Our Year In Photos (2023)
December 2022: Maria teaching her nieces and nephews how to bead a bracelet for Christmas.
January 2023: Shoaib and Buster the dog, who Shoaib rescued and helped reunite with his owner.
January 2023: Shoaib, in Phoenix, seeing a cactus for the first time.
March 2023: Maria and son Nicholas; every Saturday night is a pizza-making party at Maria’s house.
April 2023: Mark and son Alex cycling around the Glenmore Reservoir in Calgary as the ice breaks up from winter.
May 2023: The Hougen team celebrating two years at Raymond James.
May 2023: Traci in Central Park on the most recognized stretch of the park, made famous in countless movies and TV productions.
May 2023: On 5th Avenue in NYC, Traci and a bronze statue of Adi Dassler, the founder of Adidas.
May 2023: Mark in Tampa with Tom and Mary James. Tom is Chairman Emeritus and a current member of the RJ Board. He is still working full time as an advisor!
May 2023: Mark and Traci in Tampa at the RJ National Business Conference.
May 2023: Shoaib and his friend Josh in Los Angeles, at the Lakers Playoff game against the Denver Nuggets.
May 2023: Shoaib at an Angels home game seeing the biggest star in baseball, Shohei Ohtani for the first time.
May 2023: Maria and friends being nostalgic and celebrating a birthday, with High Tea at The Palliser.
May 2023: Maria doing a little photo bombing at the 73rd Grand Highland Military Ball, Calgary’s longest-running gala. Raymond James was one of the proud sponsors of the event.
June 2023: Sarah celebrating her graduation. Her dad is off camera celebrating her upcoming full-time employment.
June 2023: Mark and Traci, with University of Calgary graduate Sarah Hougen.
June 2023: Mark at the Irish Rock 'n' Roll Museum in Dublin.
June 2023: Mark in control of the soundboard that was used to record U2, Thin Lizzy, The Cranberries and more young Irish artists.
June 2023: Mark and Traci in Dublin at the Guinness Storehouse.
June 2023: Mark and Traci at the Guinness Storehouse, with their photos"printed" on the head of their Guinness.
June 2023: Maria's"Cooking girls" group enjoying the results of their labours of love.
July 1, 2023: Mark and Traci on a windy Canada Day in Dublin, on the Millennium Bridge.
July 2023: Mark and Traci cycling the Ring of Kerry, on the 179km-long, circular route around the Iveragh Peninsula in southwest Ireland’s County Kerry.
July 2023: Mark overlooking Les Baux in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in Southern France.
July 2023: The narrow streets of Lyon. As the gastronomic capital of France, there are more restaurants per person in Lyon than any other place in France and probably Europe.
July 2023: Mark and Traci in one of the 40 surviving Traboules in Lyon. These secret passageways are now marked with a small identifying seal. During the Second World War, the Traboules were used by the resistance for secret meetings, thus preventing the Nazis from occupying all of Lyon.
July 2023: After visiting for the first time, Barcelona is now one of Mark and Traci's favourite cities in the world.
July 2023: In Barcelona, Traci finds her new favourite retail store.
July 2023: Mark and Traci on the"Rick Steves' Barcelona audio walk", in front of Gaudi's Casa Milà. It was the last private residence designed by architect Antoni Gaudí and was built between 1906 and 1912.
July 2023: Gaudi's famous Casa Batllo in Barcelona. There are few straight lines, and most of the façade is decorated with a colorful mosaic made of broken ceramic tiles. One of the most unique and memorable buildings in the world.
July 2023: Mark and Traci at the Sagrada Família in Barcelona. Designed by Antoni Gaudi, this is the largest unfinished church and the longest ongoing construction project in the world. Gaudí devoted the remainder of his life to the project, and he is buried in the church's crypt. At the time of his death in 1926, less than a quarter of the project was complete. It is now anticipated that the building will be completed by 2026, the centenary of Gaudí's death.
July 2023: Around 48km northwest of Barcelona, Mark and Traci at the Santa Maria de Montserrat Abbey. The monastery was founded in the 11th century and still functions to this day with over 70 monks. The Publicacions de l'Abadia de Montserrat, the onsite publishing house, is one of the oldest printing presses in the world still running, with its first book published in 1499. FYI: the opening chapter of Dan Brown's 2017 novel Origin is set in Santa Maria de Montserrat.
July 2023: At the Santa Maria de Montserrat Abbey, the Black Madonna statue sits behind a sheet of glass. However, one of her hands that is holding a sphere (which symbolizes the universe) is not behind the glass. It is tradition for you to kiss or touch the Virgin's hand whilst opening out your other hand to Jesus. Mark decided to just take a photo.
July 2023: The team at the Calgary Stampede, the greatest outdoor show!
July 2023: Taylor Swift as generated by AI ("paint Taylor Swift in the style of Vincent van Gogh"). Mark gave this to his daughter Sarah, possibly the biggest Taylor Swift fan in the world, for her birthday just before she saw Taylor in Seattle.
July 2023: Shoaib and his girlfriend Jenna, outside of Notre-dame Basilica in Montreal.
July 2023: Ryan after a 45-minute battle to reel in a seven-foot Sturgeon on the Fraser River, Abbotsford, B.C.
July 2023: Ryan and Paige before entering the GMC Stadium to watch the Chuckwagon Races at the Calgary Stampede.
August 2023: Mark volunteering at the Grizzly Den. Like TV's Dragons’ Den, candidates from across Canada pitch themselves to the Grizzlies - a panel of influential business leaders, who provide feedback, suggestions, and leads to help propel these amazing people and their careers.
August 2023: Maria went all the way to Montreal to have one of Mark's favourite sandwiches!
August 2023: Sukhdeep with her kids, Rantaj (now, five years old) and Yuvraj (now, eight months old), at Heritage Park.
August 2023: Ryan and his dog Cosmo, golfing at a dog-friendly course in Cochrane. Still training Cosmo to add an extra 30 yards to his drive and make sure he always drops the ball in the fairway.
September 2023: Traci, the number one fundraiser in Canada for the past three years for Ovarian Cancer research, at the annual Walk for Hope fundraiser in Calgary.
September 2023: Sukhdeep with family, on the main street in Banff, AB. Sukhdeep’s younger son, Yuvraj’s first trip to mountains!
October 2023: In Las Vegas, Mark and Traci at the new, incredible music venue, the Sphere to see U2.
October 2023: Mark and Traci inside the Sphere at the U2 concert. The Sphere has a 160,000-square-foot LED screen made of 64,000 video tiles that wraps around the interior. At a 16,000 × 16,000 resolution, it is the highest-resolution LED screen in the world. And the audio is amazing: 167,000 amplified loudspeaker drivers, housed in 1,600 loudspeaker modules with another 300 mobile modules, results in crisp, clean, high-quality audio, which sounded as if the speakers were directly in front of you rather than hundreds of feet away. Amazing audio and video in a building designed for music, not sports. And U2 was amazing!!!
October 2023: (from right to left) Ryan with his sister Melanie, brother-in-law Riley and good friend Austin enjoying the Battle of Alberta – Heritage Classic hockey game at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton. The game ended up being -18°C and Nickelback played a concert between periods.
October 2023: Ryan celebrating Thanksgiving with his girlfriend Paige and their dog Cosmo.
November 2023: At the University of Calgary, Traci's youngest, Paige, graduating with her Communications degree.
November 2023: Mark kicking a field goal at Sofi Stadium in Los Angeles, part of the stadium tour with his group on their annual football trip.
November 2023: Sukhdeep celebrating Diwali (the festival of lights) with family at home.
December 2023: Ryan and Paige celebrating their anniversary at the Spruce Meadows International Christmas Market.
