They finally caught us and wanted to put us in the big pot...



...but we told them that we are too skinny and that some of the fat tourists would taste better and be able to feed the village for months, so they let us go (whew...)!

While in Vanuatu we went on a couple of tours to get some insight into the old tribal culture.



We did one evening tour with food, song and dance and then a couple of days later we did another one during the daytime with a bit more insight into the tribal life.

On the evening trip they would be jumping out at us in the middle of the bush.





Afterwards they entertained us with song and dance.







During the day tour explained the significance of things such as their tribal drawings.



How they would use bark for making clothing and other items.



How they would preserve banana for several months.



...and the wild pigs they would hunt.



And they would also explain how cannibalism used to work in their society.



As well as other traditions.





I took a whole bunch of portraits of the people in the village.


















There were also a bunch of kids around.

On one of the trips to a local village Aiden started playing with the local kids.



It was great that he had some fun as it is pretty hard for someone his age to sit still for long periods of time.





The local kids were great at helping him around and holding the dog so he could pat it.

One evening we went to see a fire show...

This turned out to be probably the best fireshow we have ever seen...spectacular.



Fortunately I brought my tripod along so I could capture the following amazing pictures.





The whole show was about 30 minutes with 6-10 performers and finished with group dancing where all the local kids also participated.

Obviously I took a large amount of family photos in Vanuatu.

Here are some of them.











...and...all this holiday can be very exhausting...

Kims Dad joined us in Vanuatu.

It was great to have him along and quite funny at times.



When we were out and about he wanted his photo taken with people we met.









And he was brave enough to try the local Kava...I didn't tell him how they make it.



And it was great to have him there to help with the kids.

On one of the days we made a day trip into Port Vila city centre. Here was the big market with is open 24 hours per day.

The market is full of fresh produce of all sorts depending on the seasons.









There is even some live produce available such as chicken and crabs.











Because the market is always open, people live and sleep between the stalls with their families.



It is also the place that people go to during lunch to buy food to eat.



There was a whole row of women sitting their waving their arms to keep the flies away from the food.





Also, I don't understand why the western world is spending so much effort and resources on finding cures to diseases such as cancer, diabeter, high blood pressure, arthritis, obesity, athma etc. since they here in Vanuatu already has one magical cure that takes care of them all. It was cheap and easily available at the market and it doesn't matter how much you buy, the price is always the same.




They were also selling improvised charcoal stoves bringing back memories of Kenya where everything was cooked on a Jiko's.



While we were outside the market discussing where to go next this woman and her little girl walked past. The little girl let go of he mums hand and walked over to Aiden (who was sitting in his pram) and gave him a BIG kiss...Aiden is such a chick magnet.

There are a number of waterfalls on the main island Efete in Vanuatu.

Some of these are very accessible as they are right next to the road such as this one.



Others are a bit more of a hike, but definitely worth it...such as these ones at Mele.

Unfortunately the access to the falls is not being very well managed. They have cut steps into the limestone and scrubbing the surface to avoid people slipping when walking. Unfortunately this also erodes and changes the waterfalls and I think they should put a walking track adjacent to the falls instead.

One day we hired a driver to take us around the island.

One of the places we stopped was the Blue Lagoon which is a small semi freshwater lagoon with large lime stone deposits making the water very blue to look at.



We also stopped at Turtle Bay which is supposed to be a turtle sanctuary...but for what it is (tiny) and the knowledge of your guide (none) very over prised.

But they did have some live coconut crabs.



Some baby turtles



And a couple of large turtles in a very small and dirty enclosure.

The hotel we stayed at was in a great location at the back of the lagoon with a little private beach.





...and a Tam Tam out the front.




It was great using some of the watersport equipment such as kayaks and catemarans







And it had a golf course which we didn't get a chance to use.



Mostly we would just relax or swim when around the hotel.

Lucas and Aiden got themselves a surfing lesson. Aiden was too scared to go, but Lucas had a great time.

In 2004 Australia was being drawn into the war in Iraq. A lot of Australians were opposed to the war, but the politicians wouldn't listen.

On a nice sunny day several hundred thousand people gathered around Hyde park in the middle of the city to demonstrate and express their opinions against Australia entering into the war.

I was of the belief that the war was a mistake in the first place and was totally unjustified, so I was decided to join the demonstrations and at the same time see if I could take a few photos.

Click here to see more photos from: The 2004 Anti War demonstrations/Slideshow

Andy and Tink had their first baby...a little (and very hairy) girl names Mia.

This was also one of those periods where I was checking out what it would be like to have a beard.

My grandad passed away in 2003.

He was getting old and was getting tired of living so he decided to end it.

With EDI I went on a field trip to visit one of the big containerships in Botany Bay.

It was facinating to see the size of those ships.

I celebrated Christmas and New Year with my parents in Thailand.

We spent the time in the Northern Part of Thailand in the Golden Triangle around Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai.

We rented a car for a couple of days and got to see a lot including all the hill tribes that still to this day live in this part of Thailand.




Click here to see more photos from: Thailand/Slideshow

In 2003 Kenneth got married to Anica. I was asked to be the best man by Kenneth.

The wedding took place at a homestead in Sofala three hours drive west of Sydney.

It was a wonderful weekend surrounded by wonderful people.



Click here to see more photos from: Kenneths Wedding/Slideshow

Contents . . .

My photo collection is vast. Many of them are in my albums, others scanned as images here. I have tried to include the best of the best, and will keep doing so. Feel free to explore any of the links - it make take some time to peruse them all...

( We recommend viewing of the photos through MS Explorer )

AUSTRALIA - HOME
Cockatoos at Home	Narrabeen Beach	New car	My Jobs

MY FAMILY
Grandmother's 85th	Grandmother's 80th	Donkey Day Out	My Brother Claus	My Father

2001
New Zealand (Mt Cook)	South-East Asia

2000
Chilli Festival	Ecochallenge Borneo (Sabah)	Sydney Olympics

1999
Thailand (Bangkok)	Laos	Morocco

1998
Port Macquarie	Pete's Bite	New Zealand (Sth Island)	Denmark

Created: 11 Aug 2001 Last Updated: 21-jan-05

My mum and dad spent some time in Sydney over christmas and New Year.

While they were here I raught my dad how to absail.



And for Christmas I gave my parents some tickets for the Sydney Harbour bridge walk (they gave Arumi a ticket too).

My brother passed away in the end of 2002. He had been suffering badly from his disease for almost a decade and eventually it got the better of him.

I still miss him a lot even though we weren't close when he was alive....but I still feel him close to me to this day!



I still light a candle for him once in a while.



His two biggest wishes in life was to become a professional tennis player...he was a pretty damn good player and I never played against him because I didn't have a chance.



His second biggest wish was to get himself a girlfriend. This is one of the last photos that was taken of him.



I still blame the psychiatric system in Denmark for what happened. They were too focused on treating his disease with medication and never paid any attention on teaching him to live with his disease and provide quality in life.


I still love him very much and I really miss him. I also regret that I wasn't there more for him.



He always looked after me and he has never hurt anyone.





This is the last family photo that was taken.



I would appreciate if you click here to see some of the photos from my brothers life: May he not be forgotten

This long Anzac weekend we drove up to Hunter Valley with a couple of friends.

Meeting up there we planned what wineries we were going to. Sasha had a couple in mind which was perfect as they were some Kim and I had never been been to before.

The first place we stopped was Petersons...Joanne wanted to pick up some pink bubbly stuff (pink champagne). They have some wines there without preservatives which are really nice.



On the way from one of the other places we drove past a new place called Noonji...sounded japanese and it was a new one, so we had to have a look at what they were doing.



They had just opened up for tasting recently and as soon as we walked through the door we could tell that this husband and wife were doing things differently. We were welcomed and were told that this was table tasting, so we all sat down at the table.



This was really good since it enabled us to taste five different vintages simultaneously (In other places you taste one vintage at a time). The prices were reasonable and they had a pretty good discount if you bought a case, so Kim and I ended up buying two cases of wine from here.



After this we did some more sightseeing and tasting before we drove back to sydney.





On the way back we stopped at a petrol station and someone has this cool car parked there.

On Anzac day I went climbing with Andy and Dan at a new place called Wingello that we'd never been to before.

Wingello is about two hours south of sydney towards Canberra. It is mostly sports climbing on ring bolts. This means that instead of placing protection you can clip pre-placed bolts.





My finger is still injured so I am in reality unable to climb (pst...I did clean a climb on top rope but dont tell anyone).

This meant that I spent most of the day belaying the others and taking some photos. On one of the easier scrambles I got to the top so that I could take some photos from the top. It is the first time I have tried to really try and take photos from the top and it was difficult. A lot of the photos were slightly blurred because it was hard to keep the lens steady in the available light when zooming in). Here are some of the photos from this climb that did turn out alright.






Also being up high means that I could provide Dan with some instructions cleaning the anchor system. For his first try it wasn't pretty and he got the ropes in a big tangle.





Eventually we got it sorted so that he could get down safely....but more practice is needed.

After this we went further along the wall to so some easy/moderate climbs (16/17s). One one of the climbs Andy stuck his hand into a hole with a snake skin in it...this is his second snake incident. After this he refused to even get close to the hole (fair enough). He is now on the leader board 2:1...my incident was a brown snake crawling across my feet while belaying him years ago.




Dan managed to also lead this climb which he was absolutely stoked about.






We finished the climb just before the sun set and we managed to get out before just in time. The climb out was interesting at the easiest route is through this narrow and steep gully with fixed ropes and ladders (The fact that Dan was carrying his makeup bag and a 5 litre bottle of water didn't make it easier).

Today I borrowed a couple of Toy cars from my nephew Ethan. I had to promise that I'd bring them back tomorrow.

I wanted to have a play with using a single bare flash right above the car as a softbox. Because the flash is hanging right above the car just outside view) it has been dialed all the way back to 1/128th power (shooting at f/32, iso 200 @ 1/250) or I'd use detail. On the side just outside view I put a piece of white paper to reflect a little light onto the side of the car. The reflective surface is a glass chopping board from the kitchen.


After a while I started also using a flash on the background using different gels. I found that orange and blue gels were the nicest. The Blue as a good contrast to the yello car. With the orange gel I could create a sunset type light by letting the light fall off quickly on the wall. The background if a white wall (except for the textured background which is a black backdrop).


None of the photos below have had any photoshopping done to them (otherwise I would have removed those scratches on the windshield).

Kim was kind enough to let me take some photos of her. I have been studying some flash photography videos and articles and wanted to have a play with multiple flashes around dusk. The trick is to balance the ambient light with the light filled from the flash...especially tricky as the light constantly changes during the last 30 minutes of the day.


So far I only have two wireless flash triggers to was was somewhat limited (ideally I would like to have three triggers).



It was really good to be able to do some experimenting. For these photos I used one flash 45 degrees to the back and another 45 degrees in front. On the back I am using a CTO gel. In the beginning I was using one on the front one as well, but when I got home to look at the photos I could see that it was too warm (Lesson learnt that I should use the warm gels on the back). On the photos here there is no gel on the front flash only on the back.


I would have liked to stay just a bit longer to play, but kim was getting a bit cold.


With a more time I would have been able to enhance some of the zoom effects as seen in this photo:



Definitely a trick I'll be using in the future...makes for some cool effects. At lot of the photos are actually quite nice, but the two above are my preferred ones.

It is now week 31, so only 9-10 weeks until baby is due to arrive.

Kim is getting a fair bit bigger and the baby is now very active. So far things looks good although Kim is worried that the boy will be a shortie like mummy.

I read this article about how to take water photos in an easy way. The photos is taken using a bare flash firing onto a white background at 1/8th power. The blue colour is because I (on purpose) changed the white balance of the camera to Tungsten.

I only had a shallow painting tray at my disposal. This paint residue in the bottom of the tray creates the pattern in the photo. I also couldn't get a nice formed drop pattern forming due to the drops hitting the bottom of the shallow tray unevenly.

Lessons for next time: Use a deeper tray. Make it black so that no other colours penetrate and make dure the water can reach the edge of the tray. Next time I try I will use one of the large scanpans we have...I think it will be better suited.

During the Easter Break Kim and I made a trip to Tasmania. This was to be our last holiday together before the baby arrives.

Tasmania is an island south of Australia about 1.5 times larger than Denmark. The east coast is lightly populated and the west coast is mainly national parks and forests.

We had rented a car to make it easier for us to get around and the first place we headed to was Cradle Mountains national park. This is probably one of the most iconic places in Tasmania and every Australian has seen the pictures of the mountain itself.



The drive there was full of contrast. There has always been of criticism of the lumber industries in Tasmania and when you see the methods they use to cut down trees then it is easy to see why. They don't do selective cutting, they instead pretty much bulldoze whole areas which then take many decades to recover.



One of the days there we did a number of walks within the park and around the lakes. Kim is 7 months pregnant and did really well although walking a bit slower than normal.










We also did some walks to some of the lookouts and waterfalls in the park.







I did have some time to experiment with some photos along the way.







I really wanted to see some of the wildlife in the park, but unfortunately most of the animals are nocturnal (only out at night). The park had a bus going through the park at night time costing $50 for the two of us. We spoke to the driver and he said that we would not be able to leave the bus at any time. I really wanted to be able to get off the bus at take some wildlife photos so we instead decided to drive our rental car through the park late at night. We wouldn't have the luxury of the nighttime lights and the local knowledge of where to spot certain animals but we thought that the bus would be staying on the same road as we did anyhow.

It turned out to be a really good idea. We managed to spot lots of Possums, Wallaby's (a small Kangaroo) and Wombats. We even spotted Quolls and a Tasmanian Devil. May has later told me that the frog in the photo is a 'Southern Brown Tree Frog' and that she keeps one of them as a pet.


Below is photos of the animals we spotted:



















(The closeup photos of the Tasmanian devil and the Quoll I've borrowed, but the rest are my own photos.)

After this we drove to Freycinet national park on the east coast. Along the way we stopped at a few scenic spots and wineries. One of the places we stopped was a place called Devils Gullet. It would have been really spectacular had it not been for the dense fog.




It was a fairly long drive getting there and I was pretty buggered by the time we arrived to the B&B after driving most of the day with just a few stops on the way to rest and take photos.







The sun started to set and I rushed Kim down to the beach in from of the place we were staying to take some portraits using some creative lighting. She wasn't too keen as the wind was a bit cold and we missed the actual sunset by just a couple of minutes. I did however manage to take a couple of photos of her.



In the evening we went to a very nice restaurant called 'The edge' very close to the B&B. This turned out to the be highlight in terms of meals during the trip. It was very nice. On the way to the restaurant we spotted a Tasmanian owl and afterwards we did a drive through the national park spotting more Quolls, Possums and Wallabies.


The next day we decided to do a number of other walks. The first one of the day included climbing up to the top of this saddle between two mountain tops to get a magnificent view of Wineglass Bay. The climb itself was spectacular in itself as the mountains are formed by this pink coloured granite (I was looking for climbing routes, but most of the granite looked completely barren of any holds...some lunatic would probably come and prove otherwise).
















Along the trail we we spotted a baby Black snake, a couple of Lizards and birds.







We also made a drive up to 'Friendly Beach' where we took a lot of photos. This beach was mostly deserted apart from a couple of walkers and surfers.



At sunset we drove to Honeymoon bay to get some scenic shots using the colour of the setting sun against the pink granite as well as some normal sunset photos.







In the evening we had a clear sky with lots of stars. Because of the light population of Tasmania there is not a lot of city lights to disturb the stars gazing. It has been years ago since I was able to lie down and just look at the stars to see if I could spot any satellites moving across the sky (this evening I spotted 2).

I used the opportunity to after dinner drive back to Honeymoon bay to do some star trail photography. I left Kim in the car as she didn't want to make the walk down to the beach in the dark without a torch.

I did take two photos down there using a 30 minute exposure (the maximum my camera allows & @f4.0). They turned out reasonable okay considering what camera they are taken with (Nikon D50).




Next day it was back to Sydney. We left Freycinet at 8.30am in the morning and I was stressing that we wouldn't make it back to the airport in time...but we did!

It is now week 25 and almost the third trimester. Kim is certainly getting a lot bigger these days but is still very active with swimming, yoga and walking (According to Kim baby is very active too). Both baby and mum are so far doing fine.





They say that most of the growth is in the third trimester...she could be huge!


We have finished painting the baby room and we have bought the most essential furniture such as a cot, a chest of drawers, car seats etc. It is now up to Kim to decorate the room so that it looks nice.

Today Kim and I met up with Sasha and his wife to go to 'Taste of Sydney'. This is an annual event where the premier restaurants of sydney and food and wine producers showcase their food and wine.

This year it was held in Centennial park which is the largest park in sydney which is pretty convenient for us.

At the event they had what the call 'Chef's table'. This is where you can sit down with the chefs of some of the premier restaurants and they will tell you about their restaurants, their food and you can ask them questions. In the mean time they were serving us seafood, wine and cheese (I discovered a new cheese that I in particular really liked).





They also had showcases where some of the chefs from some of sydney best restaurants show you how to cook different dishes. We went to one session where we saw Matt Moran from Aria prepare a lovely cured trout. This was cured like Gravad laks using salt, sugar, coreander and fennel and then cured a secod time using dijon mustard and dill.




The different restaurants were also having some of their food for sale. Some of it was quite nice (I had a nice yellowfin tuna), but I don't think it was a proper representation of their food. It is difficult to prepare and cook in large quantities without access to proper kitchen facilities, so most of the food was more fancy fast food.

Last weekend Kim and I went to see King Lear at the Sydney Opera House. Kim had managed to get cheap preview tickets on the third row from the stage which is pretty unheard of.



The play wasn't anything fancy in terms of stage production, costumes or anything (Actually some of the actors were wearing fairly modern denim jeans).

On the side of the stage they had positioned a drumkit and a girl was banging away all throughout the first half of the performance. I found this very distracting and annoying since I was already trying hard to concentrate on understanding the old Shakespearean English.

During the second half they moved the drumkit off the stage, so I must say that I actually started to enjoy the play a lot more.

Given that we got pretty cheap tickets I found the evening pretty good value, but I don't think I'd pay full price for this one.

Every year both Kim and I have been in the Sydney harbour area to watch the fireworks on New Years Eve.



But this year we decided to have a quiet new years eve just the two of us with a visit to the movies and then a nice dinner at home.



We did however watch the fireworks from our balcony at midnight and it looked just as spectacular as previous years (I borrowed the photo above from another site).

Between Christmas and New year we drove with Kims family up to Smiths Lake (300km North of Sydney). We rented a house on the lake up there.

We hired a tinny (small aluminium boat) a couple of days and went fishing and managed to catch a lot of breams (a lot too small to keep).





Kims dad loves fishing and he quickly found out that in the morning and evening the fish were at the shore just outside the house.

In the evening we cooked nice dinners and BBQ's and the cookaburras came to the balcony around dinner time to check if there were leftovers. We had a bit of fun with them as you can see.



In the evenings we played Blackjack (Kim and I cleaned up) and had nice food and wine.



Chong (The husband of Kims sister) showed his more feminine side.



The rest of the time we spent at the beach playing in the waves and playing with Kims sisters kids.

Christmas day was celebrated with Kims family at her sisters house.

A lot of people were there and everyone had been asked to bring some food. Kim had cooked Red Duck Curry the day before while I was preparing the Christmas Eve dinner.



Again...lots of food, playing table tennis, jumping the trampoline and all the kids got to open their presents.

Christmas even was celebrated in the traditional Danish way in the evening of the 24th December.

Kim and I had invited some friends over to out new house and prepared the traditional roast duck, ris-a-la-mande and large tiger prawns for entrees.



It was a nice evening and we didn't finish until well after midnight and all of us were really full by the time we finished dinner. There was a couple of kid and after dinner they got to open their Christmas presents.

Every year on Kims dads birthday we celebrate with the family. Every couple brings a couple of dishes of food and we all share it.

On our honeymoon in Bali I really wanted to do this scuba dive that was recommended to me by my friend Andy. It is this old wreck of a US cargo ship (USS liberty) that was torpedoed by the japanese in 1942 and then beached to save the men and the cargo.



The wreck has since slided back into deeper water (during a volcanic eruption in 1962) and it now in 5 to 27 meters of water just off the coast.



I did two dives on the wreck while Kim was snorkeling in the surface on top of the wreck and it is without a doubt the most amazing scuba diving experience I've had. The ship is huge and you can swim through the cargo hulls and there is an amazing variety of fish and corals on the wreck.

I saw a 1.5 meter barracuda, a 1cm tall seahorse, a garden of eels and a great variety of other fish including a large school of travelly.



I had my personal dive master for the day and I got him to take some photos and some video with his camera while we were diving. On the first dive we went all the way around the wreck (max depth 27 meters) and on the second we went through the wreck itself.



Kim had a really good experience as well and really enjoyed the 30 degree warm water and managed to get her bum burnt while snorkeling for several hours.

I think we'll both go back there if we get the chance.

Click here to download video of me feeding fish

Click here to download video of me diving

Our Honeymoon day after the wedding went to Bali in Indonesia. We did have some hesitation going there considering that the Bali Bombers had been executed the week before and that the Australian government discouraged all travel there.

The plane up there (and back) was only 25% full so plenty of space to get a good sleep.

We stayed in Nusa Dua Westin....a nice hotel although the rooms are a bit small.

On the first day we slept in and later in the day drove to Kuta to have a look around and do some shopping. Later in the evening we went to Jimbaran Bay for dinner. This is a whole beach where all the restaurants have put their tables and chairs out onto the beach itself...very romantic but quite expensive compared to local restaurants.





The second day we hired a car to drive us to Ubud in the hills, Monkey Forest and later in the day down to a small place called Tanah Lot. Especially the last one was very nice around sunset and we ended up not getting back to our hotel until 8.30 in the evening much to the dismay of our driver.





Dinner took place near the hotel and we found that the value of the food/prices was much better here.

A couple of days later we went for another drive (In between we went to Tulamben...see posting below) up to some beautiful lakes and temples up on the north of the island as well as rice paddies and we had a really nice trip despite driving with the most grumpy driver.







Time was running out and Kim felt that she hadn't spent enough time shopping so the last two days were spent shopping and sitting at the pool and on the beach.



One evening we booked a really nice restaurant called "The Living Room" in Seminyak and I booked the whole outdoor area (cost a fortune) just so that we could have a romantic evening in the garden just the two of us with personal waiting staff.





The week was way too short and we never got to do everything we wanted to do so I have a feel we will be coming back in the future.

On Sunday the 16th November 2008 I got married to Kim. It was a fantastic day and thanks to family and friends joining us making this a very memorable day.


My day started out (Kims started much earlier) in the morning with my Best Man (Andy) as well as a number of other friends coming over to my house picking up trays, organising ribbons on cars and picking up supplies for the wedding ceremony.

Kim had earlier in the morning left the house to go to her dads place to get dressed and have hair and makeup done.

Once we got the call saying that she was ready we drove over to her dads place and on the way there we were stopped by the police who insisted on breath testing us...sorry guys you were out too early, we hadn't started drinking yet.

At Kims place I had to bribe my way in through the door before they would let me in...all part of the tradition.



Once I was let in my friends carried the trays of fruit, wine and noodles upstairs and this was the first time I saw Kim looking absolutely gorgeous in her wedding dress.
We then started the Tea Ceremony where we first had to pay respect to the elders by burning incense and then serve tea to the parents. In return they would then present us with red envelopes containing money and Kim's dad also gave Kim an old bracelet and ring that used to belong to her mum.



After the Tea ceremony I drove down to La Perouse where the wedding ceremony was going to take place. We were a bit early so they were still getting ready. The wind was really strong so the garden arch needed wires to stay in place etc.

Once all the guests has arrived (around 40-50) Kim arrived in Nancys car with her bridesmaid (Natalie) and the ceremony could begin.



Kim and I had decided and written most of the ceremony ourselves and the celebrant presented it beautifully (and very loud).



After the ceremony we had some drinks and snacks with out guests and then took pictures for the next couple of hours around La Perouse and Centenial Park.

















Later in the afternoon we went back to our house to relax and freshen up for an hour until we then went to the Reception.



We had invited 80 guests and they all arrived (more or less). People were greated out the front where they were served canabes and drinks and there was a pianist playing a piano.

People were then seated and once everyone were at the tables the bridal party was introduced.









After the entrees My dad and Andy held their speeches (both very good and unfortunately mostly true) and after the main courses it was the turn of KC and myself.

To everyones surprise we had arranged entertainment during the evening in the form of some drummers. Everyone was given a drum and had to participate in the drumming.



This also involved us dancing as part of the entertainment.

This was eventually followed by us cutting the wedding cake (a tower of cupcakes) a then dance the bridal walz.






Kim had changed to a more practical dress for the bridal walz and she looked absolutely stunning in it. Because I'd been sunburnt during the day my face almost matched the dress.

End of October we moved settled and moved into the new house. Not without a bit of of drama as the previous owner wasn't out of the house at settlement...but by the end of the day she was fortunately gone.

She was living there with three little boys (terrorists), so there was a number of smaller things that had been neglected and really needed some attention and there were a number of flaws around the place that needed fixing (it seems that the solution to every problem for the previous owners was silicone glue).

Most of this is under control now thanks to my dad helping out while here for the wedding (see next posting). Both Kim and I have now moved all our things and I've put kim in charge of selecting what colours she would like the walls to be downstairs before we go out and buy furniture.

We also need to get new lights downstairs as the ones there heat up and switch themselves off (cheap crap) so I may just as well do the ceiling now that I am at it.

My dad was in Sydney for our wedding and arrived on the 5th November just in time for us to also celebrate his birthday (We took him to his favourite steak house to get his favourite T-bone steak).

It was great to have him here for the wedding as it would have been empty to not have any family members from my side at the wedding. It was also really sad that my mum couldn't come.

We had just moved into the house week before so everything was still messy and there was a lot of things that needed fixing on the house. My dad was really helpful helping me out with a lot of the thing I'd never done before such as replacing tiles in the bathroom. He also changed the locks, fixed lights, painted walls, fixed doors, leaking taps etc.

It gave us something to do together which was great for bonding. I just wish he'd been there a bit longer...but maybe I can convince him to come back to help me build a pergola.

We also managed to do a bit of sightseeing around Sydney and it was great that he got a chance to meet Kims family.



The wedding was something different for him and I think that he was pretty frustrated that he didn't know what the asian customs were (not a typical Danish wedding).

He did give a really good speech at the wedding and I'm sorry to say that everything he said is true (although not everything was accurate).