We spent a long week in Canada last week with really one main goal, to get a house. We had a certain area we wanted to be in with certain criteria for the kids, us and the dog and ....low and behold we found a place! Not where we thought we would be, however the area we will be living in has all of what we wanted and more!
North York is the name of the area but the city is still Toronto. We learned some of Canada's history while we where there and it turns out that several of the " first ring" suburbs were once cities of their own, but due to public services and ease of management they all became part of Toronto. We are right off the 401 (as they say) which some people claim is the worst stretch of road in north America as far as traffic! Tracy will be able to give us more info on that as she will be taking the 401 everyday to and from work, the commute is about 30 minutes (or so they say:)).
The house is only three block from the subway, which is awesome because we can get anywhere in the city in about 20 minutes and there are several Korean, Indian and Greek restaurants right at the subway entrance and the food is awesome! We have 5 bedrooms and the Canadians like to have a bathroom in every room so each bedroom has it's own bathroom giving us a total of 6 bathrooms! (Very scary prospect for Tracy) The kitchen is awesome and all the appliances are brand new. We will be able to bring our big dining room table and chairs which is a big relief. The home owner is from India and is leaving the wood door frame from his home in India so it will go great with our Indian furniture, totally cool!The kids schools are within waking distance as well. Kay and Billy will go to one school, Cameron, which is K-5 and Jimmy will go to Willowdale which is 6-8th. There is also a snow board/ski hill, dog park and hiking area down the block from us as well and to our surprise there is a Korean Methodist Church at the end of our block, curious.
We also managed to get a bank account, our SIN number ( social identification number) similar to our Social Security number, and Tom now has an Ontario drivers license. We are super excited to have accomplished all of this and to have the house piece taken care of!
We had a family meeting and gave the kids the low down. They are so excited they want to move immediately! They are also inviting all their friends to come visit or even live with us (for just 2 years mom). We are really glad they are excited about the mvoe.
As you can see by the pictures we have plenty of room some come on up! We are expecting visitors:)
More to Come as we head towards our 6/24 move date!
