Ack…. Look Who Made The Newspaper Today

Prince Albert was a hub of activity throughout the weekend. Top left: Kennedy Burgess, Mykayla Herd and Beth Harper skate to Cats at Ice Show 2007 Hats Off to Broadway held the Art Hauser Centre Sunday afternoon. Top right: Brad Wall rallied his Saskatchewan Party troops at a fundraiser Saturday night at the Art Hauser Centre. Bottom left: Troy Crawler, a Morley, Alta. ,resident, stands with his horse Pokey outside the Red River Roping and Riding Club arena north of Prince Albert. Crawler won first place in the tie-down roping event at the International Indian Finals Rodeo. Bottom right: World PowerSports Association racer Blair Morgan takes a break during the the 2007 Prince Albert National Snowmobile Racing Association snowcross season final Saturday. (For results from the snowcross event, see Wednesday’s Instant Replay.) Herald photos by Jessica Kiunga

From The Prince Albert Daily Herald

Saturday Evening

It is Saturday evening here in our little Herd house. We are almost through the last tournament of the year and then hockey is over for another season. The boys will still have some practices as long as the ice is in the rink but the grueling pressure of organizing games and all that is done. Mykayla is winding down in skating as well except that she will have the opportunity to do a few weeks of Spring School.  The boys have a couple hockey schools in Saskatoon lined up and we want to get Myk into Summer Skate in Saskatoon on the weeks that the boys go to hockey school.

Taylor’s team is full of drama again but it did make for some exciting hockey. We won our first game last night 11-4. This afternoon they played a team from Cold Lake (where there is no hitting in this division.) It was a rough game. I stood at the end of the arena watching and saw one goal scored that should have had the whistle blown as the team kept digging the puck out from underneath Taylor.  Then Taylor actually received his first penalty ever. He caught the puck in his pads and one of the players from the other team punched him in the head. The player then got knocked down after the whistle blew but he continued to kick Taylor in the face and chest. Taylor, in what seemed a defensive move to me tried to push his skates away and one of his buddies from his team went after the player. The end result was the Taylor got a 3 minute major for roughing, and the other two boys got 3 minute majors as well. I was told later that the player from the other team should have been ejected as he was kicking but I guess the ref didn’t see it that way just like he didn’t see that what Taylor was doing was protecting himself. Then not even 5 minutes after that one of the players held Taylor down with his stick as another player came up and scored a goal. I guess the ref didn’t see that one either.

Well they placed 2 in their pool of three and went into the play off game tonight. I missed the game as Noah is not feeling well but they were up 3-0 then down 4-3 and then tied 4-4 with 1 minute left in the game. About three minutes into the overtime period they managed a goal and took the game. So now when I thought we would be able to go to church in the morning we will be watching yet another hockey game.

The stresses of the week are coming to a close. They are still there but life moves on and as we go through everyday we begin to plan and rationalize and strategize on how best to handle them. I hate being ruled by finances and that seems to be where our life is at right now. I feel like it just takes away so much from the task of living life and it is such a waste of time to worry about those things. But that is what we do.

And in the midst of it I know God is there somewhere. I struggle finding the words to say to Him. I know He is listening and when words escape me I just hope He has the patience to read between the lines.

On the positive I mentioned briefly that the kids had awesome report cards. And they really did. All three of them had consistent A’s and B’s with Taylor and Myk averaging in the A and Noah somewhere around B+. This has likely been their best report cards yet and so for that we are thankful that they are adjusting and learning and growing.

Well that is about it from here.  To those of you in NWT, Alberta, BC and everywhere else but SK have a Happy Daylight Savings.

Busy Weekend.. Somewhat Busy Day and Yes Charlie Brown Halloween is Tomorrow

Well the weekend with the cousins was a tremendous success. Friday night we had Brock (15) and Joshy (5) spend the night. Ian (10) was set to as well but things sometimes go awry and my sister made the executive decision to take him back to Grandma’s.

Nevertheless we were all up until 1am with Joshy and Noah waking somewhere around 7:30 and the rest of us rolling out of bed between 8 and 9. We had breakfast here at our house and then Les and Rich took the wee ones (read 2 and 3 year old) to watch Myk skate while I took Joshy and Ian to watch Noah play hockey. L & R then joined me at the arena to watch Noah since Myk was on for 3.5 hours.

After practice more executive decisions were made and R ended up taking Ian and the wee ones to Grandma’s for naps. Joashy and Noah were supposed to come with Les and I back to the other arena to watch Myk skate. We were about 1 block away from the arena when Les turned around to check that both boys were in the vehicle. Missing one child. In our bustle of 3 adults, 5 children and 2 vehicles we seemed to have left Josh behind. We turned around and raced back to the arena and found him playing with the same little boy he had been with all morning, never the wiser that his mother and aunt had left him in a strange place, in a strange city with a bunch of strangers. Crisis averted.

Saturday night I had 6 kids here as Ian was able to spend the night while Grandma and GRandpa took care of the wee ones while L & R were at a surprise 40th bday for their best friend. I was pretty exhausted but the kids were great. They even managed to be asleep by about 11 pm.

Sunday we vegged all morning and finally by about 2 I decided to take the kids to the theater. We haven’t been to the theater here yet and Open Season was still playing so off we went. The kids were thouroughly impressed. For those of you who can remember the old Cinema 4 here in PA, the Capitol in YK is smaller than that theater so the giant screen and the theater was practically empty so that made it all the better. With the busyness of the weekend it made bedtimes pretty early and simple last night. It was great.

For some reason I woke up at 5 am today and surfed the net until 7. We have started making a habit of walking to school and then I/we (when Trev is in town) walk the dog back through the fields behind our house (pictures to come later). I managed to catch up with some friends online today which was great and hung out at home waiting for my phone line to be fixed. After school, as always is the busy time of my day. Drum lessons for Tay (Thank you Dixie ), then a trip to find a costume for Tay ( the procratinator said he wasnt dressing up and then decided to be an army guy after his Dad and I nixed the idea of the Grim Reeper) and then home to carve the pumpkins.

I am wiped but happy that Halloween is tomorrow and then on Wednesday we officially own this house. We signed the papers last week (thank you Marc) but the official close is on Wednesday.

A busy week ahead with three little trick or treaters tomorrow and Trev out at site, Wednesday is small group, Thursday will likely mean a trip to Saskatoon to fit Myk for her new skates, a Goal Tec lesson for Tay and a cruise of this store for a used drum set for Taylor.

So while I am always thinking of deep and thought provoking post most of them lately are turning out to be more updates of the craziness of my life. Soon though I hope to share some points of view of deeply philosophical stuff…. yea right I’ll leave that to the expert.

One more thing though, Rob (I almost used your old nickname) your comments made Trevor and I laugh so hard. Yes we bought the house. We must have beat out the Llama herders and the 80 year old mother of the 50 year old woman got rid of the 1987 pickles. I was actually hoping they would leave them as I would have loved to hear my mom say “Waste not want not” over those babies. The wallpaper is gone on Wednesday ( a little “we finally own it” celebration if anyone wants to join me) and yes we had thoughts of tearing down the walls in the three room over the garage for one large bonus room but for now we will leave it as there are lots of other things we want to do first. Come by for a visit sometime, even Trevor was asking why we hadn’t seen you yet. Now you know where we live… and bring your ladies as well.

That’s all for now

1 month and a day

Well it sure has been a while since I posted. Forgive me for the blogging break. But it is not like I have been sitting around doing nothing. NOPE. In the last month Trev and I travelled back up to YK spent a week supervising packers and movers, cleaning and signing papers. We had a little court issue to deal with and then we had a lot of goodbyes to say as well. All in all it was an exhausting but good trip.

The day after we arrived in YK we met with a real estate agent who also does property management. He had secured a deal with one of the diamond mines to lease the house for the next three years. This means that we have money coming in to make the payments on the house which also allowed us to purchase a house here in PA. So the following Tuesday Oct. 3 we left YK and once we hit cell phone service we called our agent in PA and placed an offer on a house. The house was vacant and so we made arrangements to rent it as of Fri. Oct. 6 and we will purchase it for real on Nov. 1. Our stuff arrived on Oct. 6 which is why the rush for possesion, so rather than store it we were able to move right in.

The kids and I have spent the last two weeks settling in and this past Tuesday Trevor arrived home from his two week rotation to a mostly unpacked and thoroughly lived in house. Since he has been back we have purchased a fridge, dishwasher, washer and dryer and the stove was ordered today and should arrive on Thursday.

The boys have begun hockey for the year. Taylor is in the Atoms division and had to try out for the city wide draft. There is a Tier 2 and 3 level and out of 14 goalies trying out he ranked very high. We are very proud of his hard work effort and it seems it has paid off. Noah is in Novice and has been put on a team in our neighbourhood with a few kids that he knows from various hockey camps, power skating classes and school. He has a good coach I think and we think he will do well.

We travelled to Saskatoon yesterday for a goalie lesson for Tay and while we were there we took Myk’s skates into be sharpened. We had been told that the sports store here in town does not do figure skates well and has been known to wreck them. Well too late, Myk’s blades were toast so what started out as a blade sharpening turned into a whole skate fitting process and a new pair of Gams being ordered. The guy at the skate shop said that with her current skates she would have a hard time doing spins so since that is what figure skating is it didn’t seem to make much sense to spend all this money on lessons and not have her be able to perform because of her skates.

Well that is the update in a nutshell. We finally have internet and a computer as well as a real telephone. YUP it is starting to feel like we actually live here. It feels good. Taylore was so happy to have his cat back that he actually said he would have a hard time deciding to go back to YK now because he has just as many friends here now but with the snow the other morning also came some tears as he was missing his best friend Eric. Noah also in the last week was missing Luke and just last night Mykayla was crying for Sarah. So while we are settling in here we do have such strong ties to those we have left.