About Kootenai County, ID

This week I celebrated another birthday. I won't admit to which one it was, but here's a riddle for my clever readers: My age is now the same as my birth year!

I came across this sign in my travels:
"When was the last time
you did something for the first time?"

It got me thinking. Since my last birthday, I started a quest to stop sitting on the sidelines while life passes me by. I got up, got moving, lost a lot of weight and did a whole lot of things I had never done before. For most of them, I was blessed to have my sister, Kerri, at my side. It has been exhilarating!

I made a list of my First Times accomplished this past year. I'm sure more will come to me, but here's the list I came up with:

Began working out with a trainer

Entered and completed (walking with a cane) my first fun run - 12K Bloomsday 2011

(And several other fun runs after that, caneless)

Was a fashion model, Women's Council of Realtors Fashion Show

Swam the Long Bridge

Rode the Route of the Hiawatha Bike Trail

Hiked to the top of Canfield Mountain

Paddled around in a Kayak and decided to join a Kayak Club

I told Kerri it was past time for us to schedule another First Time sister adventure, and we decided to put para sailing on our calendars this summer! That should give us a little time to shed a few more pounds for less drag on the sail! Keep an eye out for us above Lake Coeur d'Alene!

It's been a good year full of fun activity. Two high points were participating with my kids and my granddaughters in the Route of the Hiawatha ride and a Thanksgiving Turkey Trot.

The old Janna would have sat it out and cheered them on from the sidelines. The new Janna was there with them, joining in the fun and making memories! It was a pinnacle moment, and I plan to have many, many more of them!

When was the last time you did something for the first time?

What a great day in North Idaho! Frontier Ice Arena has met the financial goal with the last $14,000 donation coming in the past week.

Work at completing the ice arena which is at 90% completion and is now moving forward towards opening day in June 2012. Our community has lots of kids and adults waiting to get on the ice to skate, play hockey and broom-ball. This new facility has space for birthday parties and other get-togethers so if you can remember to book your parties here at the ice arena it will help as they get up and running.

Frontier Ice Arena is located just off Seltice Way and Atlas in Coeur d’Alene and will be serving all the areas in North Idaho. This is such a great addition to our community as the traveling hockey teams come from all over the Pacific North West and will help our local economy. Will advise as to the opening day as soon as the information becomes available.

Body By Scotty in Post Falls Idaho, an auto body shop, is a great example of small business doing great after many years of working very hard. They truly started in their backyard in 1990, moving to their current location in Post Falls in 1995 where in the next few years they added more shop space and new office space. They currently have 17 employees and have been faithful members of the Post Falls Chamber for many years. I have personally experienced the fine work they do.

Sharon and Scotty have always been active community members and each summer, on the last Friday in July, they host a huge block party to say “thank you". Their philosophy is to provide a fun, safe, and friendly experience for everyone. They truly believe that by giving back to the community in this way, they can show their appreciation to all those who have helped make them successful.

KTEC Technical School in Rathdrum is moving forward right on schedule with a September opening.

Applications are coming in and right now they have more applications then class space, so plans are being made to add a third shift and this is just for the applications from high school students. The highest percentage of applications are in the area of healthcare, followed closely by mechanics and manufacturing.

KTEC plans to be open for students from 7:00 am to 9:00 pm with evening hours open to adults.

You can go to this web site for more information on the areas of education and the progress of the building and sometime in the next two weeks KTEC will be posting openings for jobs, ktectraining.org

Beginning the second week in January there seemed to be a big increase in buyers in Hayden,Hayden Lake, Dalton and Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Now the data is in to show there was a significant increase in sales this year.Here's the video of charts and graphs to show the increase and my explanation of why your home will sell faster and at a higher price during certain months of the year. Another good sign is that the number of people lookings for homes on Zillow broke all records this January and the number of Google searches using "Real Estate" in the search terms also showed a big increase in January. It looks like the buyers may be returning to the market.

o