Hello Monarchs fans!  I'm back with another touching blog on summer fun and what a Monarch does in the off-season.  I know what I do may be different from say Lewie (Trevor Lewis) or Azey (Justin Azevedo) since they live downtown in their respective cities, but I know they can relate to my off-season activities on some level.

Well, I recently got back from a big country music festival called the Craven Country Music Jamboree.  It's a four day event that has lots of acts and two different stages.  It's a huge camping spot that fills up quickly with 22,500 people, and becomes the fifth biggest city in Saskatchewan for the weekend.  It's in the valley, so the rain that fell on Wednesday made things fun since there was mud everywhere.  People were booting it through the mud, dragging the camper behind just to get in to the grounds.  Once they were in, there were lots of great performers including Miranda Lambert, Jason Aldean, Martina McBride, Luke Bryan and the headliner on Sunday night was none other than Kenny Chesney.  Although they all put on great shows, my favorite still remains Eric Church.  He is phenomenal in concert and really pumps up the crowd.  It was an unbelievable time and the highlight of my summer, even if there was a bear we had to shoo away on Friday night!

On a more serious side to summer, training is going very well.  Since there is no track in Wapella, I do my active warm-up and running right on the street in front of my house.  It's nice because I can do a workout and chat with whoever goes by.  Once all that is done, I jump in the truck and drive 15 minutes down to Moosomin to go to the gym.  It's usually not too packed in there either so I can really do whatever.  If I had to place myself on the toughness scale, I must be up there with Westy (Kevin Westgarth) somewhere.  No, I'm just joking.  I have a lot of work to do to be like that, including grow out my hair.

Sundays are usually the Holloway's lake days.  There is a little lake about a half hour down the road from us that we used to stay on when I was growing up.  We spent all of our summers in the old cabin at the west end of the lake.  It was really nice because there were kids from Wapella there my own age and we got to run wild.  But now it's a little different; now mom, dad, my sister and her two boys, and I just take the drive down to hangout.  Usually it starts out with some tubing or some wakeboarding!  The boys love to go on the tube although they usually end up asleep within a half hour.  Once they arise, they like to go swimming with their uncle.  We throw on the life jackets and away we go.  They still have yet to let go of me but the fact that they like the water is awesome.  After all the water sports are done, we head into Auntie’s cabin (the one that used to be ours) and always have an unreal feast.  I'm not even sure where all the food comes from but it is amazing.  Now, it's my favorite part...fishing.  I love being on the lake alone just trolling around and catching walleye.  It's even better when they’re biting like they have been.

That wraps up my blog for this time.  I hope everyone has a better feel for what I do for relaxation and also workouts.  Well, I look forward to seeing everyone in the fall and hope everyone is enjoying their summer as much as I have been.  If not, just follow the outstanding lyrics of Eric Church:

"I believe hard work really makes the man... but everyone should wet a line every now and then."

I also hope the boys are all having a great summer, especially DK (David Kolomatis) – he's a rascal.

Bud