Officially a Hockey "Mom"...

Yes it is official... I'm a hockey mom... 

Now before the rumors start, no I'm NOT pregnant lol, and even though I'm fully prepared to be a hockey mom when we have our own children, for the next 8 or 9 months I am a hockey "mom" to someone else's son :)  Two days before we left for holidays we welcomed Patrik Parkkonen, an 18 year old defenceman from Finland who is playing with the Medicine Hat Tigers.

(photo from the Tigers website)

For the past year as we have been finishing our basement, we had it in the back of our minds that if we could finish one of the bedrooms and the bathroom in time for hockey season that we would put our names in to be a billet family for a Tiger player.  Justin's family billeted for a while when he was a kid, and we have a few friends who are or have been WHL billets and all of them have had such a positive experience that we thought we'd give it a try!  Both Justin and I attended high school away from home and lived with other families for the school year so we are well acquainted with what it's like to be a young person living away from home.  We thought if we could open our home and give someone else a positive experience, why not?  We are very involved in hockey in Medicine Hat anyways so it just seemed like a natural decision for us.  

This is Patrik's second year with the Tigers so his English is pretty good.  Every now and then he kinda searches for a word but for the most part he seems quite comfortable with the language.  The other night, I was puttering in the kitchen baking and he and Justin were huddled around Justin's laptop watching hockey (surprise surprise lol!) and it's like I saw a snapshot of what our lives will look like several years from now lol!  Patrik has been a great addition to our home and we are excited to get to know him better as the year goes on.

And of course with it being the middle of September already, hockey is in full swing around our house.  Justin is the head coach of a Pee Wee AA rep team this year and they are well underway with practices already.  He is really excited about his coaching staff and the caliber of players they have to work with this season, we are expecting a great year.  So I am officially the keeper of the hockey schedules, two teams' resident fan and the cook hahaha!  We are looking forward to a great season with Justin's team as well as watching Patrik and the Tigers play!