Showing posts with label Housing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Housing. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 1, 2021

Gratitude 29-30

 #29. I am thankful for our amazing landlord. We really won the lottery with him.

#30. And I am thankful that he isn't selling the house so we can continue to live here for 3 more years!

Sunday, August 11, 2019

Some of our early adventures

Our fabulous sponsors invited us to accompany them to Shakespeare on the Bow, which is Calgary's version of Shakespeare in the Park. The performers do one play each year, and this year was Midsummer Night's Dream, which is a perfect pick for us because Alex's class did some Shakespeare a couple of years ago and this was one of the plays. It was a beautiful evening, we were congratulating ourselves on throwing the picnic blanket in the car for our road trip so we had it to use, and the performance was amazingly good - especially for being free/donation requested. We are so excited for next year's season!

The only downside came when Zoltan, playing with the other kids after the performance, fell off the stage and injured his foot. He said he couldn't walk on it so I piggybacked him home - thankfully the performance was only a couple of blocks from our temporary housing. We stayed home the next day and on the day after that, when he still refused to put any weight on his foot, we went to the emergency room.

So far I have exactly one complaint about Canada. Who the heck makes emergency room parking paid?? And you have to pay in advance, so you have to guess how long you'll be there. The nice triage nurse guessed we'd only be there an hour and I should not have trusted that, given that I went back twice to add additional hours to the meter. Otherwise, the whole process went very smoothly, x-rays were taken and reviewed, no breaks were confirmed, and crutches were provided when he still refused to put weight on his foot.

Another Calgary delight our fabulous sponsors let us know about is the Southland Leisure Centre, which (most relevantly) has water slides and a wave pool, as well as ice skating, a gym, and other resources we didn't check out because we were there for the pool.

A final adventure of our first two weeks is the spectacular Calgary Public Library. We got our library cards last week, the kids signed up for the reading challenge, then decided it was their job to finish it with all due haste. I told them if they came back one week later with 40 hours of book reading accomplished the library might not believe them.  The library has a whole indoor play space for the really little kids, a giant chess set, it's huge, roomy, airy, with super available, helpful and friendly librarians. The book checkout stations are throughout the library, not only in one corner at the entrance. There's a cafe inside and a huge variety of seating for reading your finds, from cushions on the floor to a standard reading room with long tables and signs to remember to be quiet.

Between Zoltan's "still injured" foot and house hunting and the weather we still haven't made it to the mountains for hiking. I'm hopeful we get there before too long.

This week will be the last one before the kids start camp and I go to work. Most of our time has been spent either trekking from house to house in hopes of finding our home, or kids reading/playing games while I scour the rental web sites for new houses to see, or going to the grocery store because when you are starting from scratch there are a million things you need to buy.

Thursday, September 18, 2014

UAB forts

One thing that has become a tradition for our family with each UAB shipment is the follow on cardboard forts.  We pack a couple of box cutters and a roll or two of packing tape in the UAB boxes.  When they are emptied we give the kids a play area that they are so excited to have.  Another benefit is that the three walled cardboard used for UAB is it really sturdy, so you can make dual level structures.  We could probably go higher but I have visions of Zoltan wiggling out of a window back down to the floor for a nasty bump on the noggin.  So when UAB showed up the kids were very very excited to the see all the big boxes.  The first night we put together a relatively simple structure with two levels (Upper right photo).  The kids each agreed on one entry box being their own houses and the two in the middle are the shared house.  You have to go through one or the other kid's house to get the shared house.  They were quite pleased with the arrangement.

This tour is unusual that we also got an HHE by air shipment. The movers in Maryland packed it just like any other UAB shipment.  So we have lots and lots of boxes this time.  I decided to expand the fort some the next night.  I added another bottom section but not actually attached to the the first section.  Then I added a second section on the second level that you can use to as a bridge to go from one side to the other.  Alex was showering when I finished this up.  She can out and went in the fort and proceeded to go to the second level when she saw the new addition.  Her words were something like "Hey what the? Oh Cool!!"  Unfortunately the written word can not really catch the confusion in her first statement followed by the excitement in here second.  Not sure how many of these we will build before they become boring to older kids (or they just don't fit) but right now it is such fun to watch.

Saturday, July 19, 2014

Our house is rented!

Our property manager is someone I grew up with - it just happens he is a property manager in this area so of course he's the guy I called. He came by, went through the house telling us what we needed to do and what we could do if we wanted. We got the place ready and in due time the house went up for rent.

The conventional wisdom I had heard was that you don't want to be hanging around when people come through to look at your house. Find a park, neighbor, or errand to run, but in any case don't be home. Well.

We must have done something right marketing-wise because we had about 6-7 people come through in the first few days after the listing. For three of the people, we were indeed home when they came through - it just happened that way. It turns out those are exactly the three people who put in applications to rent the place!

We chose one application, there was a little back and forth and in the end we have a 2 year lease signed, sealed and delivered!

Now I really need to pass the Russian exam as we will be homeless two weeks after I take it.

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

It's not all bad

Some of the highlights of our new home, as I fear I'm focusing too much on the negative:
1. Lots of kids in the neighborhood, and at least a few friendly neighbors.
2. Alex's school will be walking distance for when I am not yet working.
3. The local civic center is walkable and seems geared for children, with youth orchestras and art shows, a really nice playground on its grounds, and for the adults (well kids too, but not our kids yet), community tennis courts.
4. The yard, where we can plant stuff. Especially now that the trees are gone, thus allowing sunlight to penetrate.
5. The deck, where we will grill at least every other day. Once we buy a grill as the previous one went to the cabin.
6. The ton of shops, restaurants and metro that are all within a mile. We walked to the library today and got our library cards. Right in front of it is a great little splash park 

Saturday, April 20, 2013

A busy week, but finally progress!

It's hard to write about an overwhelming experience. And some of the personal stresses of the last couple of weeks have even been good ones.

In the space of week we have decided to medevac Alex for her various medical issues that need testing to figure out (on Monday we should know for sure whether MED agreed); we first unsuccessfully, then successfully, bid on a home (different properties); listened and watched in horror as the Boston Marathon, MIT shooting, and West, Texas tragedies unfolded - each of which involved a location near and dear either to our own hearts of hearts of good friends. I am thrilled to report that my father was not at work so never in harm's way.

Now that we seem to be heading the right direction with Alex we have nothing to do except wait to hear when the appointments are set up and then we can worry about flights and hotels. Now that our bid has been accepted and we've made the calls we needed to make for inspection and appraisal, there's nothing to do except wait for those reports to come back. The cortisol surge of the last few weeks hasn't abated yet and is looking around for a good target.

Friday, April 12, 2013

A home for our weary heads...

... or not.

Twice in the last few weeks we told our realtor to get a contract ready for us to sign, then learned in the middle of that process that the house had just gone under contract to some other lucky buyer.  This time, at least, we managed to actually complete a bid and successfully transmit it to the seller's broker.

We wait until Monday to find out our bid is rejected (we're not too hopeful, it isn't the strongest bid in the world). And then back to the drawing board. But, hey, this is farther than we've gotten so that has to count for something!

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Gramercy at Pentagon City

Unlike just about every other FS family, we have never, ever stayed at an Oakwood. In fact, every time we have stayed in VA/DC we have been in a different building. This time we went with Executive Apartments, Inc. and one of their Pentagon City locations.

There's a Dunkin Donuts in the building. Gold Star #1. Helpful front desk and plenty for the kids to do in the lobby area - things to look at, a pool table & TV, the business center ... OK not all exactly in the lobby but close enough I could hear them while checking in. Gold star #2. We asked for an air mattress for the 2 year old who still falls out of bed, they gave us a foldout bed. Strike #1. The kitchen has real pots and pans, even Pyrex casserole dishes with covers and a few Tupperware containers. The fridge dispenses filtered water. Gold star #3 and 4. The largest pot is too small to cook enough pasta to feed the entire family. Strike #2. Gas stove. Gold Star #5.The same useless window blinds as every other corporate apartment ever ... not cool when one kid requires darkness to sleep. Probably not fair to give a strike as everyone does this. 5 minute walk to a park with an entirely shaded playground, also only 5 minutes to Pentagon City mall and metro. Gold Star #6. They even provide beach towels for use at the pool (GS #7) but only 2 when there's 4 of us (S #3). As should be eident by now, we're pretty pleased overall. I just wish I had thought of this beforehand, now I can barely remember much about all the previous places.

The last time we stayed around here we were at AKA. They advised us we could place a Peapod order and they would have it in our apartment (yes fridge stuff in the fridge). As that time we flew straight from post to VA it was a gold star that outnumbered any other possible factor.

We still haven't really explored the building or much of the neighborhood so there will probably be updates.

Friday, July 27, 2012

Creative Home Maintenance

Anyone who knows us knows Terry is a do-it-yourselfer. In fact, if there is any way he can just do it himself, he prefers that. Our first post was LQA and if he had his tools with him I think the whole experience would have been less painful. Now we are in a "normal" post, in Government housing, and we have GSO to do the home maintenance.

We had a huge project throughout most of the winter, replacing the risers in the entire building. If you, like me, used to think risers were the slightly raised flooring many conferences and lectures put their panels and speakers are on so the audience could see them, you would, like me, be wrong. (well, not wrong as that is one definition, just not applicable here). Risers are also some kind of pipe used in plumbing. While the risers were being repaired, our kitchen and all bathrooms were in their turn torn apart, and the bathrooms got renovated at the same time.

Since the new flooring was put into the bathrooms, we have had the grout coming up. This is because the floor wasn't leveled before the tile put in, so the grout will come up every month or so until the floors are leveled.

Or not.

Because this week, when they regrouted for the 3rd time, they used some kind of flexible grouting that will move with the shifting tile and not come out.

Why do something right when there's a workaround?