Life's Whirlwind Adventures

In my worst nightmares I was a hockey mom.  Up early to get to practices, giving up every weekend of the winter for games or tournaments.  Taking out second mortgages on my house to pay for equipment and hotels during tournaments.  Having to deal with the politics that hockey inevitable has; who makes what team sometimes regardless of ability and skill.  Seeing nepotism that I could do nothing to help avoid because I don't know the sport so I'd never be out coaching, assistant coaching or anything like that.  So being a hockey mom was never something I was going to do, but I realized having boys I might fall into this label. I enrolled my kids in soccer, soccer I understood.  I didn't play it growing up, but I played in University and I enjoyed it.  Chandler started playing soccer when we moved to Red Deer, he really enjoyed it. It was a youth rec league so it wasn't highly competitive but they still played games, they still won medals, and most im...

For years I have asked my good friends the Carlos' to come up to Canada to visit me.  For years I have gone down to California to visit them, they have always opened up their homes for me and been willing to drive me around the Bay Area, helping plan trips to Disneyland, going on shopping excursions and just treating me like family.  I desired nothing more than to be able to do the same for them.  And after 20 years I was finally able to play host to Alex, Monica, James and Oscar.  It was a very happy occasion for me, I love these people as if they were blood family.  They are definitely part of the family I choose. Of course knowing they were finally coming up I had some planning to do, where was I going to take them, what did I want them to see, how much driving were we going to be doing?  All very important questions you see because I wanted to make sure they had a great time.  So I asked what they wanted to see, and they mentioned Saskatoon and S...