Hello all! Below is the epilogue to our sailboat travels aboard s/v Tioga from April 2002 to December 2006. If you are landing on our page for the first time, have a look at our travels from the beginning by clicking on the year 2002 and August was the first post. I hope you enjoy working through the years of our trip. We tried to keep it both family oriented and educational.
Life back in land locked Alberta, Canada keeps ticking at an incredible pace and things are pretty much like they were before our departure to Sail Away back in April of 2002, except our boys are now young men.
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| Chris, Joel, Sheila and Gerrit |
We lived in Red Deer, Alberta for 7 years (2007-2014) for various reasons. It was central and close to all our families, which was important after being gone for so long. It was nice to be able to connect with family in a quick trip either north to Edmonton, south to Calgary or north west to the Breton / Drayton Valley area! Also, the price of real estate in Calgary had doubled since we left so quite frankly we needed a more affordable location to get some money going and re-set.
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Our home in Cochrane
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In 2014 we made the move to Cochrane, Alberta, the town we have wanted to live in since the early 1990's. We managed to secure a beautiful home along the banks of the Bow River and near the little down town. We used to love to golf and our new home sits in a golf course community so that is a huge bonus.
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| Chris and Sheila on a sunset cruise in Banderas Bay, Mexico |
Chris became a licensed mortgage broker back in Red Deer, and together with Sheila he created Richards Mortgage Group Inc (RMGI). He deals in real estate finance with all sorts of twists in people lives and thus has created a very successful 5* company that continues to help people all across Canada. Sheila is the book keeper for RMGI and does some various client contact, plus she is a part-time phlebotomist with Canadian Blood Services (CBS). Our careers both transported when we made the move to Cochrane and we now run RMGI out of our home, and when Sheila isn't working for RMGI she makes the drive to Calgary for CBS shifts. We are still super active and get outside as much as possible, whether camping, hiking, biking, cross country skiing or whatever is going on in the great outdoors.
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| Joel with Nova in the mountains :) |
Joel graduated from Notre Dame High School in Red Deer in 2012. He took a gap year and moved to Banff, Alberta where he worked in the food and beverage industry at the Rimrock Hotel. During his time there he hiked and skied every chance he could. In 2017 he graduated with an Honors Economics degree from the University of Calgary. In 2019 Joel became a licensed mortgage broker and now he and his dad work together to build RMGI even stronger.
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| Victoria, Nova and Joel hiking somewhere. |
In 2020, Joel met Victoria and together along with their dog, Nova, they live in Calgary, Alberta. Joel is still a huge outdoor adventurist who gets to the mountains as often as he can no matter the season. "The Mountains Are Calling" is his moto.
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| Gerrit and their cats Rolo and Onyx :) |
Gerrit graduated from Notre Dame High School in Red Deer in 2014. He too took a gap year and headed off to Costa Rica on a WWOOF (Worldwide Opportunities in Organic Farms) experience. That experience solidified his decision to attend Olds College in 2016 where he achieved a Bachelor of Science in Horticulture. He then completed the Dr. Elaine Ingham Soil Food Web School where he has furthered his education in regenerating agricultural soils. Gerrit is currently the master grower for Living Cannabis near Enderby, BC where he has the opportunity to grow in living soil, which are fully organic, holistic and regenerative.
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| Barley, Gerrit, Beth and Sophie. |
In 2017 Gerrit met Beth while working at Aurora Cannabis and she has literally been by his side since as they still work together at Living Cannabis. They have 2 dogs, Barley and Sophie plus 2 cats, Rolo and Onyx.
Though our lives are busy and we all live in different places, we love getting together whenever we can. Thanks again for following our story.
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| Annual camping trip to BC |
