Silly words from silly folks

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.

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:

Jeff has been busy growing a mustache in his extra time since I’ve been working lately. (Well, maybe he’s been working on his company lots too). Work is now slowing down but I was up in Edmonton last week and off to Portland next week for a conference. Added to the odd evening work function (AsTech Awards), he’s really been a good sport and keeping Willow company while I’m out gallavanting. Jeff is definitely in the running for husband of the year (HOTY). Cooking and even cleaning the house! I guess he’s really upped his game lately as his birthday approaches. I owe him a huge treasure hunt this year!

After the conference, Jill, Mark, Jill and I got away to Vegas for few days. When you are burnt out Vegas isn’t the best place to go as it’s not very relaxing, but it sure is fun.

The first day we went disc golfing. We played the first round as a group and then Jill and I went shopping and to the pool while the guys stayed to play several more rounds. It was a hot sunny day and then the weather went to crap. Went to the Hoover Dam the next day and to the outlet mall. That evening was spent at Penn and Teller. Great show. I always wondered if Teller was really a mute or not, and I got an answer at the show. He just acts as a mute but he can actually speak. They are magicians who show you a few tricks afterwards, which is cool.

New bridge being constructed at Hoover Dam

The next night we went out for a really nice dinner at Mix, on the 64th floor of Mandalay Bay. Expensive, but worth it! I got lucky the first night on the slot machines and Jeff did well at blackjack on the last day and made $150 killing time before our flight. For once we actually came home with money from Vegas.

Having just got back from Vegas, we had a pretty low key Halloween. I dressed up as an M&M and Jeff as Flash. We got about 60 kids. We carved pumpkins…Jeff had to buy the biggest pumpkin he could find and I bought a medium sized one. My mom grew one this summer and gave it to us, so it seemed obvious to carve a pumpkin in a pumpkin in a pumpkin:

We also made pumpkin seeds, but instead of roasting them and then just sprinkling them in salt, we soaked them overnight in a salt brine. By far the best roasted pumpkin seeds we’ve ever made! We also made a huge batch of pumpkin soup and pumpkin muffins. I don’t think carving pumpkins are the most ideal for cooking and baking, but the soup and muffins turned out pretty good.

Just had dinner with my sister and Matt. Next post, I’ll tell you if she’s having a boy or a girl and post some pics.

I’m officially taking part in Movember. What’s Movember you ask? It’s when men across the globe grow a mustache and raise money and awarness for Prostate cancer.

I wanted to do it last year as I had some friends doing it and it looked kinda like fun but I was too late. This year, I prepared all year long for my growing season.

Anyway, I have setup a Movember page for people to donate to my mustache. All donations are tax deductible. Oh and if it’s any incentive Lindsay does NOT like the stache.

What many people don’t know is that 1 in 6 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer to afflict Canadian men with 25,500 diagnosed and 4,400 dying from the disease each year.

Facts like these have convinced me I should get involved…. Plus, I get to grow a mustache and look like a 70’s porn star for a month!

To make a donation, you can either:
• Click this link http://ca.movember.com/mospace/325022/ and donate online using your credit card or PayPal account , or
• Write a cheque payable to ‘Prostate Cancer Canada’, referencing my Registration Number 325022 and mailing it to: Prostate Cancer Canada, 145 Front Street East, Ste. 306, Toronto, ON M5A 1E3, Canada.

Prostate Cancer Canada will use the money raised by Movember for the development of programs related to awareness, public education, advocacy, support of those affected, and research into the prevention, detection, treatment and cure of prostate cancer.

Sorry it’s been a while since we’ve posted anything but we’ll have some real posts up in a bit. Including more status updates of the upper lip growth.

Hello world,

I’m back! Now that my conference is over life can return to normal. Sorry to everyone that I may have ignored for the last several months. If an email or a phone call was not related to the conference, I probably just ignored it. My apologies for anniversaries, birthdays, etc that also got missed.

The good news is that the conference went well! It was in Banff and we had people come from all over the world, including a guy who came from Iran and brought me a present. He gave me hand crafted container to say thanks for helping with his visa. In the end we had 450 register for the conference. Jeff and I also got to see people we met in Munich and Japan at the last couple of conferences we went to.

It was wonderful to be out in Banff for the week. Jeff joined me on Wednesday night since he has Thursdays and Fridays off. We managed to fit a game of squash in and it was an eye opener. I guess it’s hard to stay in shape when you’re at a computer for 14 hours a day. We must have been playing with a triple yellow ball

Right from Banff we headed to Lethbridge with Mark for a disc golf tournament. It was a bit much to wake up at 6am and drive to LA, but that’s the least I could do to spend some time with my husband who I have been neglecting lately. We played 36 holes on Saturday and 27 on Sunday. Saturday it was 24 degrees, which was pretty extreme considering it was -21 degrees the previous weekend in Banff. Jeff played well and managed a second place win in the advanced men division. I finished first out of one in the ladies advanced division and Mark was inches away from winning the $360 closest to the pin pot. The course was super long and windy on Sunday, but we had a great time. A few pros from Montana and Alberta were in attendance so we got to see them crush the disc.

Looking up at hole 4 of Lethbridge course

Since we all had to work on Thanksgiving, we celebrated by taking this Monday off and celebrated Lobsgiving. Monday also included a visit with Aubree and Amanda since Amanda was in town visiting from Seattle. After our visit I went to Lobsgiving. Kris flew in from Halifax and brought 10 fresh lobsters. Thanks Kris! Thanks also to Jill for cooking and Janick for making lobster pie:

Lobsgiving

As a reward for all of our hard work, Jill, Mark, Jeff and I are going to Vegas on Sunday! Forecast is 30 degrees!!! Can you say ice cold beer and pool? We also plan to visit the Hoover Dam and see Penn & Teller. Viva Las Vegas!

Tonight is the first official night of NHL hockey (seems like it just ended). Anyway, I wanted to post our current HD setup for everyone to see.

As you can see we have the cable running from the back of the TV, attached to some vice-grips which are leaning up against a mailbox. We got the mail box from our parents back at Christmas time and had the TV around the same time and found that it was a large metal object… Boom, HD TV!

Some would think that this ISN’T HD quality but let me assure you that we know what NON-HD looks like on the TV and this is most definitely an HD signal. Don’t ask me how it works I’m not an Electrical Engineer who got a Master in Science in an antenna related field…. oh wait.

Anyway, I just finished watching the opening montage of the game and am wondering. Is there anything better than a good hockey Montage? I don’t think other sports can do it as well as hockey…

Oh and we’ve signed up to do the hockeypool again at CBC for a chance to win a Kia something or other. You can join us here too I created the pool Sillyness with password: thesills.net If you join, join us in our pool.

Enjoy the season everyone!

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.