of corn and rice). they were able to vegan-ize the vegetarian burrito for zac which he said was pretty average (but i guess a lot of the flavours would be in the cheese and guacamole). my vegie enchiladas were really nice (and the nachos we all shared were really good too). i didn't really drink much (just one big sangria) but i tasted a couple other drinks (like mexican beer poured into a glass with a half cup or so of lime juice and salt around the rim----- sooooooo good!).
i'd go back again. it was a good way to celebrate the day.

best random adventure ever

when i was in university i kind of became known for taking off on random adventures. me and my friends kristila and kerri often ended up doing things like ending up in seattle for coffee, lynden for ice cream or portland for dinner. for ages we joked about going for coffee in california. one gray afternoon at the start of our week of spring break (for which we had no big plans) kristila, kerri, one of kerri's dorm mates melinda and i hopped into kristila's car and decided we'd go for coffee in california. by the time we got to seattle we decided that there was nowhere really interesting in the most northern part of cali so we decided our destination would be the golden gate bridge in san fransisco. the photo above was actually taken on the way home. on the way there it was late at nite and we went thru the mountains where we discovered snow:
me getting ready to walk (part way) across the golden gate bridge:
in sausalito with the golden gate bridge behind us:

i [heart] the ocean (especially with waves like in cali): after having a coffee, walking the golden gate bridge and a quick walk around the downtown area we hopped back in the car and started driving back along the coast. we ended up stopping somewhere in either northern cali or oregon and spent the nite at a cheap motel (kristila and kerri were the only 2 that could drive stick) before driving the rest of the trip back to canada. that was my first trip to cali. a year later i went back for 10 days on a a road trip with some other friends and then ended up moving to san diego for 18 months to work at an outdoor ed camp program.
(the photos aren't great cuz it was long before i went digital and our scanner isn't very good either)

the good and the bad of facebook

a couple facebook related things have happened in the last couple days. first the bad. i received a horrible video on my funwall of a motorbike rider being killed as a lorry hit him. the friend who sent it accidentally sent it to everyone (actually her husband did). when i deleted the video somehow it ended up getting sent on to everyone in my friends list. i discovered this the next nite when zac asked why i sent him that video. i was able to delete the videos i sent but this was a day later and i'm sure a lot of my recipients had already seen it. i've now sent in 2 notices to youtube flagging the video as inappropriate (one last nite and one just now). its still on there. i can't believe people would actually post that. and watch it knowing what it is-- i didn't have the title on it when it was sent to my funwall. i think i'm going to delete my funwall application because that's not the only video i've had sent to me that i questioned why i was being sent it (it was just the most horrible one) so i'm wondering how many things are accidentally being sent around to funwalls on facebook.
now onto the good. thru facebook i've connected up with a lot of people from the past. most just to see what the other is up to now, some to talk about the old days and a few that i've met up with again in person. today was one of the meeting up days. a girl from my dorm in my second year of university (so 10 years ago--- wow!) moved to melbourne 3 weeks ago. we met up for lunch today and ended up spending a few hours wandering around parks chatting about people we knew, life in canada vs australia, immigration, jobs........ its always fun to catch up with other canadians and especially since she just moved here (her boyfriend is from here) it was nice to be able to assure her the initial shock of moving around the world does wear off and melbourne is a great city to live in.

best party ever!

we've been married for just over a week now. definitely have to say it was the best day ever. even with all the dramas, it turned out perfect. we had a small issue when i checked my email the day before the wedding and my friend who was supposed to be arriving that afternoon from canada was stuck in new zealand after getting horribly airsick. fortunately i was able to get hair appointments with a great hairdresser (who wasn't even supposed to be working) for both me and lea. we also had wind issues and the ceremony had to be relocated to the other side of the bridge an hour before the wedding. the weather cleared up and the sun came out just before the ceremony (it was raining less than half an hour before the wedding while we were waiting for our ride to take us there).
wombat was also VERY well behaved in her roll as ring bearer (she even went muzzle free which we didn't plan on doing)
here's a couple photos from my mom and brothers cameras.

me and mom before the ceremony:
the ceremony

newly married (wombat wasn't much into the photos-- the photographer was very excited to get her looking at the camera after getting several dozen shots of her backside):
the band (zac got wagons to play-- our favourite melbourne band). they were amazing!!

perfect birthday

i guess the only thing that could have made my birthday better today would be if i didn't have to go to work but i had a good day at work anyway so it didn't really matter. zac made me coffee in bed before he left and put on the new ben harper cd that he bought for my b-day (my big gift was our trip to the beach a couple weeks ago). i fell back asleep and woke up a couple hours later, opened the window and sat in bed with my (now cold) coffee, the ben harper cd playing again and the dog curled up next to me. then me and wombat took a walk along the creek to c.e.r.e.s. she had her second ever trip to the cafe there and she did VERY well (the only other dog there was at the entrance where you would normally walk in with dogs so we went around the back to see what the cafe area was like and discovered that it was just moms and toddlers and babies everywhere so wombat was safe. i sat and had an ice coffee and fed her some treats. when i got home i got to talk to my mom over messenger while i typed to 2 other friends over messenger. that made me a bit late for work but i figured i could get away with being a bit late anyway cuz its my birthday. my co-worker got me a great gift: honey nut cheerios (my favourite breakfast cereal and there's only 1 place i know to get them in melbourne-- an american foods shop in bentleigh), maple syrup, organic chocolate bars and a cute wooden desk calendar (and a homemade card with a picture she drew of wombat). she also made me a cake (her first cake from scratch!!) and drew a maple leaf in red icing on it (i took a pic but i left it on the work camera-- hopefully someone will download it for me tomorrow cuz i have my r.d.o. so i won't be at work til monday!!). the kids were great (they've been exceptionally great the past 2 afternoons). we got out a few min early and we rode home without having to turn our bike lights on for the first time this (almost)spring (both me and my co-worker were very excited about that). zac booked a flexicar and took me out to dinner at white lotus (vegetarian mock meat chinese food with an AMAZING fish dish). the best part of today was definitely the weather-- i don't like having a winter birthday but today the weather here was the same as back home (25C here, 26C in victoria/vancouver)! its supposed to drop overnite (its still 20C now and the wind that we've had all day has died down) and tomorrow's high is only 15C with rain (its still a clear starry sky now). i was hoping to bbq to celebrate my canadian birthday and also our 1 year being engaged (we had bbq the nite zac proposed).
technically its just early in the morning on my "real birthday" (canadian time) so

warm evening

saturday nite (after the great day outside) we had our friend's 30th birthday-- a crazy hat party

it was a perfect evening for it too (especially cuz they're unit isn't huge so its nice to use the back courtyard area for parties too). funny cuz his wife's birthday was in january and i think that nite was the only nite we had rain for 3 or 4 weeks on either side of the nite of her party. for his party he had tarps put up over the courtyard and a gas heat lamp available but it was a nice mild (i just wore a thin long sleeve top all nite and spent most of the nite outside) and the bit of drizzle we had was later in the nite when a lot of people had left so it wouldn't have been crowded if we all had to go in then anyway (but we didn't)

the newly engaged couple-- 1 week after their engagement (august must be the month for engagements-- my coworker just got engaged the nite we were at this party and this friday will be 1 year since me and zac's engagement)

i also managed to get my margarita that i didn't get earlier in the day (when we got sangria instead). i also got a krispy kreme doughnut (mmmmmm.....extra greasy and sweet doughnut)

a cake of krispy kreme's:

the best dancing of the nite:

quarter of a century

we celebrated our friend amed's 25th birthday last nite. this guy is amazing. he came to australia 5 years ago on a temporary protection visa from iraq. he apparently didn't know a word of english when he arrived-- i find this hard to believe because he speaks english as if he's been speaking it most of his life (a girl last nite knew him when he first arrived and she assured me that he didn't know a word when he came to her!!). he's been through horrible, unimaginable things in his life but despite all of this he is quite a positive person. he's also extremely caring and shares all he has (which isn't much by a lot of people's standards but for someone who came to australia with absolutely nothing, what he has now is a lot and he loves to share it with his friends). it was amazing at his party last nite. we were in the upstairs of a resturant and he had about 30 friends there (all of whom he refered to as his "wonderful brothers" and "beautiful sisters"). not many of us knew eachother beforehand but everyone we talked to there was really interesting and it was kinda cool that we were all connected thru amed (and at least 1 person came down from canberra for his birthday!!). he's a great guy. before he even knew me he gave zac small gifts to give to me and he's bought wombat gifts too (he's still never met her but he always asks about her). he always insists on paying when we go out for coffee. before zac left his old job he got the ball rolling for amed to get into public housing. just a couple weeks ago he moved into a commision flat near here and he's loving it! he's a pretty amazing guy and i'm looking forward to our next coffee or dinner with him.

casual sneakers?

last nite we went to a friend's birthday in a function room a bar in the city. our friend had prewarned all the guys to wear a collar to get into the place. zac went out and bought a nice new shirt for the occasion and looked great in his all black "johnny cash" outfit (black shirt, suit jacket and black pants) and his vegan wear shoes. we get to the door and the bouncers looked up and down zac and said he couldn't come in because of his shoes:


they're dress shoes (they actually do look a bit casual in the pic but they look great with a nice outfit)!!! the guy claimed they were sports shoes and pointed to the dress code sign that says no sports shoes. we headed outside and called our friend inside to say zac couldn't get in. our friend came out, took one look at zac and said he looked great and he'd see what he could do. we waited outside while our friend (who happens to be a lawyer) went back in to talk to someone-- we figured he's probably pretty good at arguing a point professionally. 10 min later he came out with who we think was the maitre d' and we were escorted in past the bouncers (who zac really wanted to rub it into) and we went into the party (the guy who escorted us in did give the bouncers a pretty dirty look as we went past). of course because of that incident we spent the whole nite watching guys shoes. there were a LOT of worse looking shoes than zac's (including one guy who works there who was wearing black adidas shoes that looked slightly similar to zac's but with the 3 vertical white stripes-- shouldn't employees that are out on the floor have the same dress code as patrons?). also while we were waiting outside we saw several guys dressed much worse than zac (including one guy with the most ripped up looking casual jeans i've seen in a while-- no worn jeans was also on the dress code) getting inside. we figure the guy just didn't like zac's scruffy gotee he's got going (i don't really like it either). not impressed with the way that bouncer treated zac though. the party was great once we got in (lots of good food and free drinks) but i wouldn't ever want to go back there just cuz of the way we were treated at the door (also didn't really appreciate the moose antler light fixtures thru out the place and the gigantic moose head as a sculpture just inside the door).

queensland part 4: great keppel island

after the wedding a few of us headed over to great keppel island for a few days. zac, brent and i stayed at the holiday village (a backpackers) while steve and kara stayed at the resort a few minutes walk away. the backpackers was great. we were supposed to be in a 4 person dorm with just the 3 of us but there was already someone on the 4th bed so they gave us 2 twin rooms. they cooked up a big pot of rice every nite (except one nite where they made a really good veggie soup) and it was just really friendly and relaxed. steve, kara and brent were all leaving the island tuesday afternoon to fly back to melbourne wednesday morning and me and zac weren't sure what to do for the rest of our holiday but not long after arriving on the island we decided to stay there until friday (i think we all fell in love with the island pretty much as soon as the boat "docked" on the white sandy beach)

sunset our first nite on great keppel

our favourite beach for snorkeling (monkey beach)

the beach was pretty deserted (we only saw a few people the whole day). over the 3 days we snorkeled there we saw turtles, small sharks, jelly fish, LOTS of colourful tropical fish, some kind of ray (i think whip rays-- brent saw a sting ray), gigantic clams, lots of coral........it was amazing. the water was a bit cold for me (someone told us it was 18C but it had been 26C up until they had the cold weather/rain for 2 weeks) so i hired a wet suit for 1 day so i could stay out a bit longer.

vicious lorikeet (i think this was bill or ted):

a lot of the birds on the island were quite aggressive because of people feeding them (despite signs EVERYWHERE telling you not to). the lorikeets are addicted to sugar and knew the little yellow packets. i played tug-o-war one morning with a lorikeet as he tried to take a sip of my coffee thru the travel lid and as i took that from him he tried to grab my sugar packets from me. he nipped me a few times and then got hold of one packet. i wasn't gonna let him have it so i grabbed the other end and pulled a few times until he finally let go.

kookaburra eating a snail or something (he kept smashing it against the log then put it down the hatch):

the kookaburras were quite aggressive too. we saw an unsuspecting guy have a doughnut (and almost his thumb too!!) grabbed right from his hand. he just picked up his small daughter and ran after that. we saw woman have a chip stolen from her half way to her mouth (she was busy watching the lorikeets on the other side of her).

possum at the hostel picking at the insides of a dried up coconut:

these little guys were also quite aggressive (according to steve). he was eating pizza on the balcony of their hillside villa at the resort. he went inside to grab a drink and the possum was eating his pizza when he came back. he shooed it away and grabbed his pizza and was a bit scared of the possum. his wife made a comment that the possum wouldn't hurt him and right at that second it went for his leg and tried to bite it!!

another sunset shot (i have dozens):

bat (they were pretty cool and not vicious as far as i know):

sailing: we decided to do a sailing trip offered thru the resort "sailing with grace". it was a day sailing trip on a 40 foot yacht.

the wind was kinda gusty and not constant so we did pretty much everything but sail (the water was like glass for 1/2 the trip back). we got to snorkel in an area that had much more colourful coral than monkey beach. zac went down into the cabin area and got a bit seasick so the crew took us over to a secluded beach in the dingy for zac to recover while lunch was being prepared.

it was an amazing private little beach around the side of a cliff from where the boat was anchored. the entire shore was pretty much just bits of coral and shells. zac found a big piece of coral:

lunch was pretty amazing too. we let them know beforehand that zac was vegan so they catered well for that (and they had lots of vegetarian options). we had wraps, quiche, cocktail samosas and spring rolls, as well as chicken and a HUGE bowl of fresh prawns for the non veggie people. on the way back we spotted a few dolphins jumping out of the water (didn't really get any good shots-- just a couple grey bits on a blue background). a couple even came quite close to the boat.

our last nite on the island we decided to stay at the resort because i just really wanted a fresh shower (the hostel uses bore water for the showers so they were kinda salty) and it would be nice to be close to the spa (every other afternoon we'd had a spa at the resort after snorkeling then had to walk back 5 min to the hostel getting cold).

here was the view from our deck area of our room:

i wouldn't really recommend the resort there unless you were going for the activities they offered (like as a family with children under 12). the staff were quite young and unprofessional and the rooms weren't all that nice (other than the view)

another bit of wildlife: a bush thick knee curlew. they're really cool nocturnal birds that wander around the island.

they had a little paragraph about them in the info news at the resort and it said something to the effect of if you hear what sounds like a baby keeping its parents up, its probably just one of these birds. i thought it was a bit odd that in the last 4 nites i hadn't heard that at all. that evening we were getting ready for an after dinner spa and we heard this screaming noise like a crying baby. zac's response was "that baby is annoying" (he didn't read the info on the birds). it was one of the birds!!

our last day on the island

is it wrong that i was watching the pool bar very closely for them to open and was up there ordering a pina colada within 30 seconds of them pulling up the gate at noon (there was another woman ahead of me though)?

the view down fisherman's beach (the main beach of the island)

teasing the lorikeets with my cocktail (i think they could smell the sugar in my "adult slurpee" and gathered around hoping for a sip-- zac let one have a few licks of his after he finished but i thought that was probably a really bad idea to get the lorikeets drunk)

we spent our last nite at the yha in rocky (after waiting an hour for a bus that then took us 15 min past the yha-- i don't think he heard zac ask him to let us know where our stop is). after hiking back up over the bridge with our packs on we found the hostel then walked another couple kms back to the mall to find some food for dinner. the next morning we left sunny queensland to arrive back home to melbourne at 7C (this seems to be the temp any time we arrive back in melbourne from anywhere in july) and it was VERY grey and rainy all day (at least it hadn't snowed that morning in melbourne-- that happened once on a day we returned).

we'll definately be going back to great keppel again though (we'd have the wedding there if it wasn't so expensive for everyone to get there)

queensland part 3: the wedding (nothing like american pie 3: the wedding)

saturday afternoon was our reason/excuse for flying up to rocky: adam and claire's wedding. it was a short, to the point ceremony in the little chapel at the resort with amazing views over the ocean (unfortunately i only brought the new camera with me and i couldn't remember how to change the metering mode so that they wouldn't be silhouettes against the blue sky/ocean behind them so i'm depending on brent for some good photos from during the vows).

here's the wedding party signing the registry:

down at the beach for some photos:

the girls and adam:

the guys and claire:

the best man and the groom with a snake (it was sort of a random thing-- after the ceremony and photos there was snacks down by the pool bar. a guy from some sanctuary was wondering around with the snake to promote the sanctuary):

the cake (made by the maid of honour-- we've got her card and she said she could try to play around and see what she could do for a vegan cake for us)

kara and steve

the first dance:

brent and zac comparing red faces-- zac was a bit sunburned and brent had an allergic reaction to the dessert. in the 10 min after this photo was taken he turned cherry red, went back to his room, took a cold shower and some anti-histamines and was fine an hour later

other than brent's reaction the food was REALLY good (especially for our table). everything was on sharing platters for the table. with me being vegetarian and zac being vegan, they brought out a separate platter with extras for us. the entree (appetizer in north america) was a HUGE plate of seafood. we only had 5 people at our table (some tables had 8 or 10) plus zac and i weren't touching the seafood (we had some bread and dips) so the 3 others had a seafood feast for an entree. i can't remember what the main was for everyone else but we had some amazing stir fried vegies and rice. dessert was a platter of gigantic pieces of assorted cakes and a huge platter of fruit for me and zac (i could have eaten the cakes but the fruit looked much more appealing at that point).

the reception was followed by karaoke which was being held in the bar/restaurant in our building (we saw the ad on the resort tv station and zac had be pushing all afternoon for people to come to karaoke after the reception with him cuz he loves to sing "love shack")