My friend Barry has a house right on the Bow River down in Bowness, which is an interesting community mix of hood and people with money. Those with resources buy a lot or two backing onto the river, tear down the older homes on them and build lovely places. In the summer I had a great Yamaha motorcycle, but I was (for some baffling reason) checking Kijiji … Continue reading A Day’s Ride

Once again, my wife Erin is an avid green thumber. Only puppies make her happier than pulling weeds and watching things grow. About all I do in the yard is mow the grass, but my neighbour Jackie has managed to beat me every single year we’d been here with having grass slightly greener than mine. It’s not a competition but it is, you know? And the grass … Continue reading The Racket

In a recent camping trip to Grande Prairie, our family rediscovered the beauty up north. The country is so different, the people quite redneck, and literally everyone owns a pickup, multiple ATVs and horses. First of all, I love me some rednecks. I was curious what the definition of redneck was so I looked it up, only to find it related generally to poor, uneducated white folk … Continue reading Side by Side(s)

So when we went back a year in time to cave-living with the recent baffling shutdown, Venue’s live experiences (and every church in the province) were deemed both unsanitary, non-essential and unconstitutional by the powers that be, while liquor stores and the ever present Walmart, which hold people’s bodies, souls and minds together so well remain open, the Kope family decided to go camping for … Continue reading Long Haulin’

My wife has a green thumb. She loves spending an afternoon outside grubbing around in the dirt and comes in with wild hair, tired but happy. I hate getting my hands dirty, which is a bit odd as I had a life in the trades for quite some time. But when my hands get dirty it irritates me, and when I decide something bothers me it really … Continue reading Orphan Horse

So my wife Erin had a Venue women’s zoom call on the topic of Warrior Women and decided some of the gals should go tribal and paint their faces for it. I came home from something and Erin materializes in front of me with wild hair, face painted all crazy, and a hunting gleam in her eye. It was pretty hot, but a little scary. Also she … Continue reading Who Runs the World?

Sunday morning before church my wife told me “Lloyd the fish is dead”. Another fish funeral with an iPhone playing a bagpipe rendition of Amazing Grace on the funeral march to its watery grave with the family in tow…My wife loves animals and has no problem whatsoever explaining that she likes them more than people. Not that she doesn’t like people, but she likes animals even … Continue reading Lloyd the Fish

When my girls began babysitting I set them up with a little business plan. This included how to stay in contact with parents properly, how hard they need to work when they’re not looking after the kids, how repeat customers are worth giving a break to, and how Venue people get the best rates because serving is important and family is family. Now it should be mentioned … Continue reading Adventures in Babysitting

Our family recently travelled to Buck Lake to stay in a mansion for a couple of nights. With these travel restrictions I think we’re all going a little nutty and missing the natural change of scenery we are accustomed to and it’s adding unnecessary pressure on our lives that is quite risky for family, marriage, and mental health. We needed to get away where we didn’t have … Continue reading Buck Lake!

The day has finally arrived that every parent dreams of: our oldest daughter is leaving the house. From the moment she arrived we couldn’t help but think “This is amazing, but hopefully we’ll get our lives back soon?”Scene missing…Three more daughters, and some horrible parenting adventures later, we are ready to get rid of her. “Arwen, you’ve been a great addition to this family, but it’s … Continue reading Arwen is Out

Ever meet someone you can’t tell anything to?  I met Bob on a job site when I was in my twenties. I’d worked for a particular electrical company as a third year then moved because work kept drying up. A year later I returned as a favour for a month because I had a good relationship with the owner and my new company had a lull … Continue reading What About Bob

Erin often leaves her phone ringer on which drives me crazy because her ring tones aren’t great and go on forever and I have to hear them. I tried to help her by clean-editing a version of Without Me by Eminem to notify her when I called as a romantic surprise years ago, which was especially hilarious when she was at the Telus Spark during orientation … Continue reading Phone Fumble

I’m an optimist. If I’m shovelling something nasty I’m looking for a pony…Now as a child I was a pretty severe asthmatic so wearing a mask is not something that I find fun, particularly when I’m uncertain masks do anything to help with viruses according to the types of research that develops and critiques approval of drugs etc. I think they make us feel safer and … Continue reading Masks and Bank Robbers

For some reason I thought I’d have to shovel snow forever because I only had daughters? Before you ladies lash out and give me the “equal rights” speech, keep in mind I live with five of your kind and have heard it all before. Personally I would love to give up any rights if someone else wanted to shovel the driveway for me. Also it might be noted some … Continue reading It’s a Joy to Shovel

My neighbour Jackie and I have been watching Telus and their co-conspirators desecrate our yards for the past month or so. I began the journey to their fibre development of Coopers very smugly, looking back. I love fast internet and hate slow.. well.. anything, so I signed up for their free install into my yard. Ironically the small town we lived in previously began the fibre instal … Continue reading My Poor Yard

Neela is my last daughter and Neela is great. One of her sisters showed us a video of her attempting to sing Twinkle Twinkle when she was tiny and it was so cute you’d push a lab puppy trying to lick you out of the way to see it again. THAT’S how cute it was. Neela is a precious bundle of awe and wonder that enters every room … Continue reading Neela is Great

Katie is my third daughter and Katie is great. Katie is smart. Like scary smart. I’ve always secretly wished I’d married someone dumber than I was and had dumber kids. It would be nice for people to nod in respect at me because of my intelligence rather than what they do now:Smile sympathetically at my wife and girls for having to do all the thinkin’, then address … Continue reading Katie is Great

Ailish is my second daughter and Ailish is great. This should sum up her competence for you…Venue Church is three and a half years old. For the first couple of years I would write up the service orders and other things and send them out until one day I delegated it to her. From that moment on there were no more mistakes. Like EVER. The funny thing … Continue reading Ailish is Great

Arwen is my first daughter and she’s great. Arwen has a way of rolling through life getting tricky things accomplished while somehow creating no waves. Now our four girls occasionally make waves and fight with each other, but Arwen for the most part has a way about her that eases tension while getting stuff done. Her mind is a cutting one but it doesn’t make one feel cut if you … Continue reading Arwen is Great

Erin is my wife and she’s great. The first conversation I had with her impressed upon me the people intelligence she has. We were forming a band back in the day and she remarked “The bass player is great, but might not be in the best musical shape..”If an 8 on the enneagram like myself described him, it would have sounded like this:“He’s terrible.”She made it sound … Continue reading Erin is Great