Oh Canada!!!

We went to the Canadian Finals Rodeo the beginning of November. This is the first year that Nate has qualified, they have only been letting Americans in for the past three years. It was an amazing experience and Nate did really great. It was a great way to end his year. The finals were held in Edmonton, Alberta. We left on a Monday and drove all day, then stopped just after the border, then drove again the next day and arrived at about two in the afternoon. They put us up in the Edmonton Coast Plaza hotel, which was very nice. The finals consist of six rounds, starting on Wednesday and ending on Sunday. With back to back performances on Saturday. So including driving and everything, we were there for about nine days. It was a blast. We hung out a lot with our friends Matt and Ali Shi0zawa. He qualified too. We had the chance to visit their huge mall in West Edmonton a few times, and it was amazing. I will post all of the pictures. Ledger did really good on the drive and sitting through rodeo. He is pretty used to going to rodeos, but this time it was a little more complicated, I sat all by myself each night which is different cause I usually sit by my friends, other contestants wives, or my family. Nate's parents were planning on coming, but with his dads health they decided against it. We were sad! So each night I would try and have everything all ready so I wouldn't have to get out of my seat. The roping was down a ways, like the sixth or seventh event... so he roped at about nine thirty every night and the rodeo started at seven. Each night when Nate backed in the box to rope they would announce that he was a new daddy in June to a baby boy named Ledger, so all the people in my section eventually caught on to who we were. When they would say that Ledge would be so GROUCHY, squealing... after he had been patient the whole rodeo. I thought it was funny that he could be so good every night clear up until that point. Ha Ha, he is so funny! All in all Nate did good at the rodeo, a great little year end bonus, and the Canadian Finals had us all singing, "OH CANADA" the whole way home!!!!
By the way i have not made a post forever, and I was planning on going private by Thanksgiving... but now it is almost Christmas and I am sure it will be a while before I really do, so please still if you want an invite leave me your e-mail address, I would love for anyone who wants to to keep looking!!!!

This was after the last round, we were really happy Nate had just won the round... it sure made the drive home a lot more fun!!!

Nate and Ledger getting ready for round four.... I tried to color coordinate!! Ha Ha..

This was at dinner after the third round of the rodeo, it was at a restaurant called The Keg..... so good, a great steakhouse, we went here almost every night after the rodeo, with Matt and Ali.

It had a petting zoo, pretty funny, chickens, sheep and everything, kinda made me think of the fair!!!

It had over 100 sit down restaurants and two food courts.

They had like a sea world marine center, where they had a sea lion show, it was really cute!

Water slides at the water park, they also had bungee jumping, and a complete kid playground, so fun!!!

This is the water park in the mall, this is the wave pool. When you walked into the water it was like 90 degrees!

Ledge and Cosmo, the amusement park is called Galaxy Land.

A good picture of some of the amusement park, pretty cool!!!

Ledge and I in the amusement park at the mall, he is a little too short for all the rides, maybe next year!!!

Ledge and his daddy on tough enough to wear pink night, for those of you not familiar with rodeo, this is a tribute to breast cancer that they usually do at every major rodeo. A percentage of the money raised goes toward breast cancer research. So it is pretty cool. But yes, Ledge did get called a girl a few times that night!!! Oh well, it was for a good cause!!!

Nate in the opening ceremonies, the grand entry!

Ledge at the hotel, right after we got there, posing for some photos!!!