Mixed Spiel, Game 1

This weekend I am participating in Seattle Granite Curling Club's Mixed Bonspiel 2009. I am playing with Mike Calcagno, Christina Pastula, and Peter Sommer. Our game was against the Cornsmiths (David and Linda Cornfield, Greg Smith and Kim Hitchcock).

I started off a little nervous. Christina was caught in some Ballard traffic, and I ended up playing vice skip for the 1st end. Lucky for me, Mike made some great shots where the line was easy to read.

In the 8th end, Peter got a double, and we ended up with the free pitcher of beer for our draw.

It was a great game. We tied at the end of the 8th end, and it went into a shoot out. Our team won by 1 inch. (20 inches away from the button). Mike's split was 3.71, and although the ice was keen, it needed some extra help. Christina pitched in to help us drag it the last few inches.

Our next game is against the "Wolves". Jake Vukich's team at 11:00 am.

Men's Spiel and Beyond

This past weekend was the Men's Spiel. 20 teams participated.

Saturday morning started off with breakfast burritos to support the juniors going to nationals. Not sure if it was a good thing letting (forcing?) Derrick, Joe, and Sam into the kitchen. Apparently only Derrick can cook.

After breakfast, I headed home to make 3 batches of cookies and finish the pumpkin bars I made for the spiel, so they would have dessert. After all that baking, I made a quick visit to the club to drop everything off, and headed over to Joe and Mary Alice's for some Paella.

Jeremy's team lost 2 games, won a third game to stay in the C bracket. In the end, they fell to Joe Fox's team.

Sunday, Gravity got a trip to Marymoor park and the pet store at Redmond Town Center. I picked up some extra clothes at REI for Club Nationals, but that was it for my down time. We had late draw against the Pleasants team, and lost in the 8th end. Mike threw a shot that knocked out our own rock, leaving them with 4 in the house.

This morning, I found an article on the Beighton team from my RSS feed in the Devil's Lake Journal.

http://www.devilslakejournal.com/articles/2009/01/19/sports/sports04.txt

Exhausted.

This past event was exhausting. It was a phenomenal experience.

From making our goal of winning one game to the new friends we made(yay for our own cheerleading section) it was a grand time. There were also some classic moments, which included jeremy moving a rock that was measured to see if it was in the free guard zone and brady c sliding out early before the 9 am game and all the teams booing him (I have never seen him blush like that).

I'm both physically and emotionally drained. This definitely helps prepare us for club nationals. The Gervais team provided us with some advice : take the Monday after club nationals off.

Johnson just beat Larway to take the spot that goes directly to nationals. Larway now goes to the challenge round.

Now I'm waiting for the officials to finish celebrating the end of a long weekend, so I can go home and get some sleep.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Van Brunt Vs Reynolds

Two of our favorite teams are playing this evening. Van Brunt and Reynolds. Both teams are from Colorado and play on arena ice. Unfortunately, due to our game in the morning, we were only able to watch a little more than an end.

They've both been a lot of fun to hang out with and to cheer on.

I hope we get a chance to see them again in Colorado, or perhaps this year's April Spiel

Hmmmm. No close ups of Reynolds. Will have to grab a photo tomorrow to post.

2009 Regional Qualifiers, Day Two

Today has been a long, tough day.

We played our first game at 8 am against Gervais (from North Dakota). They were a really tough team, and we shook after 6 ends. After playing Gervais and Clark, I think Gervais is the team to beat. They were very consistent in their shots.

This evening we played against Hufman. This game was a heart breaker. We battled back and forth, Hufman scoring 1 point here, 1 point there for 3 point leads. Team Coleman would fight back with a 3 point end. We finished the 9th end in the lead by 1 point.Hufman had hammer in the 10th end, and came back to tie the score up. We went into an extra end, the 11th, and just couldn't get the point. Hufman won by 2.

It's been an awesome experience so far. Jan and Jerry, Jeremy's aunt and uncle came to cheer us on in our first game against Clark. Team Reynolds from Colorado sat behind sheet 5 during our 3rd game and cheered us on. We received tons of email and facebook messages us from people sending us their love and support.

Tomorrow at 8 am, we play our last game against Cloutier. Then finally, we get to take some time out and what some incredible curling.

First game is over.

We shook after 8 ends, with a score13-5.
We stole 1 in the first end. Clark score 1 in the 2nd end. They stole 2 in the 3rd end for a score of 3-1.

We scored 1 in the 4th, Clark scored 4 in the 5th. The score was 7-2. We muscled out 3 in the 6th end. To make it 7-5.

We lost a big end in the 7th and gave up 5, and the score was 12-5.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

One day until regionals begin!

One day until regionals begin.

I spent almost 2 days trying to track someone down who would open the club so my women's team could practice. I tried to get our team a key to the club, but we were told that we could only get a key if we made nationals. Since there are so many competitive teams, we could reach out to them about practicing the same time. However, very few of the people with keys post their practice times.

Yesterday evening, we had our team had the first practice together since December. It was a good practice. We put on our fancy new jackets and looked awesome. :D
We also received a positive comment from a Colorado men's team that was practicing. He said that we had good rhythm together, and wondered how long we had been playing together.

The Colorado team that was practicing put together a team 18 months ago. None of them had ever curled before. Sound familiar? They've been playing together longer than we have, but we've played on better ice.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGHHH!

Enough said. Moving on.

Swinger's night, Mixed League

Tonight was swinger's night in our mixed league. We swapped out all the teams so we could play with different curlers. I played with Doug Kaufman, Karen Potter, and Joe Benson. We lost to Knieval, David Booth, Kim Smith, and Christina P (who I normally play with).

After the 4 end game, I ran upstairs to help get the food ready. Jeremy made his award winning chili. Christina made a chicken chili that was very tasty. I spent a lot of time baking yesterday: jalapeno cornbread, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, chocolate cake, and chocolate peanut butter oatmeal no bake cookies. (Some of the cookies will go to Monday night's potluck).

Lots of people left as soon as the games were over because it was snowing and sticking. A few of us hung out and chit chatted. Joel pointed out that the Hufman team wasn't listed on the practice email that had gone out. Derrick called Vicky, and found out that the Hufman team wouldn't be here in time for the practice or team meeting. Interesting things to know.

We finally left the club. Jeremy was brushing snow off the car, when I surprised him with a sneak attack and launched some snow at him.

Doing stuff and hanging out with Gravity.

This morning, Jeremy hung out with Gravity while I got a massage from Jason. Due to all the curling, my neck has been getting tight again. The problem starts to show up when I deliver rocks.

On the way home, I dropped off two comforters at the Maytag laundromat to be washed. I still need to take one to the dry cleaner which has stuff on it from a seizure that Gravity had.

I stirred Jeremy's chili, took Gravity for a walk, and picked up my altered curling clothing from the tailor. I have also made chocolate cake, jalapeno cornbread, and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Oh crap!!!

Okay, I just over cooked my first batch of cookies. Oops. While I'm baking cookies, I'm also washing a load of laundry.

Today is the day for doing stuff.

And the answer is...

they really don't know whats caused the seizures.

Could be beagle epilepsy. Could be a brain tumor. She's on phenobarbital now, which should help with the seizures. Gravity gets more blood work done in a week, to make sure her liver isn't damaged by the medication.

I'm kind of scared to let her sleep, because I don't want her to have a seizure. The other medication is liquid valium, given during a seizure. AND - its inserted anally. Hmmmm.

I ordered a pizza from Pagliacci's after Jeremy left. My pizza was gifted to me by Pagliacci. I'll take whatever good news I can get today.

Really worried about Gravity.

Jeremy text messaged me that gravity had another seizure. That's 3 seizures for today.

I'm currently at the vet. Jeremy will be meeting me here with our hound.

•pace pace pace•

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Eek. Another dog seizure...

Poor Grams (nickname for Gravity our beagle).

She woke us up with another doggie seizure at 5:37 am. This one seemed to last a little longer than her last one. Around 3 minutes.

She seemed to take a little longer to gain control of her motor skills. She staggered around disorientated for longer.

Scary, scary stuff.

Argh. She had another one while jeremy was at the grocery store. I think she may have hit her head on the table.

She also threw up in front of the couch. Sad dog.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

New Year's Eve at the Skulec house

After an hour of practice at the Seattle Granite Curling Club, Jeremy and I drove to Sara's house to celebrate the change to 2009.

We had red and white wine and were introduced to Slovakian moonshine (ouch!). There was lots of tasty hor d'oevres, including cheese fondue!!

An excellent time was had by all.