Silly words from silly folks

It’s been a while since our last Q&A, so we thought it might be fun to do it again.

Q: What the heck does the title of your blog mean?

A: The title describes Lindsay’s recent cravings – for those of you who haven’t heard the Sill’s are expanding their family!!! (Lindsay has always loved her sweets – chocolate, cookies, sugar of any sort and especially cake. Since getting pregnant she really doesn’t like the taste of sugar. She’ll take cottage cheese, pepperoni or fresh veggies/fruits over sugar in a heartbeat).

Q: When are you due?

A: November 11th. Should be an easy date to “remember”.

Q: Will you find out what the sex of the baby is?

A: No way. Will be way more fun on the day of to see what we are having. Plus, we really like yellow and green.

Q: Do you have any concerns about having children?

A: Just a few. For one, we are hoping the ‘different sized foot’ gene isn’t genetic (paternal) (along with the stubborn and competitive ones) (maternal).

Q: Where will the baby sleep? Are you sure you have enough room to expand your family?

A: We will have to make some sacrifices and perhaps share an office.

Q: What does Willow think of all of this?

A: Meow.

Q: How has Lindsay been feeling?

A: She was feeling great for the first 3 months, until she started bragging about how great she felt. Then bam! she got a migraine that put her in bed for 3 days and then the flu. Word got out around her workplace once people began speculating that she was missing a lot of work and might have H1N1. “She just has hormones, not H1N1″.

Q: How has Jeff been feeling?

A: Great, thanks for asking.

Q: Did you get an ultrasound yet? Can we see it?

A: Here is little “Hip Hip” at 12 weeks. The ultrasound was really neat. Hip Hip wouldn’t sit still for a second – scratching his/her head, drinking amniotic fluid, bouncing around. No doubt about it that Hip Hip has Jeff’s genes.

Q: Why do you call the baby Hip Hip?

A: It needed a name, instead of being referred to it all the time. Unless we came up with something better, the KDs were determined to call it “Cream Puff”. We always joked about naming our first kid Hip Hip as it’s cute and so upbeat when sung by Weezer in Island in the Sun.

Q: Will you keep the name Hip Hip?

A: Not sure. Most likely not but we won’t be naming him/her till it comes out.

Q: Have you picked other names in case Hip Hip doesn’t suit the baby?

A: We haven’t settled on names but we have ruled a few out: Bill, Jill, Window and Will.

Q: Are you planning on having more than one child?

A: The original plan was to have 4 boys and 3 girls (enough for an ultimate team), but we’ll start with one and see how it goes.

Well, Sunflicker has come and gone for 2010 and was a blast to say the least. It was so great to see a TON of friends and our house was PACKED. Friday night we hosted 18 people and Saturday was 16 people…. the beds, carpet and hardwood were packed with people and hopefully everyone had a good nights rest. Can’t wait for next year! All are welcome again!

Pi did pretty good and most importantly we had a good time. A tournament like this with great friends and some ulti is the reason Lindsay and I love the sport so much. There’s not a lot of other places and sports where you can get that sort of exercise, enjoyment, friends, frisbee and fun. Here’s a little pic of the Pi crew.

Then Monday, Scott and I hit the BGolf course for a round. Unfortunately a wind-warning was issued for the Okanagan. Needless to say it was a little windy…. Which made it cold and interesting. It’s always neat to be on a course with almost zero people on it. After that we headed to the H2O waterpark for a much needed hot-tub. It also had a flo-rider. The flo-rider is basically a simulant of an ocean wave…was much trickier than it seemed and Scott and I entertained the kids with some solid wipeouts.

See you all next year!

Here’s a blog from the weekend that apparently didn’t post….

Here are the much anticipated pictures of our landscaped backyard. The retaining wall is nearly finished but there are still a few holes to fill with smaller rocks. Jeff managed to finish the rock staircase on the side this weekend and it looks amazing. I think he’s found his calling.

We had 3 loads of granite rocks delivered. It turns out rocks are much cheaper than I expected and as luck would have it, they have a surplus of the rocks we wanted so they are dirt cheap right now ($9/ton instead of $25/ton regularly). They delivered the wrong size of rocks at one point so we got 8 tonnes of rocks for free! I challenge anyone to get 8 tonnes of anything for free.

Here are some pics:

Rock staircase (almost done!)

We spent Saturday at the market and the car auction. One was very enjoyable and the other, was stressful. We are looking to buy a truck as it seems every week I find myself needing one, especially with all the landscaping that is going on. I believe there are deals to be had if you can take the yelling long enough to wait for the vehicle you are interested it. We lasted through 25 cars and then had to leave. It took 1.5hrs to get to 25, so we never made it to the truck we are interested which was number 76. It was a great experience and if you’ve never been to a car auction, I recommend going just for the experience. It is just like on tv. Lots of yelling from a dude that speaks a million miles a second and you can’t understand a thing. Great quotes from the guy “I can’t lift your arm for you, you’ll have to do that yourself”, “never been in an accident”(about the car that has a huge smash on the side facing the crowd), “What is wrong with you people? Any lower and you’d be stealing. Do you want it for free?”, “I can’t help you, you’re going to have to help yourself”. Be sure to leave your pocketbook at home though since some cars seem like such a deal they tempt you into buying something you don’t even want when you get caught up in the action. We just about left with a few cars, since they were so cheap and Jeff had to shove his hands in his pocket as he was afraid to scratch his head and walk away with a car.

This weekend I finally got around to cooking Jeff dinner. If you recall we had made a bet as to when our house would sell and I lost, so I had to cook Jeff a nice dinner. I made greek salad, crab fettuccine (with homemade pasta) and multigrain bread from the market. We were too full for dessert so we had it for breakfast the next morning – strawberry crepes with strawberry coulee, whip cream and chocolate sauce.

In the process I learned a few things:
-if you are planning to make spanakopita you must buy the filo pastry the day before as it takes time to thaw
-greek salad is a nice last minute backup plan to spanakopita
-crepes are way easier to make than I thought. We will definitely be eating them more often. Especially with strawberries and whip cream.
-Jeff is much more efficient than me in the kitchen, but also way messier
-crab, lemon and fennel go really well together

Jeff has been far too busy actually doing the landscaping to write about it, so I thought I’d step up. Jeff has made leaps and bounds. Since the last post he has put underground sprinklers in the front yard, laid sod, finished the rock wall in the backyard and built steps to the backyard. Not sure what I’ve been up to….

I did help with the sod though. Actually, the whole neighbourhood pitched in for the sod laying. Since it’s a new community and everybody has laid sod lately, everyone’s an expert. I was happy just puttering away with my snippers to cut it. I had 3 different people come up to me and say “did you know that a steak knife works way better for that?” After the third comment I did switch. They apparently are an expert and if you ever lay sod, don’t be a moron – use a steak knife. It really does work.

Here are the pictures to tell the landscaping story:

Rock delivery

Digging trenches for sprinklers

Laying the pipe and digging trenches

875 square feet of sod

Lindsay laying sod - slow and steady wins the race

Jeff hard at work laying sod

All done - we have a front lawn!

I think I’ll save the pictures of the back for the next post. Plus, the intermission is over and the Canucks need my support!

We have had our first two sets of visitors and it has been wonderful. It helped that we had full cooperation from Mother Nature and all of our guests left with some color.

Last weekend Larry and Brenda were here. We got out golfing at Michaelbrook Ranch course. Larry put on a clinic as he’s been playing daily for the last month or so. And he helped me fix my slice so that was useful. We fired up our new bbq on Saturday night for some steaks. We decided it was time to buy a new bbq when we noticed the grill was starting to fall apart on the old one. Not super surprising since we bought the last one for $100 from Canadian Tire and it lasted for 7 years! That is money well spent. On that same token, this new bbq should last 35 years.

The next day we had a quick visit in the morning (and Jeff’s tasty omlettes!) and they hit the road back to Kamloops. We went and checked out ultimate. Was just pick up goalti and it was pretty fun except for a few rules and strategies that Jeff and I found interesting (or annoying). It was the first time we had played outside this year and it was nice to be back on real grass. The wind wasn’t so nice though…

On Tuesday we played again at league. It was tricky to get us both on a team together (something about 2 superstars on one team not being acceptable…based on watching us at 2 indoor sessions and clearly these people were not paying attention to my million turnovers from not touching a disc for ages). Up until hours before league started Jeff and I were on separate teams but I convinced him to jump ship and we found a team together. It’s a team that has never played together before. Everyone is super friendly and keen to learn. And we won!

Jeff spent the week doing some amazing landscaping (update and pictures coming soon).

Then this weekend we had Jill and Mark come visit. It was a wonderful weekend (and nice to have friends again). They arrived early Friday morning so we had the whole day for wine tours (St. Hubertus and Summerhill), a brewery tour (Tree Brewing – highly recommended) and a nice dinner downtown at RauDZ. On Saturday we had breakfast with the Ellis family who was in town from Calgary for some much needed R&R. We all headed to the disc golf course for a round. The men stuck around for a few more rounds while us ladies went to a coffee shop. That was followed up by a wine tour and tapas at Quail’s Gate. We fired up the bbq on Saturday evening and watched the Canucks game. Too bad they lost since they were playing so amazing. Looks like they’ll just have to win it in 5 now. What a wonderful time of year right now when there just aren’t enough hours in the day to watch all the hockey that is on.

Today Mark and Jeff went disc golfing again but this time they went to marshall their own course in a local forest. Now to convince the city to fund baskets to make it an official course. Jill and I were on our way shopping but got distracted. We are trying to convince Jill and Mark to move here so we went looking at houses. Since it’s not really feasible, we went to look at houses that were as unlikely to own as them moving here. There was an open house so we stopped in and checked out a place for $1.5 milion. It was huge and amazing. Wine cellar, exercise room, tiered theatre, and gorgeous lake view. Unless we move in together it won’t really work…luckily it’s big enough for all of us!

Just arriving back from a conference in San Jose. I have been to many places in California, but this was my first time in SJ. Upon arriving and doing some reading, I discovered it’s the 10th largest city in the US. I was staying right downtown and was told by the hotel staff that it’s very safe. So, I walked out the door and saw a man being arrested and then got approached by a homeless man, all in less than a minute, so I wasn’t feeling too adventurous. I checked out the tech museum but they were just closing. Found myself some dinner (it’s always so strange eating a restaurant alone while traveling) and called it a night.

I thought Tuesday was a conference day, but turns out it was just workshops and registration. Since the weather was so miserable (it never got higher than 16 degrees and wasn’t any better than the weather back home) and I had a huge work deadline on Wednesday, so I decided to spend Tuesday working.

The conference ran on Wed and Thursday was fantastic! Almost every talk I attended was good, which isn’t normally the case at conferences.

Thursday afternoon I decided to head to the mall and take advantage of the strong Canadian dollar. I got made fun of by conference attendees at lunch for spending time in SJ going to the mall, but when I challenged them to offer a better suggestion for the evening, they were speechless, so off to the mall I went. Pretty good deals to be had – especially at the sporting goods store. Jeff benefited from my outing as he is the proud new owner of a helicopter. It is super fun to fly around our vaulted ceilings but Willow is not a fan. It looks like a bird, but doesn’t smell or sound like one so she is confused.

After a long 14 hour trip home on Friday (weather delays and layovers), I had a quick night’s sleep and we hit the road to Castlegar on Sat. AM to visit my parents and go to my friend Amanda’s wedding shower. We had a wonderful ham dinner at my dad and Susan’s place and got a good visit in with the Rowden’s who were in town visiting from Kamloops. The next morning we got a visit in with my mom and Doug over pancakes. I went to the wedding shower while Jeff went snowboarding at Red Mountain where they had just received a foot of fresh powder. Amanda is a really good friend as there aren’t many friends that could keep me away from powder like that. The shower was really nice and Amanda looked amazing and was just glowing! Great food and even managed to get a short but nice visit in with the bride-to-be.

Sure feels good to be back home in Kelowna!

A few pics from my travels:

View of palm trees from hotel

Pinball-type display outside Tech Museum

Chipmunk

Well, day 1 of landscaping is complete. We got lots done but you can’t really tell. We started by digging a trench in the front for drainage from the eavestrough…. We then created the front flower bed which I’m not sure if I’m sold on yet… so we might re-do that. Then a big dumptruck showed up with our top-soil. The bobcat moved that dirt to the front and graded the yard. It was quite the art and he made it look really simple… almost too simple (to the point of thinking this can’t be that hard and I should do it myself). Then we dug three trenches in the back for more water eavestrough stuff and that was the first day.

The great thing is that now the front is at a point where Lindsay and I can do the rest…. Whereas before we couldn’t do anything. All that is left in the back is the retaining wall which should take another two days.

Thursday morning I woke up and drove to Kamloops to see my parents and play some golf. Golf was fun and was nice to see the folks. I played golf with a guy who was 73 and still carried his clubs around the course. This isn’t just a flat course it’s a hilly climb and is quite the hike even without the golf clubs. I was pretty impressed and hope that when I’m 73 I can still play golf let alone walking AND carrying my clubs around the course.

For dinner we went to my favorite restaurant when growing up named Pete’s Pasta. It’s this cute little italian restaurant owned by an Italian guy. He still remember me… which in some weird way I thought was kinda neat. Lindsay doesn’t think this place exists because I always tell her how wonderful it is. However, every time we’ve tried to go it’s been closed….

Ok. Time for some landscaping photos. I tried to take photos as we went but was tough to find time when the exciting things were happening. What do people think of the front flower bed? it’s a terrible photo and will probably take a better one at some point but you get the idea.

Front Trench

Dump Truck!

Front Flowerbed (not a very good photo)

Back Trench

After Trench was filled

Current State of the back

Wow. It’s been a long time since I’ve even logged into our blog let alone posting anything. I really have no excuse considering we are still friendless. Although, I am working on that… I just found a league team for spring ulti league here in Kelowna. So that’s a first step.

So what have we been up to with no friends? Keeping busy with work, organizing the house, biking and traveling…. well, I’m not traveling but Lindsay has been traveling. Last week she was in Calgary for work and got to see her new Niece. She had a great visit and is proud to be an aunt and see how well Rana’s doing as a mom. Great work Rana and Matt! Now Lindsay’s in San Jose for a conference. So, Willow and I are home alone!

Onto the title of this post, landscaping! We are starting our landscaping project tomorrow. Our next door neighbor is a framer so he has connections with good contractors so we’re using his guy. We’ll be adding grass and a flower garden in the front. Around back we’ll be doing a rock-wall, flower beds, garden beds and grass. It’ll be interesting to see how it all turns out especially tomorrow as I’m the ‘helper’ for the bobcat driver. Anyway, here are a few before pictures for your enjoyment.

Front of the house

Right side of the house

Left side of the house

Back of the house

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: