Howdy from the Calgary Stampede official family!

The following note from a loyal reader in Lethbridge, Alberta, is one of many special greetings that SooToday.com will be publishing over the holidays.

If you're a former resident now living 200 or more kilometres away, SooToday.com would be delighted to post your 800-word-or-less message.

It's absolutely free, but the deadline is midnight on New Year's Eve.

For details, click here.

*************************** It has been almost seven months now since we have moved from the Soo to what we were told was sunny and hot Lethbridge Alberta.

Soon after we arrived here we were met with torrential rain and horrific winds that flooded this whole region and washed out the Trans Canada highway.

So much for missing the water in and around the Soo, we didn’t want to see another drop of water after that.

After the rain calmed down it was rodeo time, we experienced our first Calgary Stampede.

As we arrived at the rodeo, two gentlemen approached us.

They mentioned that the 2010 Calgary Stampede was themed the “year of the family” and if we wanted to we would be it!

This meant that we were given corral-side seats (which was great because we only had standing tickets!), we would be given a behind-the-scenes tour of how the rodeo operates and they threw in a few cowboy hats for the four of us.

There was one catch though.

At the beginning and midpoint of the rodeo we would have to get up on stage in front of the crowd (about 15,000 people) and tell them a little about us and what we had seen.

No problem, we told ourselves and it wasn’t.

It was one of the most fun days we have had and we’ll never forget it.

Since we have been here we have done a lot of travelling and exploring.

We have seen beautiful parts of this country and western United States, parts we never really thought we might ever see, instead of our view of Lake Superior we get to look at the Rocky Mountains.

We’ve been camping in the Rockies a few times, run across grizzly bears and their cubs in late spring as well as coming across a cougar on one of our camping trips.

We were extremely lucky to see this because people who have lived here their whole life have never seen one before in the wild.

It pays to get out and explore, something we have always done even in our short three years that we lived in the Soo.

We are very happy here in Lethbridge, especially when it comes to paying for things at the cashier.

Five percent tax is a whole lot better and very noticeable at the register, you get used to it very quickly.

Who knew that things can be so regionally different in Canada?

Catherine wanted to get a can of apple juice, she got a “you want what” response, there is no canned apple juice anywhere to be found here - strange.

All in all, life in the west is very good but different.

We find ourselves thinking about our friends back in the Soo at this time of the year wishing them all a Merry Christmas and all the best in 2011.

Every time we take the kids to hockey, it isn’t the Peewee where we expect to know half of the parents in the stands and the friendly face of Larry in the pro shop; it’s the Labour or Civic arena where we only know the parents of the team.

That will come in time just like it did when we move to the Soo and we know that but we miss it.

Catherine is still wishing Lina would set up a Giovanni’s here or that we could meet for lunch down at Panna, Muio’s or head up to The Voyageur Cookhouse to see Frank and Gail for some great whitefish.

From the west, we would like to say hello and Merry Christmas to all of our Soo friends out east.

We hope you had a great Christmas like we did!

We miss you but we’ll see you next summer; we are already planning a trip to spend some time in the Soo to get our fill of beaches and lakes as well as our favourite food.

See you then!

- The Drenths (Jason, Catherine, Matthew and Lauren)

*************************** Look who else has written to us this year

大家好! Happy holidays from Taiwan! Snowed in for Christmas. In England Christmas 400 kilometres southeast of Beijing Thanks for the support while our daddy has been away Life is beautiful in Hammertown! Chris Carr sends us a picture. From Calgary Howdy from the Calgary Stampede official family!