Category — Winter

We were discussing how Christmas cards are so 2005, unless your Heather who makes a super awesome hand-made Christmas card every Christmas. So consider this an electronic Christmas card from Jeff & Lindsay.

Editor’s note: We really didn’t send Christmas cards in 2005….but you get the point.

Yes, we have a Christmas Theme and used the word “Christmas” seven times in the last three sentences. If you don’t like it, move along. Anyway, onto the year …

Editors note: Comments from Lindsay in Red and Jeff in Green.

January

We were flying back from Hawaii (from our honeymoon) on January 1st. Oh Hawaii…What a great way to ring in the New Year!

We went to Sun Peaks for our good Friend Dylan’s 30th birthday (what an old man). It was great times with phenomenal snowboarding at Sun Peaks per usual.

February

The highlight from February was one of the highlights of the entire year: I discovered and solved my migraine mystery. Turns out the thing that was causing my migraines all along was water (or a lack thereof). Not chinooks, hormones, or exercise. Who knew? (I did) If you are reading this and suffer from migraines try drinking a ton of water. I mean drink so much water every day that you pee constantly and feel like barfing from having drank so much liquid. (No seriously, I harped on this for a while)

My migraines caused me extreme pain and suffering for years. I was on every medication under the sun (vioxx, anti-depressants, anti-seizure medication, vitamin B, others…) to prevent my migraines. The medications caused terrible side effects from dizziness, to nausea to numbness in the extremities. Not to mention the potential long-term damage I may have done by taking so much Imitrex and Maxalt to take the migraines away upon onset. They are wonder drugs but not so wonderful.

Now I just drink lots of water everyday (more if I’m exercising) and I’ve had very few migraines. Of the ones I’ve had since February, I can attribute about 90% of them to dehydration.

Anyways, sorry to hi-jack this Christmas post…but this was definitely a highlight when reviewing 2008. I guess my wishbone wish came true!

Also to note was a nice visit from Larry and Brenda in February and my publication in Nature magazine.

March

I started a company! President Jeff just had such a great ring to it that it seemed like a good idea.

He was nice enough to make his loving wife the Vice President.

In March we also attended one of the funnest parties ever: Robert’s 50th. Hard to believe anyone we play ultimate with is even close to 50…maybe in age but not in spirit. I sure hope I’m still running around (or even walking around) when I’m 50 after playing the equivalent of “tackle football without equipment” (as our chiropractor calls it) for so long.

We also welcomed a new family member, our nephew Conrad, on March 11th.

April

as a side note here. Blog’s are awesome. Seriously. The year in review is so easy to do because you can just Michael J. Fox back into time and “remember” what we did. You would think I’d remember but you’d be wrong.

Some people who read this blog may be bored from the repetition. However, those who don’t care to waste their time on our babble can just read this and treat it like the Cole’s Notes of our life recently.

May

Major highlight #2 for Lindsay: Addition to our family. After a lovely visit to see Jeff’s brother and my parents in BC,

May saw our Cat-Dog Willow enter our life. She’s was so little and cute and won my heart over. For the record (ie: Wriggs) I still don’t like cats. I like Cat-Dog’s. We call Willow our Cat-Dog because she really like to be entertained, played with and has a full routine in the morning. Cat-Dog’s are awesome

We ended May with a trip down to Bozeman, MT to have a weekend-long shower. Where we learned the game psychiatrist! So fun!

June

Brief trip to Victoria for work, but other than that, June was really uneventful, except for our Garage Sale and the Toppers Heroes for Hospice Race!

July

We made it through our first entire year of marriage this month. So far so good. That sure flew by. Seems like just yesterday I was cleaning up from the wedding…er…so maybe I was. Still working out what to do with the dress….

Another significant event in July was Regionals.

August

After all the hard work to get to Nationals, we had a disappointing finish, but I guess if you can’t be top 8, you might as well win the Ninals!

I went on a trip to Toronto and had a wonderful visit with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and my mom (who came with me). Luckily all of my extended family (with the exception of my uncle in Australia) lives in Ontario so it’s like one-stop-shopping. I also visited almost every casino in Ontario…(when in Rome).

Went to Golden with some folks for a little disc golf at Infinity’s Sports Ranch.

Also had a second medical breakthrough – discovered I needed orthodics. Solved my ankle problems, back problems and sore foot problem. Guess it makes sense, the backbone is connected to the leg bone.

September

Great times had in September. Quick weekend trip to Fernie (thanks Terri!) for some mountain biking and relaxation. In case you haven’t heard, we also went to Japan. Amazing country, friendly people and a wonderful trip! Japan is seriously cool. Such a unique place and definitely recommended and high on list of places we’d like to visit (again). Highlights include Bullet Trains, Raw Chicken and Beautiful Gardens.

October

I started working part-time at my ‘real-job’ and part-time as President Jeff. We decided that it would be a smart move because I could get a lot more done and hopefully grow the company a bit. The one question I get lots is how’s the company doing. It’s doing fine and I love all the concern people have, however, this is also one of the reasons that I never told people about my sites for quite some time. You see to get indexed in the search engines takes time (makes sense that you just can’t throw something up and be highly ranked in google). So things I’m doing now is really for the future and so it can be slow going while things are growing.

The end of October also brought Halloween, one of our favorite celebrations of the year. This year Lindsay planned a 30 days till I’m 30 party. Man was it fun. Some of the highlights include meeting our neighbours in sock feet, Egg-up, 12 (or was it more?) people shot-gunning beer (including my Pa) and Anasol.

We went to Victoria for Pumpkin Pull. It was the first time I had been back in about 5 years. So much on the UVic Campus had changed but not much around the city felt different. It still really felt like home and was hard to leave.

November

Jeff turns 30! (I’m an old man now)

Oh and squash club is back in full force which is super fun!

December

We’ve been too busy writing this post to have anything exciting happen in December. Luckily we are snowed in right now and have time for blogging.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND ALL THE BEST IN THE NEW YEAR,

LOVE JEFF AND LINDSAY (AND WILLOW)

Every year we make a point of getting our first tracks at C.O.P. Canada Olympic Park. It’s not the biggest hill or the best hill but it definitely helps us re-learn this snowboarding thing. This years trip was about more then just refreshing the muscles though.

If you remember back in January we bought some boots and bindings for a whopping price of $50… for both of us. Total. The only catch was they’re clip-in boots and bindings which aren’t usually the ‘norm’.

So up we went to the hill. Everything went fine and the bindings worked great. Our skillz were a little rusty but it came back eventually. We even stopped for a nice little hot cocoa. After coming out we clipped in and hopped back on the chair lift.

About a third of the way up the hill Lindsay’s boot disconnected from the binding and was hanging by the ’safety strap’. yikes! So we proceed to wrench her leg around and try and get her foot clipped in. After pulling and pushing for about 3 minutes we finally got it clipped in. Phewwwf.

Lindsay then pointed out the fact that I actually wasn’t clipped in either. Instead of trying the same thing I just decided I could ‘ride it out’ …. Let’s just say, I CAN’T “ride it out”. I had a fairly spectacular bail which would have rivaled some of my layouts playing ultimate or as good as Lindsay’s bail in the parking lot.

Anyway, what a great way to spend a Monday night.

Finally, a weekend to do nothing. Played squash on Friday afternoon followed by beers after work and stayed home and did nothing. Saturday went to Park 96 with Mark. He was going regardless as he’s become slightly addicted to disc golf lately, but it’s neat to see how much someone can improve at something when they put that much time and dedication into it. Saturday night stayed in and watched Get Smart. Was a pretty good movie actually. A little long, but otherwise good. I watched a bit of Get Smart with my mom growing up and questioned Steve Carell as Max (Agent 86) at first, but he did a great job.

Winter showed up this morning and dumped some snow on us, so it will be a great day to get things done around the house. Willow is having a great time discovering the white, cold wet stuff. She’s feeling much better after her eye infection.

Time spent in emergency vet for eye infection: 1 hour

Cost of vet appointment for eye infection (the night of a Stat holiday – great timing Willow): $200

Cost of follow-up appointment: $50

Having our kitten back to normal and healthy again: Priceless

Here’s a picture of her the day after getting back from the vet check-up. She had the entire house to sleep in but she spent 8 hours in her cage.

Since I just went through the pictures on my camera, although random, I thought I’d post this picture from Halloween. Carved pumpkins always make me smile:

Jeff carved the 2 on the left (a manga-inspired pumpkin and a funny mouth one), I carved the devil pumpkin and Brenda was super creative with the barfing pumpkin.

Well, it’s April in Calgary and you know what that means.  Ultimate.  Snow.

Actually, last weekend was absolutely fabulous and were working in the garden.  Lindsay was cleaning up some flower stuff around the house and found this image below.  It’s a picture of a new tulip growing up through an old dead tulip from last year.  As you can see it’s using the old tulip for protection.  Was pretty neat to see!  You think I would have seen this in years past considering I’ve done the same task many times before.  However, I take the attack, destroy and clean approach.    I guess Lindsay’s approach might be a bit nicer.

Then this weekend we get a monster dump of snow.  Here’s a picture from a chair on our deck.   Ahhh, Calgary.

To kill the weekend away we’ve been doing stuff inside.  Like taxes and watching hockey.    No definite answer on the return (or having to pay) but looks like I might have to pay and Lindsay will get a return.  Good thing I didn’t buy a bike!   (yes, I’m jealous but will make do with mine.)

We played in a disc golf tournament this weekend to take a break from painting. It was a ton of fun!!! It started at 10am on Saturday and we played 2 rounds. Jeff and I were joined by Jana, Jill and Mark. The organizer was nice and let us play as a group since we were the random people who didn’t know anyone else. There were about 30 dudes and just us 3 ladies. I was guaranteed at least 3rd in my division!!!

However, I came in first and won a trophy!!!

It wasn’t really fair since I have been playing disc golf for 6 years and Jill and Jana just started, but we all got pretty cool prizes. I won the trophy (have to get it engraved and return it next year) and an ultimate bag. Jana came in second and won a t-shirt and a wooden frisbee and Jill won a frisbee. Jeff and Mark played really well but were in a more competitive division.

The wooden disc that Jana won is so cool and we had put a bid on one at the silent auction (got outbid by $1 in the last minutes..grrr) so Jana was nice enough to trade me the ultimate bag for the wooden frisbee. You can see a picture along with some other pictures from the day on our picasa site.

The tournament was a huge success. We raised over $5000 and a bunch of food for the foodbank and the women’s shelter. The tournament takes place in cities all over Canada and you should really consider checking it out next year if you play. Jeff and I will be there for sure, as I have a title to defend!

So I might have exaggerated the whole 1923 thing but you’ll see where this is going…

This week has been mighty chilly here in Calgary. Probably the coldest that Lindsay and I have experienced since moving here almost 6 years ago. On Monday morning it was -50C with the wind chill. In fact walking to work this morning we were both saying how warm it was… only -10C.

Anyway, because I’m a bit of a dork and like graphs. Yes, I actually do like graphs. I’ve saved a couple of weather charts from this week (told you I was a dork!) . A guy has setup a weather website named WX.ca. It plots the weather patterns at various locations around Calgary. Anyway, I took a couple of screen shots from that. This first graph is from when the weather was decreasing. From -3 to -30 in 24 hours!

This other one is from this morning and the temperature is increasing! From -28 to -8 in 24 hours!

So how does 1923 get into this? Well, my Grampa turned 85 this January 26th and I missed his birthday. In all fairness though he’s in Hawaii soaking up the sun. Not bad for a guy who was born in 1923! Happy Birthday Grampa!

We spent the first half of Sunday in the kitchen making all sorts of tasty stuff.

Jeff made cinnamon buns. I helped make homemade pasta and stuffed manicotti (with ricotta and spinach). The cinnamon buns were super sweet and tasty and the manicotti turned out perfect even though it was a typical Jeff and Lindsay recipe where we add random stuff that we think will taste good into a bowl and hope for the best!

As for the homemade pasta, I highly recommend trying to make it if you haven’t already. It is super fun to make and the results are definitely worth it. We made fetticini and it was delicious and so amazingly fresh tasting. It took quite a while since it was our first time and we were figuring it out. Next time it will be a breeze. The great thing is that there are only 2 ingredients needed to make pasta: flour and eggs. No preservatives, salt or other hidden crap. And it freezes really well too!

We bought a pasta roller from Stokes for $20 and when Jeff was buying it the saleswoman told him all the old Italian ladies in Calgary buy her out of stock constantly.

Here we are making pasta:

While I’m in the mood to post pictures, I might as well post some random ones. Here’s the ambulance Jeff got for Christmas and built. Maybe he should have been a Civil Engineer instead of Electrical:

We also did a bit of “spring cleaning” (way ahead of the game), inspired by Heather’s blog on cleaning out any old clothes she doesn’t wear. We did the same and ended up with 2 huge garbages bags of clothes (this photo is to inspire you to do the same):

After all of our hard work on the weekend, we rewarded ourselves with some floor hockey and Sunday evening ultimate. Now we’re just trying our best to stay inside and keep warm. I hope wherever you are reading this, it is warmer than -42C!!!

Today, Lindsay and I were running errands at Market Mall. As we were walking through SportChek and we came across a table with snowboard boots and bindings on sale. Since our boots aren’t so comfortable we stopped and took a look (plus we love a good deal). We soon realized that the boots were $9.95, marked down from $199.95! AND… they had three sets of boots… two 8.5’s and one 10.

After trying them on all three pairs of boots we found they fit our feet quite well!

Yes. you read that correctly. Three pairs of boots. If you didn’t know I have crazy different sized feet. One is a 7-7.5 the other is 9-9.5 and the funny thing is my left foot is almost identical to Lindsay’s feet. I tried to find a picture but couldn’t so maybe I’ll put a picture up another time. If you’re reading this and you’re might foot twin (or would that be reverse twin?) please PLEASE leave a comment and maybe we can trade shoes.

Back to the boots. Why were they on sale for so much?

They’re the clip-in snowboard bindings which are discontinued and not super popular. However, anytime I can get two different boots for $20 then I’m sold. So we ended up buying three boots and two pairs of bindings for $60. Sweet deal! Now we’re going to go snowboarding on Thursday night at COP to try them out. Anyone interested? I know the hill sucks and its suppose to be super cold but whatev.

In other news I just wanted to send a shout out to the Calgary Police. We went through our first Road Stop last night on the way home (Lindsay was the Dd). It’d be better if it was more then once every 5-6 years but a good start nonetheless.

Jeff and I are in the full swing of our winter activities. We have decided to train hard all winter for next year’s ultimate season as we are pretty excited that Canadian Nationals are in Calgary this year!

I am taking a hip-hop class on Monday nights with some other ulti girls and although we are somewhat dance-challenged (at least I am), it is great practice for coordination and SO MUCH fun!!! I love the dance we are learning right now to the song Paper Planes by MIA. February 4th is bring a friend week and if my long lost sister ever calls me before then I might bring her since she got all of the dance talent in the family. Jeff refuses to come as my friend, although I think that would be entertaining!

Tuesday evenings we have left open for swimming or squash. I personally would pick squash every time…

Wednesday nights is our indoor dryland training program. We had our first session this week and it was ROUGH! Somebody puked in our group of 12 (not me, but it was close) and there was a lot of whining going on. We had a brief warm up, followed by some sprints, some strength training (push-ups, abs, etc.) and then some wind sprints. It’s a 10 week program and I hope it gets easier as we go along. No pain, no gain!

Thursdays are the other night reserved for squash or swimming (or relaxing). This week we had to forfeit squash for the Best of Banff Mountain Film Festival. It was awesome and highly recommended. We saw on film on base jumping “2o Seconds of Joy” that was fantastic (but crazy) and a film on mountain biking called “Trial and Error” by Ryan Leech (a God in my opinion and a talent crush of mine).

Weekends are for squash, floor hockey once and a while, and ultimate on Sunday nights. In the event that I come into some cash, I will also go snowboarding in Sun Peaks every weekend.

All of this talk about exercise is making me need a nap.

Back in 1977 Meat Loaf released Bat Out Of Hell and on that CD Meat Loaf belts out a classic “Two out of three ain’t bad“. Air Canada has belted out another tune 3 out of 4 ain’t bad! Now you’re probably wondering why I’m quoting Meatloaf from 31 years ago….

So, this past weekend we flew to Kamloops on Air Canada for a friends 30th birthday at Sun Peaks Resort. When we arrived in Kamloops one of my bags was missing. Arrrg! So Lindsay was making the claim through Air Canada and made a snide remark that WestJet has never lost our bags. To which the Air Canada lady said, “Well, three out of four isn’t bad.”

What kind of remark is that? Sure you get a B if the test was out of 100. But I’m fairly certain that in the airline industry you’re striving for a little higher then 75% bags to the correct destination conversion. You’d like to assume that they’d be going for 100%… I think the grading scheme would look a little something like this….

• a) you get all bags there you get a 100%
• b) you get 3 out of 4, 1 out of 4… basically anything less then 4 and you don’t pass , 0%

Although, maybe I have too high of expectations.

Anyway, the time at Sun Peaks was awesome. We were staying at a house / condo on the hill which was a Hike out / Ski in. Similar to a ski-in / Ski-out but you have to hike to get to the hill, hence the hike-out. The place is apparently the cheapest on the mountain to sleep the most people… For those looking for a place to stay at Sun Peaks.

In other news, Dylan turned 30 successfully. We got to see some friends we haven’t seen for a while. We met some characters that Dylan likes to hang out with. And Lindsay and I even managed to snowboard around a dozen runs. We felt almost felt like we could snowboard…. Sun Peaks is a such a great hill and we totally recommend it for any skiers / boarders out there. Great snow and tons of runs! All in all a fun weekend!