My first hand-made bread

Sometimes I decide to experiment and do something so remote to my normal hobbies that it even surprises me. All of a sudden I decided to try making breads, and not with a bread-maker but with my hands. My source of information for howtos and recipes was seraching the Internet. I found this website helpful, whose recipe I followed, yet in half portions. Everything went pretty well, kneading was actually fun, BUT the dough did not rise as I expected. Maybe it was because I used from a machine yeast package which will expire in two months or so, or as some websites suggest too much flour. I was pretty careful with the heat not to kill the yeast.
Anyways, I decided to leave it to rise more overnight. Even in the morning it was not the way I expected it to be. I gave it a shot anyhow and bake it for 45 minutes, and to be honest it rised pretty OK (overall it rised to 1.5 size almost) and here is a picture of it. Yummy ... it is very delicious though.
Some useful websites: How to knead bread dough, good explanation with pictures, whole bread recipe.