Posts from — July 2009

The first of three weddings we went to in July was for our friend Jenn (aka Shambles). We have played ultimate with Jenn for years. A few years back she moved to Edmonton for school and decided to take a step back from ultimate to focus on school, work and other fun things. At the time I never understood why anyone with talent wouldn’t play ultimate as much as they possibly could…until I tried it myself. Tonight for example, instead of driving to Saskatoon for a tournament, I was able to go to the driving range, play hackysack, clean the car, write a blog and finish our “cat house project”. We have always promised Willow a cat house (since she’s envious of her boyfriend Bob’s playhouse) so a year later….voila!

It was a joint project, but Jeff did most of the work. We bought some sisal and cheap carpet from Rona and made up the design as we went along. The curved piece is concrete tube used for pouring pillars. It cost around $100 in materials but something like this would normally sell for about $300! It was actually fun to make and I’m super pumped with the outcome. Willow is really happy with it and we found her in it tonight having a nap. Now to have Bob over to show it off.

Anyways, back to the wedding. Shambles had her wedding at the Glen Eagles golf course in Cochrane. The wedding took place outside the clubhouse. Very classy and we loved the polka dot theme. My table with other ultimate players were convinced that it was a frisbee theme and the little dots everywhere were discs.

Shambles married a gentleman named Tony from Croatia. Although we didn’t meet Tony until the wedding, he seems wonderful and they make such a cute, happy couple. They both looked lovely and the evening was filled with laughter and dancing (anyone knowing Jenn will not find this surprising!). During the slideshow I discovered that Jenn never went through the awkward teenage phase. She looked gorgeous in every photo. I would have thought that maybe her family just omitted photos from the awkward age, but every year was covered. I guess maybe I had enough awkward phase pictures taken for the both of us….

The following weekend we went to wedding #2. Our friend Sarah from UVic married Gregory (a great guy she met in high school and later moved back to Calgary to fall in love). The evening was spent catching up and reminiscing about UVic. They got married at SAIT – what a fabulous venue. The room they got married looked like a church, without being a church – high ceilings, stained glass windows. Then off to the Gateway for dinner and dancing. The original thing about this wedding was the ice cream theme – great thinking! Everyone got an ice cream scoop for their favor (and I had just been complaining about my spoon bending and that I needed a scoop). In the evening, instead of cutting a cake, they had Marble Slab ice cream shop come in and make cones for all of the guests. Mmmm….delicious.

Our friend Alix came to town for the wedding and stayed with us so we got a good visit in. We even made time for mountain biking. Not the best planning on our part as we bummed around all day and then went riding and totally ran out of time. We went from muddy to wedding gear in minutes. If we missed the train we would have missed the wedding so we all got our sprint on and got there on time (barely).

The third and final wedding in July was completely different. My friend Anne that I used to work with in the lab married Mahendra from Sri Lanka. They are two of the nicest, sweetest people I ever met. Come to think of it, that can be said about every couple in the weddings we attended this month!

Anne and Mahendra had a North American style wedding in the morning in a meadow in Banff. The setting was breathtaking as the meadow was surrounded with mountains. Next we headed to the Banff Springs Hotel for a traditional Sri Lankin wedding. That was so neat to see. There was dancing, sari’s, leaves, and a drummer. Just before the reception, we were able to fit in a quick game of squash since we were staying at The Banff Centre.  The reception was at the Buffalo Mountain Lodge – perfect venue for a wedding in the mountains. Fantastic food and we got to meet many of their friends and family. Anne’s relatives from Germany were super entertaining. We had them trying ceasars for the first time. One of her brothers described it as tasting like soup. The overall consensus was that they aren’t bad, but they are way too spicy. They stuck to beer. The next morning there was a brunch back at the lodge to finish off the celebration.

I’ll have to post pictures of the weddings at a later date as this post is long enough as is!

Now for the sad part of this post…the funeral. I am so sad to say that my Dad and Susan lost one of their very best friends, Joe Connolly. He died of a sudden heart attack this week. My dad has known Joe for 49 years! They both moved to BC eventually from where they grew up in Scarborough. They have worked for the same company and lived only miles apart for years.

Joe was a gentle man that probably didn’t have an enemy in the world. He was always one of my favorite of my parent’s friends and always made an effort to come over when I went home for a visit.

My dad and Susan were supposed to be coming to Calgary this weekend for a visit however the trip will be delayed as they are throwing a “celebration of Joe’s life” on Sunday.

Rest in peace Joe! We all miss you dearly.

We are heading out to Banff for the third of 3 weddings this month. Pictures and stories of all the happy couples coming soon!

Has been ages since my last post. That is probably a good thing and means we’ve been busy.

Got out for a round of real (ball) golf on Canada day. Weather cooperated, which was nice since the greens sure weren’t. The good news is that thanks to some really great chipping lessons and tips, and a night of practicing chipping at the park, my chipping game is really coming along. I think eating lots of chips has also helped

The Monday after Canada day, we took off up to Edmonton to see Green Day. **spoiler alert**.The Green day concert was absolutely wicked. They play for 2 hrs and 15 minutes and I loved every minute of it and was sad when it was over. Billie Joe was so full energy spraying the crowd with water, faking orgasms, bringing people up on stage to sing-you can read the full review of the Vancouver show (same as Edmonton) here. Not sure if it was the acoustics or the band or both, but their pitch was spot the entire show of singing and screaming. They started by playing their entire new album, 21st Century Breakdown. We bought that album a while back and I just couldn’t get into it. Then I saw it live and loved it! Actually, I’m listening to it right now. After playing the whole album they went old school and played songs from Dookie and Good Riddance. As with Offspring, I expected them to be out of their prime and I was so wrong. I’d say that they are completely in their prime and if you get the chance to see them on this tour you should definitely go . I’m so glad we went with the floor tickets. Jeff and I are venturing to say that was one of our favorite concerts ever. Edmonton is a bit of a dive downtown but we stayed at the Westin (which nice and we used Hotwire for the first time), caught dinner at a pub before the show and then spent the next day at West Edmonton mall.

Upon our return from Edmonton we were in full swing of Stampede here in Calgary. Managed to catch a few pancake breakfasts (probably an unhealthy amount), take in our favorite event of Cattle penning, saw sheep herding for the first time,  and took in the chuckwagon races and grandstand show. They were advertising an “all new” grandstand show this year and I’d agree that it was new and way better than past years. They have cut down the amount the singing and dancing from the Young Canadians and have added an edgy comedian and way more action. It’s more like a cirque de soleil now instead of a bad Vegas musical. And they definitely did not cheap out on the fireworks this year. As I was watching them I was wishing I had an extra eye  like the Simpson’s fish.