THE RESULTS ARE IN!!!

Hello everyone!

Well, it's been an incredibly busy last couple of weeks. Nothing out of the ordinary going on, just trying to get into a routine again. Once we are finally settled, there will be more posts :) sorry I've been slacking :(

I'm not sure if you've noticed, but I haven't been posting much about Jake, and how his hockey has been going. I was being a little superstitious I suppose. But now, I will fill you in.

Jake set himself a goal, at the beginning of the summer, to make it to the A team in his first year of Novice (the next age division up from where he played last year). Then all summer, he worked his butt off. He was fortunate enough to be invited to a hockey camp, where he got a chance to be on the ice, and log some extra hours. He also had a fantastic coach to teach him the new skills he needed. That poor kid has had to do so many circles, trying to master those darn crossovers! The past two weeks have been evaluations. They make all the players go through the drills, evaluate them on their skills, and finally, they evaluate them in a game. We have been waiting with baited breath, to see if he made it.

Last night we got the call. Jake is on the A team!!! I'm so proud of him. What an extraordinary feeling, to watch your child (at age 7 nonetheless), set a goal for himself - that was attainable, but not easily come by. Then to watch him, work so hard (to the point that he was planning what he should eat on hockey days to maximize his energy level, if you can imagine), and achieve his goal. That was really something. I cried (shocker, I know). He has his first practice tomorrow night, I'm going to try to catch a clip of him out there.

As for Kolt, he also has gone through evaluations. He did fantastic. He was easily one of the strongest first year hockey players on the ice (thanks to dad and big brother getting him out to play lot's last year). And luckily, Coach Jason (Jake's coach from last year) picked him to be on his team. I'm sure we'll have a great year, and lot's of fun :) As a matter of fact, I think I'm on the social committee.

Tyke evaluations are sooo cute. All of the kids are falling down all over the place. From a distance it's like watching popcorn in reverse. They pop down instead of up. They slowly get up, and then fall right back down again. You forget how cute they are, until you get to watch them again :)

Well this has turned into quite a long post, and I don't even have any pictures to add to it. BOORRRING! I'm so sorry, I will have clips after practice tomorrow, and add I will add them this week for your viewing pleasure.

Love,
Jodi

NICKELS FOR BLAKE

I had told a few of you I would remind you about the "nickels for Blake" fundraiser sometime throughout the year. Then I thought I might as well remind everyone. For those of you that don't have a clue what I'm talking about, my sister's baby passed away at 3 months of age, 2 years ago this past June. I've included a copy of the email Julie sent out before this years fundraiser. Please click on it to enlarge if you care to read it.

EMAIL FROM JULIE FOR LAST YEARS FUNDRAISER:


I'm also including the excerpt from the counry 105 Radiothon that Julie did. Some of you got it via email last year, and some of you didn't. Now everyone can hear it if you like. It's quite powerful - make sure to break out the tissue's before hand.

Julie's, Nickels for Blake, goal last year, was to raise $5000.00 for the Children's Hospital. When all was said and done, she deposited $9055.64. It turned out the money was used to buy a Genetic Testing Machine, and there has been a plaque placed on the donor wall at the new hospital that says "In Memory of Blake Giles"
So this is your 6 month reminder. Keep on collecting your nickels so we can be bigger and better and help more people for next year.



Love,
Jodi

Good Friends

This post is dedicated to all of our great friends we have. These last few days, I have been thinking about how fortunate we are to have so many great people in our life. It doesn't seem to matter where I turn, I am meeting all sorts of fabulous people. I have never before had so many great, great friends. Thank you all so much for being who you are, and being a part of my life. I love each and every one of you.

This weekend was another fantastic example of great people. We had so much fun! All the girls were really productive and got lots done. Everyone except me, I was too busy chatting and enjoying their company :) We had the best group of girls. I love it when everyone gets along, has fun, shares ideas and all their stuff. There were no judgements, no deadlines or timelines, just good old fashioned fun and good times. What a great way to spend the weekend.

The five of us went to the Bloomin Inn in Pincher Creek. It's a scrapbooking retreat. You leave on Friday and they feed you supper, 3 meals on Saturday, and breakie and lunch on Sunday. The rest of the time, you Scrapbook. The place is so nice. It has great energy, partly I think because it's in the country. There is beautiful scenery, and the weather was gorgeous (not that you spend any time outside, but if you wanted to you could). The people who own it and run it, are so warm hearted and welcoming. It's the perfect setting for a fabulous time. I've put together a little something to honor the girls from this weekend. Thanks girls, it was just what the doctor ordered......



Thanks to ALL of our friends..... we are so grateful for each and every one of you!

Love,
Jodi

FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

On Thursday Kolt had his first day of kindergarten. He's going to go to Kindergarten and then homeschool in grade one. I tried talking him into homeschooling this year and he told me, "I'm going to go to school until all my school is done and then homeschool in grade 1". How do I argue with that? He has to be at the school for 8:15. That is so early to have 3 kids out the door. I'm still driving him. At least until I know for sure he has the hang of it. Then I will ask our neighbors if he can walk with them. Or until we move to the farm and he takes the bus.
As you can see in the picture, he is considerably taller than most of the kids in his class. There is really only one other boy that is his height. My goodness is he ever a big boy! That is his teacher Mr. Milford at the front of the line. He has the same teacher that Jake had.

Kolt and I had a date on Sunday. We went to Spruce Meadows to watch the jumping. It was a great day for us. I really enjoyed watching Anky van Grunsven doing a dressage demo. I've seen her there for the last couple of years - she really is something to watch. This clip is really long, if you are only going to watch part of it, watch the last 2-1/2 minutes - it is the best. FF to about 4:30 or so. You will see one stride lead changes that are just incredible.



On Friday, I leave for the weekend to do some scrapbooking with the girls. It will be a great weekend, I'm sure. I'm really looking forward to it. Catch ya next week.

Love,
Jodi

Big Dog teaches new dogs tricks

I said I would post the flips the boys were doing, and then never did. So here they are. This first one if of Brian (big dog) showing them how it's done



Not that bad for a guy who's almost into his 30's

Here is little dog, trying to imitate.



Here is the "mini-me" dog



And here is baby dog doing a bum drop, cuz it's cute!



Love,
Jodi

The Golf Champions

It has been quite a while since my last post. For those of you that have been checking on my posts...my apologies. We have been busy (does anyone get tired of me saying that?) so there is plenty to catch up on.

For starters, Brian was in the Killarney's golf tournament the weekend of the 18th. On his team was his brother Greg, the kids hockey coach Jason, and neighbor Matt. They tied for first (if you had seen what kind of shape they were in when they arrived back in Airdrie off the party bus, trust me, you would have wondered HOW they ended up tied for first - hahaha!) Regardless, they played pool to break the tie, and they won! Here is the "keeper trophy" for the Killarney Cup.



I've also added a group picture with "the" Killarney cup. Yes, Jason is wearing a pink Rockstar hat, and yes, him and Brian are kissing the cup at the same time, and yes, that's Greg's arm embracing Jason, and apparently, Brian wanted to make sure everyone knew they were number one (hence the hand gesture).



Oh, and here is Matt. He won a backpack in one of the draws and was sooo darn proud, he wore it around the bar the whole night - so I took a picture as he was gloating with his "cool" backpack and the Killarney Cup. Oh and yes, this was after Brian and Jason were kissing it.



Oh, and here is what my Killarney Cup Champion looked like the next day. Still proud of his cup obviously, but wore out from all of the celebrations (I'm sure the other 3 were behaving similarly - haha!)



All in all, it was REALLY fun. There are so many great stories to go with the day. If you run into Greg, ask him how his ankle is. If you run into any of them, ask them about the stories, they are good for a laugh!

On Wednesday of this week, Brian & I whisked off to Vancouver Island. We came home on Friday. We golfed lot's. The weather was perfect (sunny & 25 degrees). We stayed in Bruce & Jan's summer home with them, it was a really nice time. Mom and Dad kept the kids. It sounded like they had a good time too!

I think that's all for now. We aren't sure what September long weekend will bring, but I'm sure it won't be without some excitement! Hope everyone has had a great summer!

Love,
Jodi

Hockey Camp Clips

Hi Everyone!

Well Kolt's hockey camp has come to an end. It was fun - he really enjoyed it. Kolt has found a new friend. He absolutely ADORES coach Jason. We had Jason and Sabrina and kids out to the farm for a fire after the last night of the camp. It didn't take long before Kolt climbed up on Jason's knee and made himself right at home! For those of you who know Kolt well, this is a little unorthodox. Lately, he has been coming more out of his shell, but mostly, he sticks pretty close to us. It's pretty neat to have such a great coach, that your kids like to hang out with them. On the other hand, I hope crawling on the coach's knee isn't something he does forever :o)

Here is a clip of the scrimmage they played at the end. Jason very kindly let Jake come on the ice also. In this clip, it's mostly Kolt, but at the end you'll see Kolt trip Jake and then they both fall down. It's pretty funny...



Kolt is doing very well. I'm so proud of him. He told me after the 3rd night of the camp, that Jake hit him in the head as hard as he could, and he didn't every cry.
If you know Jake, you'll know it was an accident, but it could easily have happened in the heat of the game. If you know Kolt, it would have been very hard for him to not take it personally and hold it against Jake for at least a couple of hours. It was a big step for him to carry on and not cry. What a big boy!

Jake's hockey camp goes until the end of August on Tuesday's and Thursday's, then we are done hockey until about October (WOW, a whole month break - what will we do with ourselves???).

Exciting news for us this week: I booked our plane tickets to Hawaii!! We leave October 20 and come home the 28th. I'm sooo looking forward to that! That's all for now!

Love,
Jodi

Hockey Super Star

Well, Kolt had his first 2 hockey days at his hockey camp last week. He did very well. He really enjoyed it. That's good cuz I wasn't honestly sure that he would. His favorite parts were the game Star Wars, the scrimmage, and skating (forwards and backwards). So I think that was pretty much everything! I'm going to try and get a clip of him in the scrimmage this week, but for now I have 2 video's to show. The first is of him practicing his stick handling.



This one is Kolt just skating around (do you think he's using his stick for balance at all?)







Finally, I wanted to thank my 4 commenters! Thanks for being a part of my fun - and thanks for coming to visit. For those of you that haven't commented - it would sure be nice to know you were here. If you haven't figured out how to do it yet, you will see under this post, a link that shows how many comments there have been. Click on it, it will come up with a box to leave your comments in. I don't think you actually have to have an account to leave a comment. You should be able to choose anonymous under the "choose your identity" spot. Just sign your name to your comment, then click on the "publish your comment" button. Now you're done, that's it, that's all!

Thanks for taking the time to check us out!

Love,
Jodi

August Long Weekend

We had a great weekend! Thursday, we had a little party at the farm with some of our friends off of Jake's hockey team last year. Some of them camped with us out there and some of them went home after.

Digger & Denise stopped by the farm on Saturday for a visit. I took pictures of them while they were here, just to prove they actually came. It has been a whole year since we have seen them. Denise is expecting, and she is gonna have that baby on my birthday! Her due date in Feb 21, but as far as I'm concerned Feb 18 makes better babies, (for sure she doesn't want to have it on Feb 20 - that is Brian's birthday, can you imagine him for your first child??) so Feb 18 it is! That is their cute pug Kylee in between.

Brian was teaching the boys how to do flips on the trampoline this weekend. Neither of them are landing on their feet, but both of them are doing it. It was pretty impressive, learning how to do a flip in one day. I have some footage of it all - will post that tomorrow maybe.

Monday we (we being mostly Brian), cleaned out the 2 shops on the farm. What a job! It is so nice to have it done. Now the boys have a place to play lacrosse or hockey that is inside and lit. They are 2 lucky boys, with all this stuff and room to roam. We are all sure lucky to have the farm - how much longer till we live there? Are we there yet? How much loooonnger?

That is all for now. Kolt starts hockey tonight - we are all pretty pumped. I'll keep ya posted!

Love,

Jodi

(I'm not sure what Kolt was doing in this picture. He wanted me to take it and post it for the blog - so there ya go. This is Kolt driving the quad at the farm)

Hockey

Jake was at a hockey camp in Sylvan Lake from July 15-21. It was quite a rough week on him. He scraped his knees the day before we left, he scraped his elbows the first night we were there. He got blisters on his feet from his skates and on the 3rd night he fell out of the top bunk in our holiday trailer while he was sleeping and cut the back of his head open.
The cut on his head was scary, there was lot's of blood. We thought for sure his helmet wasn't going to go on the next day. Thanks to some doctoring, and healing touch techniques Mom had taught me, he was able to finish the week. It was quite a procedure to re-bandage him every day. I bought $60 in extra first aid stuff just to keep him rigged up. Here is a clip of him playing at the end of the week.



Kolt finally gets to start hockey next week. He is in a hockey camp for tykes, that Jake's coach from last year is putting on. After all the Jake hockey hype around here, it'll be interesting to see if he loves it or not. I hope he does, it's so fun to watch. We have made some really great friends from hockey, especially this last year. We were on a really great team. If he's not into hockey, maybe he will be my cowboy (since lately Brian has dropped the ball there). That would be just fine with me......since it really is all about me isn't it?
We are taking it easy this long weekend. We need a break from all of the busy-ness. Watch for video clips of Kolt playing hockey next week!

Love,
Jodi

Sprinkler Day

We had a sprinkler day a couple of days ago. It has just been so hot. Drew doesn't do well in the heat, she over heats really quickly, so I thought it would be fun to cool her off that way. Here is the video of her first time trying to run through. You can hear her laughing at the beginning of the clip - I love baby laughs! She never really ran through the sprinkler on her own. She was very girly screaming the whole way through - it was perfect!



And here is the video of Kolt at Discovery Canyon I promised a few days ago. What a neat place..... Good news... I remembered how to post the video this time the first time I did it!

Catch Up

What a busy week!! Rafting down the river was quite an experience I'll tell ya! Our little 3 hour raft trip turned into 6-1/2 hours. Apparently when you have a headwind stronger than the current, it actually can more than double your time - who knew? There were times when captain Greg (Brian's brother) quit rowing, that we actually floated backwards against the current! Poor Guy had blisters on his hands after. It was an adventure, down on the river, no cell phone service, not one other person in site. This first picture of captain Greg, was in the beginning. Cool looking white guy, out rafting with 4 of us Girls.

This is captain Greg at the end of the trip. Totally covered up because cool looking white guy had turned into slightly cranky looking lobster man. He had been desperately smearing on sunscreen for about the last 2 hours before we finally told him to give it up and put on a visor (hahaha!) and cover up with a towel (that totally looked like a dress - hahaha!) What a day!

Man, are we surrounded by love lately. This weekend was our 4th and final wedding of July (we didn't actually make it to one of them - it overlapped Jake's hockey camp). This time it was my cousin Daylene's wedding. It was outdoor at her Mom & Dad's place. We wish them well as they looked very happy together. We did snap a picture of my whole family though - looking quite dapper I must say. New guy on the right is Julie's boyfriend Reg.

(LtoR: Brian, Drew, Me, Mom, Dad, Julie (sister), Reg (Julie's beau), and of course Kolt & Jake in front)

Friday night was the Nickelback concert. We had so much fun! What a show they put on. We've been before, but I think this time they were better - which is saying something. The lead singer is from Hanna Alberta. They were fantastic! I'm leaving you with a video clip of a song of theirs they raised over $500,000 with, for Amnesty International. I love it when influential people do their part for making the world a better place. They can do so much good, so quickly. Very admirable! They had this video playing on the screen as they sang the song.

Discovery Canyon

While we were gone last week we found a little spot in Red Deer called Discovery Canyon. The water was warm (so was the day - 32•C). We could only stay for a couple of hours, but we had a great time. The kids loved it. I've got a video of Kolt tubing I will post later (when I figure out how to do it again, hahaha!) but for now you can see the pics.

Brian and Drew having a mud fight.

Drew being cute!

Jake with his tube

Brian and Drew trying to tube

A cold Kolt sunning himself on a rock

I'm going on a 5 hour raft ride down the Red Deer River today, i'ts supposed to be real hot out! We've got beer and snacks, water and sun, and no kids! I'd be jealous if I were you! This is the recipe for a perfect day!

Be back tomorrow with more pics and hopefully a video.

Love,

Jodi

G'monin you widdle wascal

(click on the pic to see it larger)

"G'monin you widdle wascal". That is what Kolt said to Drew this morning. Good morning you little rascal. It was so sweet. Where do they come up with these things? And the way he talks....far too cute! One of those moments I wish I'd had on camera.

This is what the kids have spent most of their time doing when we are home. Jake is on the little quad and he pulls Drew and Kolt in the wagon. Jake mostly drives the quad but Kolt takes a few turns driving too. Drew will stay in there for hours (it's the best thing ever!)

See those flowers behind them? They were beautiful until the hail got to them last night - not so beautiful anymore.....

No, we have not moved out to the farm yet for those who are wondering. We did get a new holiday trailer, and we are mostly living in it out at the farm. It has air conditioning, it has saved us on these dog days of summer I'll tell ya. Can't wait to move out there - we have so enjoyed all of the space. I'm afraid we are quite a long ways away from moving - ....renovations.... (sigh).

Still have lot's of posts from the last week or more. I just wanted to put in what Kolt said before I forgot.

Love,

Jodi

Hello!!

Just wanted to say Hello! We're back! I got some really great pics this week - I have lot's to post. I will try and spread it out over a few days for all of you all. In the meantime, for those of you that are interested, here's the link that has Trish's slideshow of wedding pics. (I'm in one of the pics on the rocks in front of the lake with her). This photographer is amazing!! If nothing else it is worth going just to see the pictures she takes - exceptionally talented lady.

http://www.orangegirlphotographs.com/slideshows/TrishMikeWedding

Drew won't let me sit here any longer - enjoy the slideshow - many more pics to come!!!

Love,
Jodi

Walking down the aisle

Here they are - the little darlings! The clip cuts off at the end because Drew was about to bolt and mom had to come to the rescue - it's short, it's sweet and you'll get the picture. Sorry it took so long to post, being a mom of 3, I have to re-learn how to post a video everytime I do it (I think I used to make fun of my mom for that!).

Love,
Jodi

Jake and Drew


Reagan, Kolt, Jake and Drew



Barry and Haley




Barry and Haley finally tied the knot.

Brian's little brother got married on Saturday. My boys were the ring bearers, and Drew was one of the flower girls. The other flower girl was my niece Reagan (Greg and Lisa's daughter). They did a fantastic job. I didn't get many great pictures - it was a very busy day. Hopefully the photographer got some good ones!

I was the MC for the reception. It actually turned out really good (They even laughed when I made a joke - phew!). It was a really fun night. I heard from a few people it was probably one of the best wedding receptions they had been to. It was upbeat, there were some good laughs, and all the speech's were short and in good taste.

I'll try and get the video posted of the kids coming down the isle too.

The Giles side is having a get together in honour of Daylene's (my cousin) upcoming wedding this Wednesday, and Brian and I are off to our good friends Mike and Trish's wedding at Emerald Lake Lodge this coming weekend. Next week is Jake's hockey camp in Sylvan Lake. There won't be any stampeding for me this year :(

Love
Jodi

P.S. You can click on the pictures to see it bigger if you like.

Mutton Bustin'

Alright, for those of you that have checked the blog, thankyou. Hopefully I will get the clip to load.....here's hoping.

Kolt did the mutton bustin' at the Rodeo on July 1st. He didn't exactly make the 8 seconds - but it's really cute. He didn't care. He said that he will do it again when he is 6. He is planning on doing everything when he is 6. I guess that's when he thinks life starts. He's sure gonna be busy next year

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Houseboating

Hi Everyone

I'm back from houseboating!! What a great trip we had. What a great bunch of girls! Here's a pic of the girls (minus the one taking the pic) on our boat "Richard's Dream". We dubbed it "Dick's dream" - seemed suitable for a stagette! We did lot's of relaxing and tanning (some of us did some burning while everyone else wore sunscreen). I missed the kids and Brian, but not too much (like I usually do). They did great. The biggest hang up Brian had was doing Drew's hair - but it sounds like that even turned out successfully!

Left to Right in Picture: Ceclie (Trish's mom), Heather (Mike [Trish's fiancee]'s sister, Trish, Susan, Me, Jenny [Mike's other sister], Lara and Judy.

Take care everyone. Oh and while we're at it - why don't you post to the comments while you're here. Then I know that all my postings haven't been in vain.

Love,
Jodi

Kolt's Graduation

Here's the pics from Kolt's preschool graduation. How adorable was he?





Friday morning I leave for 3 days to go houseboating with "the girls". It's Trish's stagette. Sounds like a great time but I'm not sure how well I will do with only myself to look after. I have become very low maintenance compared to all who I look after on a daily basis. It'll still be fun - just pretty low key compared to what I'm used to.

The big concern seems to be who I am leaving the kids with. They will be with Brian. (I'm sure his mom and mine will get to spend some "quality time" with them too!) We will all be fine, just a little out of routine. (Do I sound convinced??)

I'll be back monday with some pics from the trip. Have a great weekend everyone!

Love,
Jodi