Zoom Zoom
I had a bit of a conundrum: What to do for Maggie's 30th birthday?
Initially, I had planned on a huge surprise party with all of her friends and family. Now this gets a little difficult because Barb has the same birthdate, and she also probably would want something special for her 30th. So I checked with Alan.
He didn't have too many ideas either. Initially, we had thought of going on some sort of romantic trip to Quebec City, where we would stay for a few days and enjoy some winter festivals. I thought of staying in one of the ice hotels.
But because Barb's schedule is so limiting, we could not go for long, and flights were not cheap, and trains were not cheap, and driving would take a long time. We did continue to work on this plan for months. We actually tried planning out our trip to include lunch/dinner at a nice restaurant in the eastern Ontario as well.
I did like the idea of surprising them with friends and family, but Quebec City was far. I set my sights to Montreal instead. Montreal was much more accessible, but still not that close, and still required time to travel which ate into our plans.
I then started doing some research for a different type of trip, which would probably be too long and too expensive for Barb and Alan. I kept that on the back burner.
After the new year, Alan and I got stuck listening to a conversation between Barb and Maggie about what they wanted to do for their birthday, and they effectively ruled out any trips. Well, back to the drawing board.
Maggie had been complaining about not having her own car for the past, oh, five years or so. We have gotten by with one for a very long time, but now that the condo was paid off, she was itching to get something. We had been looking at getting cars for the past year, but were planning on getting a used car as new ones were pretty expensive.
I conveyed my ideas to Alan, since he was the car expert, and he threw a number of ideas my way over the months.
Well, soon after the new year, Alan noticed a really good deal on a Mazda2. He figured he could get one for Barb, since she commutes a lot and it would be much easier on gas than the RX-8. I could get one for Maggie too but..
Maggie and I had discussed the type of car she wanted to get when we get the second vehicle. It had to have four doors, be a decent size that could hold child seats, and have space to hold lots of stuff. A Mazda2 does not quite fit the bill. Not even close. On top of those deal breakers, she wanted heated seats, something easy to drive, automatic transmission (also a deal breaker), and not a black car.
I had to set my sights on at least a Mazda3.
We threw around ideas for other cars, like the Hyundai Sonata, but the first thing we wanted to do was to get some sort of test drive. We decided to go and see how a Mazda2 and Mazda3 drove.
Initially we were both going to go to the same Mazda dealership, but because I was incommunicato on the way home, he thought I wasn't going and went to a different one. No matter, I went to the dealership close to me and asked for a test drive with a Mazda3. To make a long story short, the sales person convinced me to try out a Mazda6, and it was a nice test drive. Considering the discounts the guy was putting on the car, it made it more attractive than the Mazda3.
So, I went home thinking that I might actually want a Mazda6. I gave Alan a shout and he told me that he was interested in getting a Mazda3. Well, that was an interesting turn of events.
The next day, the two of us showed up at his dealership and got the job done. Well, I pretty much sat there, while Alan did the negotiating.
With our cars ordered, we still had to figure out how to present the vehicles.
We had planned to do a surprise reveal at the restaurant where they were planning to have a family lunch, but a few weeks before the day, the lunch got moved to the week after. In desperation, we set up a facebook event for the 9th but it really was too short notice and we canceled the idea of a big party and decided to go a bit more low key. (I had already ordered the cakes, but it still worked out in the end.)
Next was the bows. We wanted large red bows to put on the cars for the reveal. Alan did some reasearch and found a place: in Whitby. Neither of us were even going to be close to that part of town at any time in the next month. Fortunately, I knew someone who worked in Whitby. After a bit of convincing, I was able to get him to pick up the bows, which would then be accessible to us in Markham.
We needed them away from the house for at least a couple of hours, so we booked a spa appointment for them. I wanted a fancy lunch so I tried getting us in the School, which apparently does not offer lunch on weekends. In fact, no fancy dining resturant I found seemed to be open for lunch on weekends. I eventually found at least one decent restaurant (The Old Country Inn) that did serve lunch. The added bonus was that it was German/Austrian food and I had been trying to find a good in on the Toronto area for years.
We did have one problem though, the guy who picked up the bows was not actually going to be home at the time we had the ladies at the spa! Fortunately, Alan braved the storm on Friday and was able to pick up the bows the night before the reveal.
Oh, speaking of the storm, we were pretty lucky that the storm did not land on the Saturday, or else all of our planning would have fallen apart! The weather turned out to be fantastic that day actually.
So in any case, after we brought them back to the house after lunch, we gave each of them a tie box, and told them to open them while we videotaped them. I screwed up though, I accidentally hit the stop button while moving the camera so we didn't get their visual reactions. But they were surprised, and very happily so!
Initially, I had planned on a huge surprise party with all of her friends and family. Now this gets a little difficult because Barb has the same birthdate, and she also probably would want something special for her 30th. So I checked with Alan.
He didn't have too many ideas either. Initially, we had thought of going on some sort of romantic trip to Quebec City, where we would stay for a few days and enjoy some winter festivals. I thought of staying in one of the ice hotels.
But because Barb's schedule is so limiting, we could not go for long, and flights were not cheap, and trains were not cheap, and driving would take a long time. We did continue to work on this plan for months. We actually tried planning out our trip to include lunch/dinner at a nice restaurant in the eastern Ontario as well.
I did like the idea of surprising them with friends and family, but Quebec City was far. I set my sights to Montreal instead. Montreal was much more accessible, but still not that close, and still required time to travel which ate into our plans.
I then started doing some research for a different type of trip, which would probably be too long and too expensive for Barb and Alan. I kept that on the back burner.
After the new year, Alan and I got stuck listening to a conversation between Barb and Maggie about what they wanted to do for their birthday, and they effectively ruled out any trips. Well, back to the drawing board.
Maggie had been complaining about not having her own car for the past, oh, five years or so. We have gotten by with one for a very long time, but now that the condo was paid off, she was itching to get something. We had been looking at getting cars for the past year, but were planning on getting a used car as new ones were pretty expensive.
I conveyed my ideas to Alan, since he was the car expert, and he threw a number of ideas my way over the months.
Well, soon after the new year, Alan noticed a really good deal on a Mazda2. He figured he could get one for Barb, since she commutes a lot and it would be much easier on gas than the RX-8. I could get one for Maggie too but..
Maggie and I had discussed the type of car she wanted to get when we get the second vehicle. It had to have four doors, be a decent size that could hold child seats, and have space to hold lots of stuff. A Mazda2 does not quite fit the bill. Not even close. On top of those deal breakers, she wanted heated seats, something easy to drive, automatic transmission (also a deal breaker), and not a black car.
I had to set my sights on at least a Mazda3.
We threw around ideas for other cars, like the Hyundai Sonata, but the first thing we wanted to do was to get some sort of test drive. We decided to go and see how a Mazda2 and Mazda3 drove.
Initially we were both going to go to the same Mazda dealership, but because I was incommunicato on the way home, he thought I wasn't going and went to a different one. No matter, I went to the dealership close to me and asked for a test drive with a Mazda3. To make a long story short, the sales person convinced me to try out a Mazda6, and it was a nice test drive. Considering the discounts the guy was putting on the car, it made it more attractive than the Mazda3.
So, I went home thinking that I might actually want a Mazda6. I gave Alan a shout and he told me that he was interested in getting a Mazda3. Well, that was an interesting turn of events.
The next day, the two of us showed up at his dealership and got the job done. Well, I pretty much sat there, while Alan did the negotiating.
With our cars ordered, we still had to figure out how to present the vehicles.
We had planned to do a surprise reveal at the restaurant where they were planning to have a family lunch, but a few weeks before the day, the lunch got moved to the week after. In desperation, we set up a facebook event for the 9th but it really was too short notice and we canceled the idea of a big party and decided to go a bit more low key. (I had already ordered the cakes, but it still worked out in the end.)
Next was the bows. We wanted large red bows to put on the cars for the reveal. Alan did some reasearch and found a place: in Whitby. Neither of us were even going to be close to that part of town at any time in the next month. Fortunately, I knew someone who worked in Whitby. After a bit of convincing, I was able to get him to pick up the bows, which would then be accessible to us in Markham.
We needed them away from the house for at least a couple of hours, so we booked a spa appointment for them. I wanted a fancy lunch so I tried getting us in the School, which apparently does not offer lunch on weekends. In fact, no fancy dining resturant I found seemed to be open for lunch on weekends. I eventually found at least one decent restaurant (The Old Country Inn) that did serve lunch. The added bonus was that it was German/Austrian food and I had been trying to find a good in on the Toronto area for years.
We did have one problem though, the guy who picked up the bows was not actually going to be home at the time we had the ladies at the spa! Fortunately, Alan braved the storm on Friday and was able to pick up the bows the night before the reveal.
Oh, speaking of the storm, we were pretty lucky that the storm did not land on the Saturday, or else all of our planning would have fallen apart! The weather turned out to be fantastic that day actually.
Oh what a feeling!
So in any case, after we brought them back to the house after lunch, we gave each of them a tie box, and told them to open them while we videotaped them. I screwed up though, I accidentally hit the stop button while moving the camera so we didn't get their visual reactions. But they were surprised, and very happily so!
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