It’s been about a month since our last post and the subject line describes what we have been up to.

My mom came for a visit and brought a little pug named Dexter that she was dog sitting. We didn’t mind having the little guy around as he pretty much just followed my mom around everywhere she went. Willow however DID NOT like Dexter. She spent the weekend in the basement or upstairs in our room, on top of the dresser, behind the TV, just to be sure that she was out of harm’s way.

Our very unimpressed cat

Dexter

It was a busy weekend. We took my mom to the beach, the goat farm, the farmer’s market, Art Knapps and the bingo hall. Jeff and I have been to bingo 3 times in the last 10 years and that’s about often enough. I find bingo really stressful. So many different shapes, numbers and utter chaos. I think I have attention span issues. It didn’t help that the minimum number of cards they would allow me to play was 6…1 would have been better. To think I have a university degree and find bingo challenging. Wouldn’t you know that the only thing we won was a free bingo night, which I quickly gave to the little old ladies next to us. The expiry date wasn’t 3 years so it was of no use to me.

At the end of June I flew to Vancouver for work for a day and then headed to Calgary for a whirlwind work trip. I got to Calgary in time to catch the semis and finals of ho down. On Monday evening I went bowling with Rheanna, Matt and cute little Ava. She truly is adorable and was so well behaved at bowling. It’s really neat to see how much she grows and changes from month to month. I spent Tuesday night working (reporting deadline – bleh) and then met my dad, Susan, Rheanna and Ava for a quick bite to eat before catching my flight on Wednesday. Didn’t get to do much catching up with them as we all pretty much stared at Ava the whole time.

Adorable Ava hanging out with her favorite toy

After Calgary and Vancouver I was exhausted and slept for a few days to recover. We checked out the festivities down at the waterfront on Canada day. We also spent the long weekend kitty sitting. Willow DID NOT like the kitten Minou (I see a trend here). Instead of hiding like she did with Dexter, she stalked Minou like she would a mouse or a bird. We have raised a spoiled, jealous monster. Having a baby should be interesting.

Minou playing with the flipflops for 2 hours

Minou

Last weekend Jill, Mark, John and Aniko (Jill’s bro and wife from Hungary) came to Kelowna for a visit. We went for a tour at the brewery and wine tours aplenty of course. Played a fantastic game called Solo from Hungary. We even found time for a few art galleries. We’ll definitely have to go visit John and Eniko in Hungary as it sounds like they come from a wonderful city and it was so nice to get to know them – such nice people.

Now we are in Toronto for a work conference for Jeff, but more about that (and our landscaping updates) later!

The disc golf tournament turned out to be very challenging. It would have been better if we could have played the course a few more times. That way, I could have taken out a few more branches instead of hitting them on game day. I hit A LOT of trees. After driving my disc into a tree off of the tee box for the third straight time I said “this must be a fun sport since I still have a smile on my face”.

I played the first round at Logan Lake with 2 of the top disc golfers in the world (one of them is currently ranked 7th). Unfortunately they were taking it WAY too seriously and were both disappointed with their play so it was a pretty silent round. I’ve never played at that level where money was involved and it was much different than a casual round at shady lurkerville. As a start, I really should have read the rules before playing. Oh and maybe played more than a handful of times this spring.

Needless to say, I kind of got dominated. Finished sixth in the pro women’s division…sounds good until you find out there were only six women. I did finish only 2 strokes behind the fifth place lady, who had a home course advantage. I give credit to Hip Hip for the loss since I hit my belly twice while putting, which makes up the 2 stroke difference. Hip Hip was a pretty good sport during the tourney since the courses were really hard and long. Apart from stealing all my food and water all day, Hip Hip was a star.

Speaking of stars, Jeff and Mark played incredibly. They finished 10th and 12th in their division (out of 25). Jeff won some discs and a hat. Mark should have won a prize as well but some dude submitted the wrong score so Mark got scooped on the swag.

The Friday night clinic with Feldberg was excellent–he’s a great disc golfer and a good teacher. My only complaint was that the clinic wasn’t long enough. We learned a new style of putting. The timing of the clinic wasn’t so great…I ended up combining new and old for a very interesting putting style…but it will definitely be effective after some field practice.

This past weekend was frisbee-filled as well, but this time we were spectating. The men’s team from Calgary/Vancouver representing Canada at Ultimate Frisbee Worlds in July in Prague were in Kelowna for a training camp. It was great to catch up with friends from Calgary and watch some high level ultimate. We biked down to the fields to watch on Sunday. 15km there downhill meant 15km home….all uphill. The last 2 km were rough – straight up in 30 degrees, after having biked 28km already. Luckily we took lots of breaks for ice cream and swimming. We stopped at two beaches along the way. The lake was chilly but refreshing. So awesome that it’s only June and we are already swimming in the lake

We spent the May Long weekend in Alberta. I had to go back to Calgary for work so Willow, Jeff and I flew there. Willow loves the plane (much more than the car) and she got to see her boyfriend Bob. Us parents spent the weekend in Canmore and the kitties had the whole weekend for some unsupervised playing. Bob was showing off his new trick to Willow – he has learned how to open the door. It is quite entertaining to watch and more intelligent than I’ve previously given him credit for. Luckily he hasn’t figured out the lock yet.

We got a chance to visit a few friends and also popped by Rheanna’s to visit her and Ava. Ava is soooo adorable!!! Being as competitive as I am, I better have a darn cute baby to be able to compete with hers. She’s asked me not to post Ava’s picture all over the internet, but I can’t resist putting up this cute picture my parents sent me from their recent visit.

We were joined by Heath and Brei in Canmore (congrats on your recent engagement!!!). The men played in the Canmore disc golf tournament while us ladies hung out in our tacky condo. We rented a place that had very interesting decor. I’m sure some people would like it, but it wasn’t for me. Every piece of furniture was hand crafted from sticks and chunks of wood. Nothing like kicking back for a relaxing evening with branches and wood knots poking into your back. Although, the highlight was definitely the very exposed toilet in the loft bedroom. I think they should have used some of the wood to build a door. We spent the evening playing Pit…I love playing it although I was the most sober one and couldn’t win a hand to save my life. A game is good when you lose and still had a ton of fun! We got back in time to spend Monday in Kelowna and got in a good bike ride in.

Last weekend we went to Kamloops to play disc golf. They are having a tourney there this weekend and we wanted to practice up on the courses beforehand. I’ve registered in the pro division (so now Jeff is calling me “Prego Pro”). It should be really great to play against really good women. For most tournaments I end up being the only female registered and am always guaranteed first place. For this tourney, they have a large purse for cash prizes, so it draws all the big names in disc golf. One of the top players in the world David Feldberg will be there and he’s holding a clinic on the Friday night so it will be neat to see what he has to say. There are almost 80 people registered and 8 pro women.

The tournament takes place at 3 different courses in Kamloops. We played one of them on Friday night and then went to dinner at Pete’s Pasta. The course was really hard and I worked up an appetite. Jeff has been telling me about Pete’s Pasta for 9 years. Every time we have tried to go there in the past something always came up. It was so nice to finally go. The food was good, but by no means was it incredible. However, the experience itself was incredible. Pete is the owner and does everything – seats guests, takes your order, brings out the food, rings in your bill. He’s a machine and such a friendly gentleman.

On Saturday we played the course Copper Ridge just outside Kamloops in Logan Lake. Another tough course. We had a brief delay as we had to wait a while for the deer to move out of our way. They were grazing in the middle of the fairway. I had great focus both days until about hole 12 when my legs and lungs decided they were done. At one point I wasn’t even really lifting my legs. Jeff was a good sport and was nice and patient. Not sure what I’ve signed up for since I get to play both courses in one day this weekend.

We headed back to Kelowna as Andy and Sandy were passing through on their way to Vancouver. They are also expecting (3 weeks before us) so they were just as happy as we were to have a relaxing evening watching the hockey game. On Sunday, they took us on a blind friend date. Friends of theirs (Mel and Daniel) had just moved to Kelowna and have similar interests to us, so Andy and Sandy set us up. We all went biking and then had a nice dinner out downtown. They are really nice so hopefully they thought the same. We’re thinking about calling them but should probably wait the standard 3 days.

….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.

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:

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!

Has been ages since my last post. That is probably a good thing and means we’ve been busy.

Got out for a round of real (ball) golf on Canada day. Weather cooperated, which was nice since the greens sure weren’t. The good news is that thanks to some really great chipping lessons and tips, and a night of practicing chipping at the park, my chipping game is really coming along. I think eating lots of chips has also helped

The Monday after Canada day, we took off up to Edmonton to see Green Day. **spoiler alert**.The Green day concert was absolutely wicked. They play for 2 hrs and 15 minutes and I loved every minute of it and was sad when it was over. Billie Joe was so full energy spraying the crowd with water, faking orgasms, bringing people up on stage to sing-you can read the full review of the Vancouver show (same as Edmonton) here. Not sure if it was the acoustics or the band or both, but their pitch was spot the entire show of singing and screaming. They started by playing their entire new album, 21st Century Breakdown. We bought that album a while back and I just couldn’t get into it. Then I saw it live and loved it! Actually, I’m listening to it right now. After playing the whole album they went old school and played songs from Dookie and Good Riddance. As with Offspring, I expected them to be out of their prime and I was so wrong. I’d say that they are completely in their prime and if you get the chance to see them on this tour you should definitely go . I’m so glad we went with the floor tickets. Jeff and I are venturing to say that was one of our favorite concerts ever. Edmonton is a bit of a dive downtown but we stayed at the Westin (which nice and we used Hotwire for the first time), caught dinner at a pub before the show and then spent the next day at West Edmonton mall.

Upon our return from Edmonton we were in full swing of Stampede here in Calgary. Managed to catch a few pancake breakfasts (probably an unhealthy amount), take in our favorite event of Cattle penning, saw sheep herding for the first time,  and took in the chuckwagon races and grandstand show. They were advertising an “all new” grandstand show this year and I’d agree that it was new and way better than past years. They have cut down the amount the singing and dancing from the Young Canadians and have added an edgy comedian and way more action. It’s more like a cirque de soleil now instead of a bad Vegas musical. And they definitely did not cheap out on the fireworks this year. As I was watching them I was wishing I had an extra eye  like the Simpson’s fish.

….not sure why this didn’t post on Friday like planned….arg.
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Kind of a random collection of blogs in one since we haven’t blogged in a while. My dad refers to many random thoughts grouped together as a “blogette”, so maybe that’s what we’ll call this (although dorks everywhere will probably disagree as they call a small blog a blogette, and now that I’ve been rambling already about this, this blog will probably be anything but small.

Biked home on Friday and flew to Vancouver. On my way biking home two little girls were walking by and shouted to me “thanks for saving our Earth”…very cute and also ironic as they walked along drinking from their disposable slurppy cups. We went to Vancouver for Jeff’s cousin Lynette and Arjuna’s wedding (congrats newlyweds). Jeff’s parents picked us up at the airport and we went to Steveston for dinner to Dave’s Place. It’s a little hole in the wall but the best fish and chips I have ever had (sorry fishies). You can read all about the lovely wedding and see pictures on the sillylog.com. One thing Larry and Brenda didn’t mention about the wedding was that Jeff’s cousin Val was there . Val won the UPA College tournament with UBC last year, which is a big deal. She was nice enough to trade us frisbees for one of her winning discs. Not sure it’s a trade if one person doesn’t take theirs…but we have a really sweet UPA winner’s frisbee. It was fun to play cups (or fricket) with her and the rest of Jeff’s family. Since it was an afternoon wedding, we were able to hit up all you can eat sushi at Shabusan (sorry again fishies…) and left completely satisfied and disgustingly full. As were walking along the street my friend Spud (Eric) spotted Jeff and I and he happened to be going to the same place we were, to our buddy Biller’s (Ryan) place. Eric took us there and back on the bus and even paid our bus fare since we seemed to be completely useless. Dylan came over to Ryan’s to visit as well. Ryan and Alyssa just had the cutest little girl, Olivia who is 8 months old. Luckily we got there early enough to visit with Olivia before bedtime. I think my arms are still sore from being a human jungle gym. We had a great visit with everyone (even Beettle who popped by for a little bit). Had a few beers and a lot of laughs! Was sad to leave as we don’t get to visit them very often when we go to Van since it’s normally for a hectic ultimate tournament or something.

We were staying right downtown on Robson at the Blue Horizon, so on Sunday we went for brunch with Jeff’s aunt and uncle and then walked along English Bay. The weather was sunny and perfect. Great weekend in Van.

On Monday we held a zone ultimate clinic for calgary ultimate association. The weather was not so nice so although 35 people RSVP’d only 9 showed up. Luckily when you play zone it is better if it is windy, so that worked out for the purposes of teaching. Very keen group and apart from the low attendance, it went well.

Tuesday was my soccer league’s wind up party. Sad that the season is over (Thursday was my last official soccer game) but it was super fun. As it turns out, there is women’s pickup soccer from now until October on Tuesday nights so I’m pumped that I can keep playing. Women of all levels from around the city are welcome, so come out to Scenic Acres fields (behind the community centre, intersection of Scenic Acres Blvd. and Scurfield Way, NW) on Tuesday’s at 7pm. Just bring a light and dark shirt and shin pads.

Wednesday was a sad day as we had to say “see ya later” to our dearest friend Heather who moved to Toronto on Thursday. We had league so we made her some goodbye pies (being on pi it was only suitable) and had a mini party afterwards with beer, spitz and hack. We will miss her tons, but it’s a good move on her part! Plus, playing frisbee is great since you get to see all your friends at tournaments often.

On Thursday was my last soccer game and we ended up playing 5 on 5 so it was ton of running but super casual and fun.

That brings us to today….we are getting ready for our first ultimate tournament of the season. We’ve decided to cut back and only play two this year (as opposed to one summer where we played about 15 tournaments). The tournament is in Calgary (Ho Down) and we play at Glenmore Athletic park on Saturday (10-5) and at the Calgary Rugby Union on Sunday (11:30-?). If you want to see some high caliber ultimate (maybe not personally, but in general), come check it out. Our team name is Ridgemont High and it’s a fun mix of people from Calgary, Winnipeg and Edmonton.

Should probably hit the hay as tomorrow will be rough…..

Were fortunate to check out The Offspring in concert on Friday. This has been a dream of mine to see this band for years! They have never put out an album I didn’t love. Some might argue that they had a few flops (Splinter for one), but I’ve loved it all. They have been putting albums out since 1990, so I wouldn’t exactly say they are in their ‘prime’ but that’s where expectations come into play (or should I say come out and play

I went in expecting to see a great band with wicked songs that are just beyond their prime, so I LOVED it. If we went in expecting it to be 1994 and hearing Self Esteem for the first time, we would have been very disappointed. In retrospect we should have gone in expecting it to be a horrible show, much like Jeff did with the Killers. He expected to be bored and was blown away. Having said that, I’d say the Killers are in their prime.

The crowd did not disappoint. Our seats were perfect for watching the mosh pit and the punk characters that the show drew. The crowd was full of energy from start to finish. As we were emptying the stadium the crowd was still yelling, singing, high-fiving and super energetic – I felt like we had just won the Stanley cup (WAY TO GO PENS!).

How flattering when a band gets drown out by the crowd of thousands screaming their lyrics? That’s the highlight of live music for sure. We got to sing the key part of “Bad Habit”. Another highlight of seeing Offspring is the Intermission. They played their song intermission and brought out beachballs – brilliant! During the show the lead singer Dexter brought out a piano and played “Gone Away” and that was pretty sweet.
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Got us pumped up to see Green Day next month- another band on the list.

Remember back in March when I announced the great race of 2009? Well, we finally have a winner!   Congrats to Curbside Recycling for beating the Crowfoot C-train.  It was a very close race and are only a few days apart.

Thursday was our very first curbside pick-up.   Unfortunately we were only able to put about 1/4 of all our plastics in the first load.  Which means we still have a garage full of plastics. At this rate we’ll have a plastic free garage by July!  The C-train grand opening is happening on Saturday morning with full service commencing Monday morning.  As you can see only 2 days separated the two events.  I wonder if they knew the race was happening and tried to make it close on purpose?   Sure was exciting!

Let’s all congratulate the city of Calgary for coming into the year 2000.  Curbside recycling and a public transportation system that is actually becoming more useful to the 100K+ people who live in the NW.