Today was a nice relaxing day, where I spent the morning doing work and Mel went for a nice walk wiith Olivier. Afterwards we went to my mother from up the hill’s place. We picked up some sushi from a nearby spot and went for lunch. Lunch consisted of sushi, caeasar salad and hot dogs. I can not eat a hot dog, nor can I eat salad, both of which I really like to eat. I had some sushi and was quite full. I think that in total I ate 8 pieces of sushi and sashimi in total. I had to step away from the table to avoid eating too much. Afterwards I had a red velvet cupcake and some strawberry shortcake. It was a great meal with some great company. Every summer when we come down we try and visit and spend some time with my best friend’s mom. I grew up in their house so it seems normal to go over and just hang out. We spent the afternoon there and decided to go to the Tanger outlet to get Olivier some things. He did not feel well on the drive over and we had to alter some of our plans. We had gone to this mall before and when we were in there, Olivier had seen Banana Republic and was all excited to go into it. Much to his dismay, when we entered the store he asked where were all the bananas. We informed him that there were no bananas in this store, it was just the name of the store. He wanted to leave right after that as there was nothing of interest for him in there. He remembered this story as he sat in the chair recovering from his headache. It takes about 20 minutes for the drug to kick in and once it kicked in he was fine. At the mall I decided to use the wheelchair as it is quite a large mall and I wanted to make sure that I had energy for tonight. While parking we were looking for accessible spots and for some reason it seems that in Barrie people park in accessible spots without having a visible accessible pass. It surprises how often it happens, and when I see some of the people who get into the vehicle it annoys me even more because tehre is no sign that they actually need the spot and the lack of accessible pass supports it. We were initially planning on eating in Barrie, then go to the Centra market to buy some ramen cups for the hotel and then back to our resort. He was not feeling great and wanted to go back to the resort so we went back. Mel wanted an ice coffee so we dropped the kids off and decided to try and get one as well as pick up dinner. The place that Mel chose as closed so we decided to grab a coffee at the McDonald’s in Walmart. Olivier wanted some mini cucumbers and we knew that Walmart had some ramen. The lineup was huge and she decided that she did not want to wait. We managed to grab dinner and after dinner I told Mel that we could make iced coffee in our room. I had purchased a travel coffee scale and we had an aeropress as well as a portanle kettle. We had everything that we needed for our coffee. While we were at the outlet I wanted to buy a portable ice maker, but Mel was adamant that we did not need one. I lost that battle and we left without one. I cried on the drive back to the resort.
Our first game tonight is a bit late at 9:50pm and it seems odd spending the whole day waiting for a game and then knowing that we will be playing so late. I made a deal with Xavier, that if he manages to get 5 shutouts this tournament that I will give him and his brother $500 each to invest in. We also have a standing deal that if he scores a goal that he gets $1000 as well. He plans to win this so he has money for investment. Mel and I are pretty confident that we will not need to pay out as it is unlikely he gets 5 shutouts in a row. In game 5 we will pay offer a bounty for his team to score on him. One of his friends on the team has scored on him several times, and we tease him all the time about it. This time he can do it and make some money and no one will be the wiser. We have quite the strong team this year evey though we are playing against competition 2 years older. Tonight will help us gauge hopefully how we will do in this tournament. The boys are all pretty confident and I am sure that we will have the nicest jerseys and overall uniforms out there. Our gear is flashy and it i filled with sponsorships all over our clothing, so our team looks like it is from Europe. We have made some predictions on who will get kicked out of the game for being too rough as the tournament is non-contact and the kids on the team are used to playing full body contact. It is an adjustment for them and I am sure that some of them are going to forget. As long as no one gets hurt and they have fun it will be great.
Growing up I remember driving to Toronto and Wonderland use to be in the middle of nowhere with no cities around it. When you drive now the city has expanded so much and Barrie has expanded so the there is not much of a gap between Barrie and Wonderland and Toronto. We use to go stay at my uncle’s house and sometimes they lived in quite sketchy areas. We were not permitted to go outside on our own and we were stuck inside the apartment unless we went out. If we went out it would be to visit relatives where we would be stuck inside without much to do. We had no internet connected devices and most of these relatives did not have kids. I think that we were well behaved, though we did not interact much with the adults. When we bring Xavier and Olivier to places like we did today, both of our kids do not seem to mind nor do they complain much. Olivier is a chatter box and loves to share his stories and ask a lot of questions. Everyone always comments on Xavier’s size and he is always willing to help out, people also thinks that he looks like my side of the family while Olivier takes after Mel’s side. Parents drag their kids to adult events where there are no kids around and the expectation is that the kids behave and do not complain. I did not realize that I have repeated what my parents did with myself. I am glad though that the kids do not mind this and interact well. Back then we were not allowed to wander outside because there were local gangs and the occasional gunshots. These days we are just as protective of our kids and the same risks apply where we want our kids to be safe. It is amusing though that if we were in Sudbury my parents did not care if we wandered around. When we visitied Guelph we were permitted to wander the neighbourhood. The big city our movements were restricted. We let our kids wander around the resort on their own, but if we were in a hotel in Toronto the likelihood that we would let them wander around is far smaller. As a kid I always loved going to Chinatown in Toronto as they would let me go into some of the smaller stores while they were in the grocery store. I would buy small swords or chinese chess sets, small trinkets and toys. None of them high quality and nothing that would last more than a couple of months. It was still enjoyable however. Olivier likes buying things, while Xavier wants to hoard his wealth for investment. Once he makes a million dollars I am curious what he plans to do with all of his money, whether he will sepdn it or just save it for a rainy day. I was a spender and I think that even now I like to spend. Mel and I as a couple balance things out fairly well where we spend where necessary and will conserve when we need to. We have successfully done challenges where we only spend $100 a week on groceries so we know that we could survive on that if we needed. Sometimes i like to go back to my roots and remember when I was younger and did not have as much.
QHM