Posts from — September 2009

You know the band the Black Eyed Peas? … this post is about the Sills’ (or is that Sillz) black eyed bricks.

First off. The black Eyed part.

Saturday morning we headed out to help the Calgary Juniors with a little ulti. Good group of kids and a fun run. Anyway, during the game a guy on the other team tried to huck the length of the field, unfortunately Lindsay was about 6 feet away from him looking back to see where the disc was…. and boom. Right up side the head. OUCH! (been there). luckily it was on the temple right by the eyebrow and not anywhere else.

oh! and she’s doing fine. Luckily there was ice at the fields to put on it right away. I mentioned that we should put a steak on it. Her response: “I’m not wasting a steak on this!” (that’s why I love her)

Now onto the Bricks. Lindsay and I have been doing an ongoing project all summer. It all started when we ripped out the bricks for the underground sprinklers. When we did we notice that a) The bricks weren’t done correctly to begin with and b) we made a mess of the area that we ran the sprinkler line. So we set to the task of pulling up, cleaning off, creating a proper base (with weed block), adding sand, relaying bricks and covering with magic sand.

2-3 months later, Voila!

The front of the house

The side of the house

The back of the house

Willow admiring our work

We just got back from vacation in Beautiful BC.

We started off visiting my parents. First my mom and Doug in Genelle and then my dad and Susan in Thrums. The highlight of the visit it my mom’s house was her new little kitten Winnie. She is only 8 weeks old and 2.5 pounds of cuteness. Last time we went to visit my mom we left with a kitten (Willow) and were so tempted to do so again…. She’s at the cutest age where she’s so bouncy and playful. Here are some pics of the kitten and my mom’s dogs:

Dog Bilby

Dog Oscar

Slightly wet with dog slobber

Sleeping Winnie

Stick 'em up

Then, off to my dad’s place. My dad runs a football pool every year and since last weekend was the first NFL game of the season, we had a no pool, pool party. Most people from the pool came. I had to admit to them all that I dropped out this year since I’m too competitive to finish at the bottom of the pack year after year. My dad even pays my way every year but it’s a bad investment for everyone, so I quit. I still got to go to the party though and meet everyone, even the champ from last year Zeke. Very nice group of people to play croquet and eat burgers with.  Sadly forgot to take photos of the party but here are a few of the yard and garden potatoes:

Is that a Lincoln?

Duck Potatoes

Neighbour's shed in the fog

The morning after the party Susan took us to the 17th annual Garlic Festival in New Denver. It used to be a very small, intimate gathering where people bought garlic but has grown in popularity over the years. Now upwards of 8000 people attend and you can buy all sorts of things: honey, veggies and fruit, clothes, art, and garlic of course. Garlic ice cream, garlic honey…you name it! We went with $100 and spent it all and didn’t come home with even a clove of garlic. It’s located on beautiful Slocan Lake:

Susan, Cheryl and Lindsay in line

Slocan Lake

We managed to get out golfing at the Castlegar Golf Course. I haven’t played there in years, but it’s a great course (especially when you go with your parents and they pick up the tab – bonus!). I think I had the best round of my life but I attribute it to the fact that I used to be a member there. In highschool as a student I think I got a golf membership for $180. I’m pretty sure most people who have been golfing with would question that I was ever a member at a golf course since my game is somewhat inconsistent….but it was on that day. Even beat my dad (although I may have “accidentally” kicked my ball out of the rough a few times).

After a short but sweet visit with my family, we headed off to Kelowna for a mini-vacation. September is definitely the time to vacation in the Okanagan. No traffic or tourists but it’s still 30 degrees! Perfect weather for swimming, playing disc golf and going on wine tours. We went to Summerhill Pyramid, Mission Hill, Quail’s Gate, Dirty Laundry, Sumac Ridge, and Greatta Ranch. Our favorite was Quail’s Gate. Good wine and fantastic food. Here are a few pics from the wineries:

Bell Tower at Mission Hill

Summerhill Winery

grapes

Us at Quail's Gate

Jeff at the DG course

Condo we rented in Kelowna (Playa del Sol)

From Kelowna, off to Penticton for Jeff’s brother’s wedding. Jeff’s dad wrote a post about the lovely day and posted a whack of pictures here. It was a hectic day but a beautiful ceremony.

Flower Girl Sage

Ringbearer Conrad on the run

The Newlyweds

Us with the happy couple

Closest we got to having kids stand still for a photo together

Cool photo of Larry & Brenda in Rose Garden

Roses and rings

Jeff's grandparents in Rose Garden - 59 years married and going strong!

Sage & Auntie Lindsay

The beautiful bride

Sage

Kevin and Tamara were staying in Penticton to enjoy married life and have some calm after the storm, so we went to Princeton to have some quality time with the kids. Luckily Larry and Brenda came too, as the kids are quite a handful at 4 and 2. Sage borrowed my purse so I got to have a mini treasure hunt in her room finding all of the contents. Conrad is at the age where he’s a sponge and it’s pretty much monkey see monkey do. They are both so adorable:

Uncle Jeff with Conrad and Sage

Conrad with curls that any woman would be envious of!

Jeff Riding Tractor at Bear's Fruit Stand (Keromeas)

We were going to head to Vernon to play in UHF, but were glad that we went to Princeton instead and it was kind of out of the way to head back to Vernon. Plus, sleep was in short supply our night in Princeton as Jeff and I got cuddles many times throughout the night from Sage

Now back to reality after a fabulous trip.

I was lucky enough to experience playing football under the lights at McMahon stadium a couple of weeks back. My friend Sara was desperate for subs on her women’s touch football team. She told me it was super casj  and knowing about football was not required….

I showed up and they had jerseys, a coach and a play card – not so casj.

Things I learned:

-there is WAY more running in football than I expected
-I did not get the football gene. You’d think that’d I’d be somewhat decent having grown up with a father who played football his entire life and coached for 15 years. Negative-You do not catch a football the same way that you would catch a frisbee
-The football comes in HOT
-I am much better at defense than offense (not super surprised by this one but expected to be a tad less useless on O)

There was one fan in the stadium…Jeff stopped by to take a few pictures:

The game got off to a rough start as the ball had a magnetic force towards me. First kickoff, ball comes directly to me. Should add “the ball falls directly down when kicked and does not float like a frisbee” to the above list of things I learned. I totally missed the ball, but beginners luck for me, the other team was offside so I got a second try. Literally, the ball came right to me again (smart kicker probably aimed for me this time given my performance on the first attempt) and I dropped that one too, but in my defense it had a funny bounce. Didn’t touch the ball again on offense (tried to avoid it like the plague) but got a few good d’s.

Think I might head out and toss the old pigskin around before picking up on that team again….

August came and went with only a few blogs. Busy busy. Work has been crazy for me (with conference only 6 weeks away -eeek!). Just to give you an idea of how nuts things are, last Wednesday I was in Banff, Calgary and Edmonton all in one day for work. The amazing part though is that me and Jill spent WAY TOO MANY hours in the car together and didn’t kill each other Upon arriving to Edmonton we were homeless…might have left the hotel booking part a little late, not knowing that all hotels would be sold out for an AC/DC concert, but Nicole was nice enough to put us up (and put up with us). I got to visit my newlywed friends Jen and Tony one evening, and we had a wonderful visit and tasty supper so that was fun.

While I was in Edmonton, Jeff was in Vernon at his brother’s stag. The guys were playing disc golf at Fallow Ridge. It’s a crazy course…28 holes built on the back of some guys very sloped property. Check it out sooner rather than later if you haven’t already as there’s rumours that he is selling… From Vernon Jeff headed to Kamloops for a bit of golf with his dad and annual salsa making with his mom. That came just in the nick of time, since I think we were down to our last jar of last year’s salsa. If you’ve never tried it, don’t bother, it’s gross

Nationals came and went this year without us noticing. I’m kidding. I definitely noticed and I was sad to not have played this year, but hearing about all of the mosquitos and rain and mud and cancelled games made me really like my decision not to play. Instead, Jeff and I were golfing in Kananaskis. It was a wedding gift from 2 years ago and we finally got around to using it (ie. polishing up our skills so we allowed to use it). That course is amazing! Nicest course I’ve ever played for sure. First class service as well. They valeted our car all over, delivered our clubs, and even cleaned my clubs when we finished.

When we arrived it was raining and cold. We hit our pyramid of balls to warm up. By the time we tee’d off, the sun had come out and it turned out to be a gorgeous day. Lots of people cancelled due to the rain, so we were really relaxed with no pressure. We played with a very nice couple from Thunder Bay. We spent the round trying to re-instill some faith in Calgary for them as they had a gun pulled on them downtown the previous night. They were also the subject of thievery on the course – a sneaky squirrel climbed into their golf cart and made off with their snickers bar!

Jeff played amazing and I held my own. We had a fabulous day with lunch on the course to follow. Many thanks to Friesen, Mere, Shambles and Terri for a fantastic gift!

Jeff in cart

Picturesque hole

Lindsay hitting pyramid of balls

Last weekend we played our second ulti tournament of the year in Canmore: Wapooti.

Jeff playing defense at Wapooti

You can check out some more sweet photos from Randall Quon here.It was my first time playing Wapooti since I’m normally so burnt out by this time of year that I’m not interested. Since I haven’t been playing much all year, I’m actually excited to play ultimate still and I’m even playing a tournament this weekend in Edmonton. Jeff is going to play in a disc golf tournament on Saturday and join us on Sunday.

We had a whirlwind visit upon our return from Canmore with my parents on their way back from Toronto. Also got to see my sister and see the developments on her belly. It’s really coming along.

Dinner with family

Our cat has been keeping us busy. She brought a little live friend to play with in the house last Monday morning:

Mouse in the house

To top it all off, we’ve been landscaping our yard. We had to rip up a few bricks while installing the sprinklers and we’re still trying to put the yard back together. While some bricks were up, we decided to rip out ALL of the bricks and replace them. The people who laid the bricks originally didn’t put weedblock down, so weeds have grown up all over the place and the bricks were spreading. Jeff started the project under the deck by ripping out the rotting wood and replacing it with bricks. Who knew he was such a ‘Mayson’ (his middle name…haha).

Jeff under the deck laying bricks

We have finished the front yard and side so now we just have the back. Hopefully we can get it all done before the weather turns. Speaking of bricks, I should probably get back to them.