Posts from — December 2009

Given that our house is in shambles, we decided not to get a tree this year. I wanted one since it was the very first time in 12 years that I didn’t travel anywhere for Christmas (interestingly enough it’s the first time since I can remember that I also haven’t been sick over the holidays). We have enough lights and ornaments for a tree since I’ve been collecting them over the years and Jeff has gotten an ornament every Christmas from his Gramma so now he has 31! As a compromise, we decorated one of our plants. Looks kind of sad. Might have to get a tree next year since I’ve been doing some reading and it’s actually really good for the environment to get a Christmas tree. I was surprised to hear that. Here’s our Christmas plant:

I definitely got spoiled. I got a squash bag, a spa gift certificate to River’s bend in Calgary, some clothes and lovely charger plates and napkin rings to go with our China:

It was the year of the bag. I asked for 3 types of bags and got all 3: a Lug bag from my parents that work work perfectly as a laptop bag, a disc golf bag and the squash bag.

We had my sister and boyfriend Matt over on Christmas day. We visited and exchanged gifts then were later joined by Mark (from ultimate) and Rob (co-worker). Jeff did a great job on dinner and everything was cooked to perfection:

Jeff about to put the bird in the oven

We were both a bit nervous since it’s been a while since we cooked turkey and we bought a 17lb bird (afterall, my sister is eating for two) but it worked out. At least I wasn’t sick the next day…not sure about the others We spent the evening playing Jenga Max and Croquignole….well maybe everyone else was playing Croquignole as I’m not sure what you’d call the game that Mark and I played. It certainly wasn’t Croquignole since the object of our game was clearly to hit the wooden posts as many times as possible….we’ll have to quite playing Bridge so much and practice up our Croquignole skills for next time.  The truth is that Mark was pretty good and he got the short straw when he landed me as a partner –I’ve never had “good luck” at Croquignole. A little factoid…Jeff and I have played over 100 games each of crib and Croquignole. My record is 0-100 for Croquignole and 99-1 for cribbage. Must be different parts of the brain used for each game.

Mark and I learning from the experts

Over the course of the evening Matt taught us more than we ever wanted to know about boa constrictors (still having nightmares, thanks Matt) and Rob taught us about Pigeon Racing and showed us that my guitar actually isn’t broken and has the potential to sound very nice.

All in all a very nice Christmas. I’m glad we stayed in Calgary although we missed our families. Nice that we got to have Xmas with my sis though and didn’t have to travel. Here’s Willow enjoying her Christmas present since a Christmas blog wouldn’t be complete without a picture of our most spoiled family member and arguably the cutest member:

I joined club 3-0 last week. I’ve been told by the experienced 30-somethings that it’s like club med but instead of rides, med stands for the medications my aching joints will need (nice one Makar)!

For my birthday this year I got three awesome surprises -  lunch, 30 presents in a box and a guitar!!! Last year my friends at the university planned a surprise “Lindsay day” and we had a picnic lunch. “Apparently” I was fairly resistant to the whole thing and asked way too many questions and made the surprise difficult. However, this year, I didn’t notice a thing or question when Jana wanted to go for a walk to External Relations on campus (carrying what later was revealed to be an empty envelope), using that as a way to get me to the atrium for my surprise lunch. We even walked by the atrium and Jana said “oh, there’s Jeff” and I said “strange, I wonder who he’s having lunch with…”. So I have a couple theories: either I’m dumber than last year, or I’m more laid back. Let’s go with laid back We had soup, salad and sandwiches. Heather was even able to make it since she was in town for the holidays so that was a fun surprise.

Larry and Brenda were pretty clever this year. Must be all that time spent coming up with things to keep Sage and Conrad busy. They sent 30 presents that I had to open in sequential order. They were a trip down memory lane. They started with a bib for age one, shoe laces for age 5, keychain for 16, booze for 19. Each present had significance to a particular age. 28 represented our wedding and 29 our kitty.  Thirty presents are sure a lot to open so I must be old. Was really neat and very thoughtful – thanks L & B!

Jeff bought me an acoustic guitar. I’ve always wanted to learn how to play. I tried to learn once in university but then my roommate with the guitar moved out. Then I picked it up last Christmas in Kamloops with Larry. It just seems that every time I start to get the hang of it, I was time for me to surrender the borrowed guitar.

The first day was rough. I could practice for about 3 minutes before my fingers were bleeding. I really need to build up some calluses. In between home renos I’ve been practicing a bit more and toughening up my fingers so I can play for about an hour now. It doesn’t sound good by any means. I am a two hit wonder right now: This land is your land and Free Falling. I’m also working on Walk the Line by Johnny Cash. We bought a book and Jeff is also learning. Eventually we will buy an electric guitar and jam. For now, we’ll just work on our C chord.

Rock on.

We haven’t had much time lately for blogging since we are in the midst of painting our entire house. In the last few weeks we have painted everything. All we have left is the kitchen and the office. Then we will be ready to put it on the market and move…..

We have lived in Calgary for 7 years, and although it has been a good city for us, it is time for a change. Over the past year we’ve tossed around a few ideas: Europe, Australia, Ottawa, Victoria, Kelowna. In the end, we decided on the closest and least complicated city: Kelowna. We spent some time there this fall (as well as having both grown up near Kelowna) and loved it. The weather is so much nicer (pretty sure it’s not -30 degrees there right now) and gets nice and hot in the summer. The biggest selling features for Kelowna is that we both get to keep our jobs and work remotely, we can have a huge garden and grow more than just peas and zucchini and we can swim in fresh water every day! The plan is to move in the Spring (maybe just a coincidence but we should be there in time for the first tourney of the year Sunflicker

We will dearly miss our friends and family in Calgary but we will be back often for work and ultimate.

Willow is very confused by all of the painting but she was born in BC so she’s pretty excited to be moving back home. Here are a few pictures of her supervising. She has only managed to get into the paint once (that we know of)…and painted her tail red.

Supervising with taping

Supervising while Jeff pulls off a sketchy move

Helping paint the trim

Ever so helpful

Apart from painting, didn’t get up to much this weekend since it was way too cold to go anywhere. Went to my sister’s baby shower. She got so many cute pink things. She’s really getting big and the doctors have given her a window of January to February, so it’s hard to say when it will come since if it’s late it may be born in March. I’m hoping it comes early so I have more time to spend with the little girl before we move.

We were able to catch a bit of the Olympic trail’s speed skating at the Oval on Monday. We saw the men’s and ladies’ 1000m short track. It got me very excited for the Olympics. Go Canada!

Well, this past weekend (sunday) was my 31st birthday and with it brought the 4th annual treasure hunt. Lindsay really out did herself this year and has now claimed the title of Wife of the Year. Well, this years treasure hunt was completely different then anything previous and HIGH TECH!

Lindsay went out the day before and marked a bunch of locations on GPS and also hid a clue in the area. So when I got up in the morning Lindsay gave me the details of the hunt and the GPS. The instructions said to follow the clues and that food and drink were to be provided!

So off we went from our house walking with the GPS. The first stop was something like 1.5 km’s west…. and we hadn’t had breakfast yet (a must in the Sill household) so I figured we were off to Tim Horton’s for breakfast. I was close… McDonalds. There I found a clue under the golden arches which told me to collect my free sugar water coffee. And to continue onto clue #2. After a short breakfast at McDonalds (yes, I had breakfast at McDonalds but hey it’s my birthday….). Here’s a picture of me with my clue! (day 29 of the mustache looks pretty sweet huh!)

Anyway, next stop was Tim Hortons (where I was suppose to have breakfast) here I got clue #3 . The clue told me to take the c-train to Dalhousie. There I found my way to Chapters and found the clue which said I’d get the book “the purple cow”. Back on the c-train and down to Kensington. There, I found a barber shop where the clue told me Terri was going to donate for my mustache and I’d get present #1 (more about el mustacho later).

From there we went to Riley park to find out I was getting a disc golf stool. very cool! Next stop the zoo. There I had to lurk in the bushes to find a clue which told me I would get a disc golf disc of my choice. The final stop was back to our house for the Treasure! The grand prize was some really nice Cologne… oh and prize #1…. a Mach 3 razor.

As for the mustache and Movember. I was able to raise a grand total of $526!!!!! Thanks to everyone who donated. I was amazed at the number of people who donated so thank you to everyone. I shaved the caterpillar (as Doug calls it) on Tuesday morning. Here are the before and after pictures. Unfortunately, my license ran out and I didn’t get it on my drivers license as I went on the 2nd. Looking back I wish I had because they have the same rules as the passport office that you can’t smile or have your glasses on…. nothing about a mustache though. So maybe again in 5 years… or sooner.