We put in an application for an apartment for December 1st.  2 days later we got the dreaded call that our application was denied.  It was a little bit of a blow to the system.   What went wrong?  We knew that we had a good credit rating.  The wouldn’t tell us why they turned down our application.  The apartments that we looked at has 70% seniors and I personally think it’s because we had 3 young kids and had to take our application.  I just went back online to look for another place.

I found another place that was on the main floor of a triplex, which had a deck and a backyard.  I thought how perfect, it costs a little more but I can just send the kids outside and I can still keep on eye on them from the comfort and warmth of the great indoors…  Perhaps it was a good thing that the apartment application was denied.

Unfortunately, Kyle was in Winnipeg for the weekend so he couldn’t go out to see the place.  I spoke to the landlord Mike, who said that he would show it to Kyle when he got back into town.  Of course when Kyle got back to Ottawa a few days later, he had already rented the place out.  Another blow.  In my mind I kept thinking that perhaps the other peoples application would be denied.  After 48 hours, the chances were slim so the search continued.  I couldn’t help thinking in the back of my mind perhaps the other application could still be rejected, but what were the chances?

In the following week, nothing came available in the area we were looking at, so we started hunting in other areas, keeping in mind our prior needs.  We found a few places in the Hintonburg area and Kyle made appointments to see the places.  Of course on the day of the appointments, Kyle got a call from the Mike, he said that the application for the other tenants had been turned down.  Yeah!  So after looking at the places in Hintonburg, Kyle went to see Mike’s place in Carlingwood.   So now we had an idea of other rentals and guess what, we will be renting Mike’s place in the Carlingwood area!

Like I said, everything happens for a reason and that reason is there to serve you.  So being turned down initially was a good thing (even thought it was hard to see when it happened) so now we will be in a 2 bedroom, main floor of a triplex with hardwood floors, a deck, a backyard and close to all the amenities.  The kids can play outside and I can be indoor doing whatever I need to, much better than an apartment.  Looking at the other properties also gives us a better appreciation of our rental.   Now we can walk everywhere, our little contribution to the environment.

My last experience was not a very happy one as the cashier refused to ring up the totals separately so it made it confusing for the 3 children when they were paying from different purses and not getting the proper change.  After this experience, I have decided that they have to be more comfortable dealing with their money and able to access their money better.

The first thing I have to do is to get them all a proper wallet.  One that has a compartment for bills and another for coins.  It gets a little hairy when they pull their money out of their purse and you have to make sure that they are not dropping the coins or the bills…

The next thing that I have already started is using money to “play” store.  Matthew being 8, understands how much money to give and how much change he has to get back.  He has to think about it but the mental math is working.  Andrew at 6, knows his money, knows how much to give, unfortunately he hasn’t gotten the concept of how much change he has to get back.  That will be part of our Math curriculum.  Natalie who is 4 is still learning to recognize the coins. We need to “shop” a little more!   That will come in time.  The fun thing with siblings like Matthew, he is always wanting to help and teach his younger siblings.

To help with these issues, this is what I have done. I got myself a set of “fake” Canadian money and use it to buy and sell things.  Everyone sets up a little store and we sell things and price it so that they have to how much to give and how much money to get in return.  The lesson here is not to learn the value of things just to learn to use money.  We buy and sell from each others store and make sure we get the correct change back.  Matthew even had a bowling alley that you pay to bowl at, a fun little variation.

Learning the value of items is a little different, when we go shopping, we do price comparisons.  If something is $X, what is the value to him?  Is the same product cheaper somewhere else?  We figure what else can he purchase with the $X and help figure whether the product is worth that amount of money.  For example, Matthew bought a Papo dragon for $30, I didn’t say anything as it was his play money.  A week later, we returned to the store and found out that that item was 20% and he realized that he could have saved $6 if he had waited.  While contemplating the money that he could have saved, he figured out what he could have gotten for $30 instead of just one beautiful dragon that just sit on his shelf.  He then realized that he had made a mistake in purchasing that dragon and fortunately for him, he was able to return it.  Learning the value of items will come with time and exposure.  So going out and purchasing items with their play money is good practice for future larger purchases…

We left the motel at 10:30am which was very good in my opinion, considering we played and showered before leaving.  Since Orlando is so close, we decided to take the scenic route(slow road) to Dayton and then go inland towards Orlando.  Lots of time.

The A1A Hwy is really nice.  It was also fun to see the many beach homes and condos.  We also took a ferry across one of the islands, short but fun ride.  Something different for the kids.  As we were talking in the car, seeing all the seafood markets, we decided that this area would be the best place to have seafood.  So we typed seafood resturant into the the GPS, “Magellin” and we found a seafood restaurant.  I really enjoyed the food, eating gator meat and the calamari was so yummy, even all the kids ate it.

We kept on going south on the A1A Hwy.  It was so cool looking at all the vacation homes on the water and surroundings.  We drove straight into St Augustine.  The oldest city  in the US.  The town was so cool, we just did the drive by tourist thing again.  We would like to return someday for a visit.  So much to see and do and learn too.

It was dinner time when we got to Daytona so we bought some cold meat and had sandwich dinner on the beach.  Here you can drive your vehicle onto the beach.  That is great, so your stuff is never too far away.  Everyone headed for the surf right after dinner, had to get our beach time in.  The beach is open to vehicles till only 7pm and we ended up leaving at that time.

The drive to Orlando was quiet, everyone was so tired from all that playing, even Natalie fell asleep on the drive into Orlando.  This Sheraton hotel has 2 queen size bed so it worked out well again for sleeping arrangements.  The three kids on the bed and no complaining.  They just passed out at bedtime.  Long fun filled day.  Looking forward to our next day in Orlando.

Last night Andrew team(6-8 yr olds) played another game, unfortunately Andrew’s coach thought a ball was out of play and stopped it.  He apologized and acknowledged his mistake.  The coach from the other team shouted at him and threatened to pull his team out of the game.  At this point the other team was loosing 3-1.  It was a mistake and unfortunately the other coach was a little out of hand and embarassed our coach.  Some of the parents were also giving the referee who was only a teenager a hard time.  When all this happens, it just interrupts a fun game of kids soccer.

Later on the referee doesn’t make a call about a hand ball and our coach makes a scene about it, I guess out of embrarasment from the earlier scene.  There were so many other hand balls that were missed by the referee and no one said anything and the game just went on.  At this point, when our coach points out the handball, we are winning 4-3 and the other team coach gets made again and decides to pull the team and forfeit.  There was only 5 or 10 minutes left of the game.  Another coach from the other team also said that it was an elbow ball and should not be an issue.  I guess she didn’t know the rules.

I hope the kids didn’t realize what was going on, they didn’t need to know that the adults were acting like kids.  At the end, our coach did round up the kids did shake hands with the other team.  Not sure if the other team was, but that doesn’t matter, the fact that the kids were being taught good sportsmanship was most important. The coaches are their teachers.

So remember when you go to a kids game, it is just a game.  Do not attack the other coach, in a lot of cases, they are only volunteering their time as they want to share their talent.  Referees are only human, sometimes they miss a play.  It happens all the time.  No need to get all heated up.  Take a breath, and continue with the game.  It is not worth the frustration.  In life there are more important things that you need to spend your energy on, a kids soccer is supposed to be fun so go out and enjoy it.

This has been my best birthday ever.  I sometimes expect so much on my birthday and if things don’t happen that way I get upset.  Yesterday I made things happen, without too much effort either, just go with the flow.  I never really wanted a big party for my 40th so spending the day with Kyle and the kids was great.  Maybe my 50th birthday but then 50 sounds so old…  I guess when I was 30, 40 sounded old!!

I woke up early to do a little bit of work before the kids woke up.  I have been sleeping in so it felt good to get up and get some work done first thing in the morning.  We went to the leasing office as usual to get our morning cookie and then headed out to the library for Natalie’s story time.  After story time, we went for Thai food for lunch.  It was good but not as good as “Siam Thai” in Winnipeg.  It was nice thought that we had left overs and I didn’t have to cook dinner. Perfect.  After lunch we headed to the Asian grocery store for groceries and bought a guava, freshly picked the day before from Miami.  Love fresh food.  Here are the pictures of the fruit for those of you who havn’t seen it.  You eat everything except the seeds, it is supposed to cause constipation.  Andrew said that it tasted like a cross between an apple and a Jicama root.  Matthew said that it tasted like an pear.

guava

Inside of the fruit.

We were home for the afternoon and then my friend Paola whom I met at the kids soccer came over to join us for dinner.  Wednesdays are movie nights here at the apartment so we all headed out to the movie theater to watch “17 again”.  We had our fill of junk food and came home.  Another friend of mine that lives here in the apartments also brought me some Chinese dumpings that has to be eaten on your birthday.  Unfortunately we already eaten so we have lunch for today!!  one day late….

My 40th Birthday was a busy day and fun filled day shared with my family and all my friends, ones here and the many that sent me wishes.  I am grateful to all who remembered me and made my day special!  Thanks…

To Those of Us Born
1930 – 1979
TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE  1930′s, 40′s, 50′s, 60′s and 70′s!!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can and didn’t get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-base paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps not helmets on our heads.

As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes.

Riding in the back of a pick- up truck on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter and bacon. We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar. And, we weren’t overweight.. WHY ?

Because we were always outside playing…that’s why!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on..

No one was able to reach us all day. And, we were OKAY.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps  and then ride them down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem

We did not have Play stations, Nintendo’s and X-boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD’s, no surround-sound or CD’s, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet and no chat rooms.

WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We would get spankings with wooden spoons, switches, ping pong paddles, or just a bare hand and no one would call child services to report abuse.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn  to deal with disappointment.

Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever.

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

If YOU are one of them, CONGRATULATIONS!

Share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good.

While you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave and lucky their parents were.

After the aquarium, we went across the street to Olympic park, there were tons of people there playing relaxing and playing in the playground.  Of course we had to do all that too.  We decided to take a walk in the park and found the fountains and of course the children wanted to play in it too and of course we said yes and of course they all got soaked!!  Andrew was wearing nylon shorts that dried fast, unfortunately Matthew had denim shorts so Kyle went across to the souvenir  store and bought him a pair of Atlanta shorts.  He was so happy.  Good thing they were cheap.  We would have left them except we were going to meet our friend Melanie for dinner!  Couldn’t go to the resturant with wet clothes…

We decided not to go to the Coca-Cola Museum this trip even though it was next to the aquarium, we figured next year when Natalie was a little older we would spend a few days in Atlanta and visit the other tourist spots!

What a wonderful day in Atlanta.  We drove home after dinner at 8:30pm.  Kyle and I are not very good drivers after dark so on our drive home, half an hour from Warner Robins, we stopped in a tourist stop for a nap.  It wasn’t even 10pm yet!!  So we napped for half an hour and then I drove home.  It was a long day for everyone but a fun one!

So we met with Kathleen the manager yesterday over coffee.  So many things to go through.  She is awesome and we were able to cover lots of different things.  Today I spoke with her again over the phone, so many things for me to learn and I am glad she is managing it and not us.  She has been the manager of the park for six years.  We get along really so that is awesome.

So the kids have been awesome, watching lots of movie for the last few days.

At the lawyers office, I brought my computer with me so that they could watch “Shark Tales” while we are at our meeting.  On Tuesday while we met with Kathleen at Wendy’s, they watched Babar also on my computer.  Today it was movie night at the apartment so they watched “Last Call Harvey”.  I wasn’t exactly a kids movie but they will watch anything as long as there is candy and popcorn.  Kyle was out at a soccer meeting so I didn’t really want to stay home.  He joined us at the movies later.

While we were in Macon on Monday, we decided that we would do more sight seeing.  We went to Ocmulgee National Monument where the history there dates back 12,000 years.  It was a great field trip for the kids.  After which we went to St Joseph’s church as were were told that the church was covered in stained glass.  It was just so beautiful.

Monday was a crazy busy day, with sightseeing and the bank and the lawyers, the kids were so well behaved and so when they asked to go to Burger King we said ok.  It wasn’t the food that they were going for, it is the play structures that Burger King has that they were attracted too.  The have the tubes and slides and some have the castle and slide combo, almost the same side as the store itself.  Of course this is all outside and not good for the summer but the kids don’t care.

Now that we have our new park it is a learning process for me and Kyle to optimize it and make sure it runs smoothly.  In a way I am glad that our first park is smaller than planned so that everything is simpler.  I am still looking for other parks, anyone know of anyone wanting to sell one?  Let me know.  Preferably in the lower states, not so cold when we have to visit the park or a good excuse for us to go south or is that North!!