Category — Silly Stuff

It took us a while to get settled into our new place, but it is finally starting to feel like home. We have all 5 appliances up and running. What a fiasco! Electricians, plumbers, and gas fitters, oh my. We get our couch in a couple of weeks, blinds in a month and a desk in the coming weeks. The desk will be nice as I currently have my home office set up in the kitchen.

Willow has definitely settled in nicely. She had a rough start getting used to a new house and longing for her boyfriend. But I’d say she looks pretty relaxed now.

We are happy to welcome our niece, little Ava Anne Gureatsa to the world. She arrived on Thursday evening, weighing in at just under 7 lbs, after a grueling 13 hours of labour….nice work sis! Mom and baby are doing great and are now home. I can’t wait to meet her later this month when I’m back in Calgary. Hopefully she got her auntie’s good looks

Here is a picture of the cutie:

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.

A wise man once said, “when the Sill’s put their mind to it they can really get stuff done”

Well, that stuff done has been “prepping, selling and buying a house.” The past 2 weeks we’ve listed a house, sold a house, gone snowboarding for 2-days and bought another house. It feels like things are happening so fast that someone hit fast-forward on the cassette deck. (I used cassette deck because we found some great cassette’s while cleaning out the house… just a sample of the bands…. “house of pain”, “Beattles”, “Huewy Lewis and the news”, “yes”, “meat loaf”, “learn spanish”, etc…). Lindsay even found a palm reading that someone recorded onto a tape for her….

Anyway, to recap the last week… Friday the house was conditionally sold. Sunday we flew to Kamloops and had a wonderful few days with the whole Sill family on Sun Peaks at a ski-in and ski-out condo. The whole family was there including my parents and my brother his wife and their two kids (our niece and nephew (why isn’t it spelt nefew?)), Sage and Conrad. They’re at such a cute age right now and the weekend even included a fun scavenger hunt around the condo. Sage even managed to find $0.75 that wasn’t part of the scavenger hunt (imagine finding that much money when you’re 4!) It’s also so fun to watch what they learn over just 2 days… by the last day Conrad was pulling people downstairs to take him in to the hot-tub. When we finally figured out he wanted in the hot tub he ripped his pants off faster than a stripper (I kid you not). (I wonder if that’s an acceptable metaphor?)

From Sun Peaks we were off to Kelowna… We looked at houses for about 3 hours on Thursday night… then ALL day on Friday from 9:30 – 6pm. All-in-all I would estimate we saw 20-25 houses… by the end we’d walk in, look at the backyard, kitchen and say nope. next. But in the end we found a great place (some people add extra letters and call it a Palace but whatever). No pics as of yet because we’re still working on all the conditions of the sale but if all goes smoothly we’ll be moving in on the 17th of February.

Oh and count this as the first shout out for moving help. I filled out some online forms and after a Gazillion (yes, a Gazillion) estimates getting someone to move you is EXPENSIVE and bribing your friends with free pizza, beer and a sober chaufeur in Canada’s wine country is much MUCH cheaper…

Ok that’s all for now but once it’s finalized we’ll post pictures and open our guest booking calendar. It’s already booking fast for the Kelowna ulti tournament.

(fyi…that wise man was myself)

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:

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.

First off, as promised in the last post, my sister and Matt are having a (drumroll please) baby girl! They’ve picked out a cute little name and I can’t wait to start buying little pink things. I went to the ultrasound and the 3D technology was very impressive.

We went to see Mayson and Carly’s new arrival today. They had a baby girl in October and named her Lindsay (after Carly’s cousin, not yours truly). She is super cute and very well behaved — given her name that may all change very rapidly . Jeff and I held her and I think I need to hit the gym since my arm was shockingly sore. Here we are with the happy family:

I spent the past week in Portland at Supercomputing. Yes, it is exactly as it sounds. All of the world’s nerds gathered at one location at once: Nerdvana. 12,000 nerds precisely. I spent my days in the Canadian booth playing air hockey with random stopper-byers and talked about high performance computing. The evenings were spent at vendor parties. I heard it wasn’t as good as past years but I’d be hard pressed to complain and it was impossible to tell there is a recession going on. Al Gore gave the keynote speech on Thursday. I was pleasantly surprised that my exhibitor pass got me in to see him. He was  predictable, lots of talk of climate change and the disastrous state of the world, but he was funnier than expected (global issues aside).

He influenced me to offset my carbon from my flight down to Portland:

I had never spent much time in Portland before this. The city is full of nice old buildings and great shopping (no tax!) and autumn is a great time to visit with the temperate climate combined with colorful leaves. I had no idea Portland has the highest vagrancy rate in the US. Hopefully the conference helped as it brings an average of $13M of revenue to the host city.

One random story from Portland. I had the luxury of having a glass of water beside my bed. At home this is not possible without paws in there knocking the glass over. I woke up in the middle of the night (dehydrated – see note above about vendor parties) and reached for my glass of water. Turns out I must have been sleeping on my arm and it was numb. As I was raising the glass to my mouth, my arm lost all feeling and I was unable to keep the glass upright and proceeded to uncontrollably pour the water all over the bed.

It is nice to go away, but it’s always nice to come home. Had a great weekend with Jeff and Willow. We watched movies, went to Aubree’s housewarming party, finally checked out the new Crossiron Mills mall (great work Sharma- it’s awesome), visited with Mayson and Carly and played some squash.

ps. Happy Belated birthday dad!

pps. Jeff’s mustache is really coming along: