An Intro to Me

At our brown belt meeting this morning, the discussion came up about the current candidates receiving their black belts, and about all SRKF current black belts having a say in them receiving this honor. One of the points mentioned was that some of those black belts may never have actually met you, and will only know you through your blogging. Both my husband Don and I realized we are in that same situation, and came up with the idea to write a personal bio for a bit of background on who we our. This of course is written from our eyes, so this bio will have some bias. 

As of today, February 12, 2021 (and day 2 of the year of the OX), I am 48 years old, and going into my 7th year of Kung Fu, as I started in March of 2014. I will do my best to keep this bio as short as possible and factual, as there is a lot of years of age there! To date I have written 48 blogs - 11 in my 1st I Ho Chuan year (bad), and 37 in my second year of IHC (better), and this will be my 3rd consecutive year in IHC. 

I am passionate about several things, but my top 3 besides Kung Fu are my family, my career, and my commitment to volunteering, so I will keep this blog to those 3 areas of my life. I consider myself a person that is Driven (my word of the year last year), honest, hard working, and emotional. 

My family - my husband Don and I have been together for almost 20 years, and married for almost 16 of those. I have 3 wonderful children, and a much loved dog. 

My eldest son Kyle is 28 next week, a Red Seal ticketed pipe fitter at 21 years old, and an honest, hard working young man. He is also apprenticing to be a heavy duty mechanic, and owns 40 acres of land in the Warburg area, which is currently up for sale. He loves being a redneck. My daughter Kaitlyn is 25, and is the mother of my beautiful 18 month old granddaughter Maisy. She and my son in law Josh have been married for almost 3 years. She was a University student at 17, and has a teaching and drama degree, as is now a full time teacher for at home learning students. She represented Canada at the World Championship of Performing Arts in California 2 years in a row at age 14 and 15, and won a Scholarship to the New York Conservatory of Dramatic Arts, and attended for 6 weeks at the age of 16. She loves to be a Drama Queen. My youngest son Kody is 15, and also a SRKF student in his 13th year, as he started a month before his 3rd birthday. He is a wonderful, caring young man, in his first year of high school in grade 10. He excels at Science and Math, and is currently learning to drive to get his license this year! He is the one all of the grandparents can count on, as his family is so very important to him, especially his grandparents. I consider him to be my gentle giant at 6'1 and 200 pounds. He is my big teddy bear, and will love that I am saying this! 

My career - I spent 25 years as a server mostly, working in 3 different restaurants, and am currently a Personal Relationship Manager and 360 Advisor with ATB Financial. I enjoyed being a server, and this enabled me to be an at home (single) mom, before Don and I met. I was approached by an ATB team member to join their team, and at just turning 40 years old, I was looking for a change. I had some college accounting courses, and bookkeeping background, so I took the plunge, and it was one of the best decisions I have ever made. I love what I do, and the guidance and assistance I can provide for my customers to help make their lives a better, healthier, happier life. I have won 7 quarterly awards (chosen by my peers), an Iron Roster award (highest sales), and 2 President League awards (chosen by top management, and ATB's highest award honor), I was also named employee of the year by the Spruce Grove Chamber of Commerce in my 1st year of banking. I continuously look for ways to learn new things, adjust to constant change in the banking world, and to better myself for my team, and my customers. 

My commitment to volunteering - I love to volunteer, and think it is a very important part of life to give back, and to help to make our communities richer. I spent 21 years as a Chairperson for the Festival of Trees for the University Hospital Foundation, and in those years helped to raise millions of dollars for the UHF, and the Stollery Children's Hospital. I spent many years on the board, and the volunteer mom at the kids playschools, and was an avid volunteer at my kids schools in any capacity I could be, until I started at the bank. I spent 7 years as a committee member of Blueberry baseball, helping to run 7 adult and 2 kids baseball teams, and then several years as a Treasurer, and kids coach with Spruce Grove Baseball, with over 700 kids in the program. Every year I am involved with several fundraisers through ATB, including the Stollery Children's hospital, the Parkland Foodbank, and many community initiatives. As much as possible, I am involved with all the fundraisers, and community initiatives with SRKF as well. 

I have purposely left out my Kung Fu in this, as I write about my journey in all of my blogs. This bio is the 'Shiny' stuff, and of course there is the not so shiny, but I will leave that blog for another day. I would like to think I am perfect, but of course that would be silly. I do my best to be the best person I can be, but there is always room and need for improvement, which I also strive for. 

My apologies for the long blog, but wanted to give a bit of my personal life to you all.