Posts from — February 2010

We made a last minute trip to Vancouver this weekend for the Olympics since it seemed like a shame not to drive 4 hours to join the festivities. We left Friday morning and spent the day wandering around the sites. The first stop was Granville Island to check out some of the Olympic houses. Got off to a bit of a disappointing start with the Atlantic house. Waited over an hour (which from talking to people wouldn’t even be considered a wait since most lines were 5+ hours) and upon entering we got an oyster, saw some flyers and got our picture taken.

Expected more….like beer or lobster, but was nice to try oysters again since my first experience in Hawaii with them wasn’t so great. Maybe I just like Atlantic oysters.

Friday I think was the first rainy day and it rained ALL day. We watched the men’s semifinal hockey game downtown in a crowd in Robson square. We only lasted one period and were soaked (with rain, and probably sweat from the last 3 stressful minutes of the game) and decided to head to a house party. On the way we got distracted by a warm sushi restaurant with a big tv and beer…so it was an obvious choice and a great place to see Canada pull off a win, by the skin of their teeth, against Slovakia.

Saturday we checked out the cauldron and the German House. Was fun to just wander the streets with thousands of other tourists. I feel like we managed to see a lot in a short period of time. We even caught a pirate protest.

We made it back to Kelowna in time to play indoor ultimate. It’s at a new indoor facility 5 minutes from our house on turf! The level of play was really good. Went out for beers with a few folks after (trying to find a league team

Spent today the same as the rest of Canada…watching the best hockey game ever! I’m hoping that after this game people stop talking about the 2002 gold medal game. I was in Guatemala at the time and spent an entire day walking around the small town I was in looking for the game. No dice…just lots of laughs from people asking me if I was Canadian. I’m just glad I caught this game. It was amazing! The closing ceremonies were quite good but I think it’s only a result of such a good Olympics and wonderful stories along the way. Luckily we got our cable hooked up just in time so I caught most of our victories but it was nice to relive them tonight. The highlight for me was Avril Lavigne’s performance. The Japanese were going crazy during her show. It reminded me of our trip to Japan where girls there are fanatically for Avril with her name spewed all over their t-shirts and backpacks.

Jeff and I were trying to guess the next artist. I really thought it would be Celine, but she never appeared. Being the geek that I am, I immediately Googled “why didn’t Celine show up to the Olympics?”. Some of the hits I got were quite funny “her ego wouldn’t fit in the arena” or “she got stuck in a very long poutine line up”….but then I felt bad for laughing once I found out the real reason – she’s trying to procreate. We were wrong on all of our guesses….in terms of why she wasn’t there as well as who the next artist would be.

I am so very sad the Olympics are over. The only good thing about it is that now we can get some much needed things done around the house. Here’s some photos of our trip to Olympics 2010:

Watching hockey in rainy Robson square

A Dylan sandwich at the harbour front

We haven’t had time to do much exploring yet, but we definitely know Home Depot and Rona inside out. After work today we took a drive down Lakeshore Drive and found a gem of a beach really close to our house. We woke up to snow, but as you can see by this photo, it cleared up and turned out to be a lovely February day here. On our drive Jeff came up with a brilliant idea: a bike wine tour. There are about 5 wineries within biking distance from our house. Will be perfect this summer! Let us know if you are interested. BYOB (bring your own bike), although we have a few to spare.

While I’m in the process of uploading photos from my iPhone, I thought I’d post a few more. They aren’t the best quality in general, but these ones turned out better than I expected:

One of the short moments when Willow wasn't crying on the drive

I took this photo a few weeks back in Lethbridge. It’s a sundog, which is an aura rainbow effect around the sun caused by ice crystal reflections.

Our Valentine’s day this year: 2 hours of packing, 3 hours with the movers followed by 6 hours of cleaning. How very romantic. At least we spent it together. While cleaning we reminisced and decided that our most romantic Valentine’s day we had was our first one, when we were 3000 miles apart. Jeff made me a website…it would be neat to compare that one to the ones he makes these days.

Jeff, Willow and I moved in with the KD family (Jill and Mark) for a few days between possession dates. Willow was in heaven with her boyfriend and her parents all in one house. I headed up to Edmonton for work with Jill and it turns out Mark was up there for work as well, so Jeff and the kitties had the place to themselves. Slightly stressful trip as between work meetings I was answering calls from our lawyers. The best one I got was “if you don’t call me back in 5 minutes your deal will fall through”. That’s a nice message. Not much communication since but I assume all is well since we are living here…

We arrived safely in Kelowna after what seemed like a very long drive. Normally 7 hours in the car isn’t so bad but this time we had a crying cat the ENTIRE way! She really doesn’t like when the car goes over 100km/hr. It must make a vibration or noise that only she can hear. The drive, as long as it seemed, was worth it. Our house was even nicer to arrive to than I remembered. And Willow is settling in nicely after a few rough days of getting her bearings.

It has been an adventure trying to get unpacked and settled. We now have 4 of our 5 appliances working and we have internet, cable and a landline!

Pictures of the new place coming soon!

….sorry for those coming to the blog to read about the new iPad….we were referring to our new house.  We flew to Kelowna for what was supposed to the day on Jan. 23 (has it really been that long since we last blogged???). We attempted to fly in the morning, but it was too foggy to land, so they flew us back to Calgary. Air Canada pleasantly surprised me and arranged a second flight that afternoon. Once we arrived in Kelowna and got all of our work done with the home inspector and walk through with the builder, it was too late to fly back so we stayed the night. I wasn’t disappointed that I had to stay in Kelowna as obviously I love it there. I was disappointed that I didn’t get to fly somewhere just for the day as I’ve never done that before.

It was a fruitful trip as we were able to remove all the conditions. Alas, here are pictures of our new place, now that it’s official: http://www.caseydarke.com/Kelowna/British_Columbia/Homes/9221826/Upper_Mission/Agent/Listing_2224353.html

We can hardly wait to move. Time is flying by though as we’ve both been really busy at work as well as prepping for the move. Picking out appliances consumed a ton of our time. After way too many hours of reading consumer reports and talking to salesmen, we chose a Miele dishwasher (only uses 4 gallons of water / load), a Kenmore Elite fridge (with ice and water for Jeff), an Electrolux stove (gas! also for Jeff), and Samsung steam washer and dryer. Out of all the appliances I’m most impressed with how far dishwashers have come. We might be able to actually be in the same room as the dishwasher and have a conversation without yelling.

We bought from Sears and Coast Wholesale Appliances as they had the best prices. Coast was about 10% cheaper than anywhere else. Since we are having them all shipped to BC we had to pay PST, except on energy star washers or fridges…they are PST exempt, which is a good little factoid to anyone planning to move to join us in Kelowna!

Good news to all of our friends here in Calgary – we’ve decided to hire movers so we no longer need your muscles. Thanks anyways if you’ve offered! They are coming for everything on the 14th and delivering it to Kelowna on the 17th. I have a few work obligations so we will be driving out on the 19th. It is quickly becoming a reality and we will miss everyone! If you didn’t hear already (sorry), Jill and Mark have graciously offered to host a going away party for us tonight so give me a shout and I’ll give you their address. We’d love to see you. Or we’re around for the next 2 weeks and will most likely be coming back to Calgary often for work and to visit my sister’s baby. She is due any day and is huge! Feel free to comment if you have any tips on inducing labour as I’d love for her to have it while I’m still living here and I know she’s ready.

We had a nice visit with my dad and Susan this weekend. We went for Chinese food at the Silver Inn. The good news was that we didn’t discover an amazing restaurant right before moving. We got a few games of uker in (of which Susan and Jeff managed to survive and beat the two most competitive people ever. Next time me and my dad should be on separate teams to make it more enjoyable for everyone).

Ok. Enough blogging. Time to get on with some packing and put our party shoes on.