September 8, 2007 - A full summer, what next?

This has been one fantastic summer for us.  To begin with, the summers in southern Ontario are long and very hot which makes for a perfect beer drinking and cigar smoking climate.  I must admit, this is a welcome change from the summers in Calgary which, at times, were indistinguishable from the winters.

The biggest news of late is that Stella has taken to walking on her hind legs with enthusiasm.  That gives us a grand total of three bipeds in the family since Magnus has reverted to galloping on all fours as his primary method of travel.  She is still a bit wobbly but is getting stronger, faster, better each day.  We also celebrated their 3rd and 1st birthdays a couple weeks ago which confirms our fears that Stella will probably never have her own single birthday party due to her parents wonderfully efficient family planning and general stinginess.

Our trip to the Azores was excellent, subject to a few incidents of severe toddler naughtiness.  As we've been there a few times now, this trip wasn't a race to see as much as possible by driving all over the island.  Instead, we had a lot of nice walks, beach days, lounging on the patio and going to family sponsored "events" which included vast quantities of food and alcohol.  In fact, Ana's cousin Paul arranged for a nice beer tap and seemingly endless supplies of kegs.  It was, in fact, a "traveling" beer machine as it made an appearance at every single family function we attended.  One afternoon the great man Toddy Van Hees and I spent an entire afternoon on our back patio with the lovely beer machine and we all got well acquainted.

Every time we travel to the Azores we see more and more development.  If I had unlimited resources I would be buying up property like mad there as I expect a huge increase in tourism dollars finding its way there.  There are also a lot of foreigners moving to the Azores which is sure to put even more pressure on property values.  This is quite unfortunate for the locals as there are not a lot of high paying jobs on the island so every day owning a home is further and further out of reach for most people.  I am certain that sometime in the future, we will be spending a lot of time there as both Ana and I find it to be one of the loveliest places on the planet.

We spent the last long weekend of the summer with my brother Marty and his wife Jen in Ottawa for their son Leif's baptism.  I had the privilege and honour of being chosen as Leif's godfather which I am very proud of.  I hope to be a great spiritual mentor to him and also help out with getting his enemies "wacked" when required.

Ana was very fortunate to return to a job with WestJet after her year of maternity leave.  She is working in the same department as before but now in a "casual" role where she's doing 12-15 hours per week from home.  This particular job may only last until December, but at least that gives her some time to explore other options within the company (and keep our travel benefits!).  She really has enjoyed her time there so I hope something works out for her to stay with them.

As far as me, I've been keeping busy with managing and improving the rental properties we've acquired as well as being on the hunt daily for great property deals.  I've also been looking around for a new IT/consulting gig as I feel like I'm not quite ready to move away from that career which has treated me very well over the years.  I think that we will be able to balance our business endeavors with employment, which gives us the best of both worlds - steady cashflow and our "own thing" which will eventually provide for some nice long sailing journeys.

Over and out.

Kris

July 1, 2007 - Happy Canada Day!

One beautiful little happy girl, one handsome curious boy, one spectacular country.  It's nice to reflect on life during holidays such as this.  Ana and I have been so fortunate with everything we've done and a lot of this we owe to growing up in Canada.  After living in so many different countries we have a good perspective on the differences between them and what constitutes a great country.  Growing up in Canada gives you a great head start - an excellent and free education, safety, unparalleled natural beauty, freedom of speech and freedom and ease of mobility.  It really is an easy and fun place to live and we are so happy to be back here to offer this gift to our kids.  For me, after I had lived away from Canada for several years I never expected to return to live here permanently as I had built such a nice life for myself elsewhere.  But once I met Ana and we decided to start a family, that changed everything.  We couldn't imagine ourselves living away from "home" and raising children that would not grow up playing with their cousins, spending time with their grandparents and being spoiled by aunts and uncles.  Yay Canada!

In other news, in two days we'll be sitting with our toes in the ocean drinking cheap beer on the wonderful island of San Miguel in the Azores.  The best part about it is our old buddy Toddy Van Hees will be joining us there for a few days.  He's sick of the crap weather in the UK so needs a nice sunshine break.  One thing I've learned about meeting up with Todd - the place may change but the hangovers remain the same.

Last weekend we drove up to Ottawa to visit Marty, Jen and the big Leif.  I haven't seen my nephew since he was a small raisin-like creature so I was surprised and happy to see a sturdy, tough little boy looking back at me.  He's still a little young to start giving him gotchie pulls and the "pull my finger" trick but it won't be long.

That's it for now, here's to a great Canada Day and a superb summer.

Kris

April 30, 2007 - Where has the year gone?

Hmmm, two journal entries so far this year and it's almost May.  It seems that two kids and a new business keeps our days too occupied for much website work.  I'm happy to say it's Monday morning and I didn't have to go off to somebody else's office this morning.  It's true that I was up at 6:30 in the home office catching up on paperwork, emails, etc, but it's a whole different thing when it's for yourself on your own schedule.  Do I sound happy?  Yippee!

We've just finished a big renovation project on a property we bought and are now reselling.  This is the first so called "buy and flip" property we've done so we're hoping it will sell fast.  The project took almost exactly 4 weeks and it was a very busy 4 weeks at that.  We have found that this type of project is all consuming and pretty much everything else in our life grinds to a halt during the renovation time.  Now we've done the work and can now concentrate on the selling part and after that....well, it 's almost summer here so I'm hoping there will be some fishing and nice long walks in our near future.

As far as the summer goes, we're heading back to the Azores for two weeks which is sure to be a lot of fun.  We're also planning a couple trips back to Saskatchewan as well as at least one trip out to see Marty, Jen and Leif and Ottawa.  We also have plenty of exploring to do in and around our new home so it's shaping up to be a busy and fun summer.

I've just updated the site with a few new pics of the kiddies (here for Magnus, here for Stella).  They are both doing great - Magnus is constantly on the move and Stella is just about starting to crawl.  We're happy the weather is finally shaping up so we can spend more time outdoors with the kids instead of inside watching Toy Story 2 for the hundredth time.

Wow, this is a really boring update.  By this point in the journal I've usually had some sort of comical inspiration but I just don't feel it today.  I'll have to give my funny bone a workout and see what I can come up with.  Come to think of it, I haven't written a story in a while, might have to do that this week.  The last story I wrote was about some dance lessons I received in Suriname - click here for a story break.

Major news flash - Ana just called me upstairs to see Stella crawl across the room for the first time!  Way to go Stellazinha!

That's it for now, gotta rush out to get one of those kiddie gates to put on the stairs..

Kris

February 6, 2007 - From the new corporate headquarters in Paris, Ontario

I'm finally an uncle!!!  Marty and Jen's little boy arrived on February 4th, just one day before Marty's 32nd birthday.  He was named Leif Peter Olson and was a healthy 8 pounder.  We can't wait to meet the little guy!

We are now all settled into our new house.  It was built in less than 2 months and we are extremely happy with the builder and the finished product.  The first big event we have planned to "break it in" will be Stella's baptism on Feb 25th.  We are planning lunch for 43 as a way of stress testing the new digs.  The style is a 4 level side split which means lots of livable space and lots of stairs.  The whole family has been developing super sized calf and thigh muscles due to the extensive stair climbing, which is not a bad thing considering it's practically the only exercise we're getting these days.  We've also realized that the size of this house no longer allows Ana and I to talk loudly to communicate when in different rooms.  Now, we have to scream at maximum volume to garner attention.

Magnus is very happy with his new "Playboy Mansion" styled bedroom.  In it, he has vaulted ceilings, a huge colour tv, surround sound, a race car bed, a beautiful view to the horse farm next door and, to top it all off, a red leather La-Z-Boy chair courtesy of his grandparents.  The only signs of his existence now is the frequent screams of "MORE MILK" which vibrate from his quarters every half hour.

Stella is growing like a champ and has surpassed the 20 pound mark some weeks ago so is looking quite butterballish.  She has been a star baby in all respects.  The love of her life is her big brother Magnus, who ignores her completely but it doesn't seem to dampen her enthusiasm much.

As for Ana and I, we have been working hard on getting our new business up and running.  We bought our second property yesterday, an interesting 4plex near downtown Brantford so this week we are doing our "due diligence" to ensure the property is up to standards. We are also showing one of the units in our first property to a potential tenant today.  We actually take possession of that one on Friday so all hell will break loose then since John and I are planning to develop the attic space in the upper unit into living space so that will be the first full-on construction project.  I've been focusing on networking with other real estate investors in the area as well as bankers, mortgage people, tradespeople, etc so it's all been a great learning experience and a lot of fun.  That is the name of the game.

That's about it for now, adios.

Kris

November 29, 2006 - From the Corporate Headquarters of Grand Ventures Inc. (aka...the Borges Basement)

It's been a fun ride so far.  We've got another four weeks to go until we get our new house and best of all, we're taking off to Florida next week for a little holiday!  We have a cool beach house rented near Fort Myers and my old buddy Mike Schaaf will be joining us there for a couple days.

I've been quite busy getting a new company up and running.  It's called Grand Ventures Inc. and the main component of it is a real estate investment company.  Which means, I look for properties which I can buy below market price then either fix and sell or buy and hold for monthly cash flow and future gains.  You're thinking, "oh yeah, just like those Flip this House tv shows".  Well, not quite.  Unfortunately those shows just concentrate on the renovation and resale parts.  That's that easy stuff...the hard part is finding the great deals on properties in the first place.  If you can't get a great deal on the property then there's no way you can make any money flipping it.  Anyway, have a look at www.houses.grandventures.ca and let me know what you think.

Stella has been growing rapidly and is now getting quite pudgy, just like her big brother Magnus was.  He, on the other hand, is getting long and lean, probably due to his non-stop galloping around the house knocking things over.  They are both sleeping very well, which means we have been sleeping very well.  It helps that we don't need to be up at 5:30 every morning getting ready for work.  I wonder how long we can make this last?

We had a weekend trip to New York recently which was fantastic!  We met my friend Ian and his girlfriend there.  Him and I went to the Real Estate Wealth convention over the two days and the ladies (including Stella...Magnus was left at home with his grandparents for this trip..) went shopping all day long and thoroughly enjoyed it.  We heard some amazing speakers at the conference and came away with plenty of new ideas - quite timely considering the business I'm in now.  I didn't get to see too much of the city so we'll have to plan another trip there sometime soon to explore it properly.

Next up will be the annual Christmas letter...

Kris

October 25, 2006 - Mission Control is now the Borges basement...

We've gone and done it.  Yep, Cowtown is now just a fantastic memory and we're living in Ontario without jobs or a house.  It seems to be the way we do things, as soon as we're happily settled with friends and a great comfortable routine, we drop it all and head somewhere new.  Maybe we're flaky, maybe we're just always looking for something new, at least we're never bored!

I'm into a whole new routine now.  Since we have Ana's mom taking care of our kids all day long and Ana sleeping until 3 in the afternoon, and no internet connection, it's given me a lot of new found free time.  When we first arrived I just played with the cat Tico for most of the day.  After a couple weeks of that I was finally able to beat him in a race from the couch to the furnace room and back, but I usually had to sideswipe him into the bathroom door to knock him off balance.  When the shine wore off that activity, I went down to Value Village and picked up some exercise videos.  Now in the morning, after Ana's mom cooks me pancakes and bacon, I do the Richard Simmon's "Sweatin' to the Oldies" (volumes 1 and 2) for a while to get a good glisten going.  I've picked up some cool moves off him too, it's amazing how relevant his dancing is even today.  Napoleon Dynamite has nothing on me now.  After that I usually skateboard down to the Taco Bell around lunch and have a couple bean burritos then come back home for a nap.  After that, I pump it up once again, but the afternoon shift is the "Tae Bo" video with that bald guy.  I get to feeling like a real bad ass after a few minutes of that so I normally end up kicking the cat around the basement practicing my new moves, poor Tico.  By that time Ana is up and at 'em so we'll either go out for dinner and a movie or sometimes we'll stay home and spar in the basement so she can get her exercise, and at the same time give Tico a break from the shit kicking I deliver to him in the afternoon.  So I guess you could say it's been a refreshing change from our hectic lifestyle in Calgary.  I think our kids are doing pretty good, but I'm not really sure.  I've tried showing Ana's mom how to use our digital camera so she can document their growth and development then report back to us on their progress, but she hasn't really got the hang of it yet so I'll keep training her.  Ana's dad and I recently made 72 gallons of wine from fresh California and Canadian grapes so that's been saving me a bundle on booze.  Because I like to stay sauced pretty much all day long, I'm able to drink the cheap wine instead of wasting money on beer and hard liquor.  Since I've finally got the internet working, I'll probably take those savings and invest them in some online poker - I'm sure I can make a bundle.

That's our update for now.  If anything interesting happens, we'll let you know.

September 17, 2006 - The Best Kind of Sunday.....

...is the one where you don't have to go to work tomorrow morning!

Here I sit looking at my two beautiful children sleeping on the living room couches.  Ana has gone shopping, the house is quiet and I have a perfect moment to tap out a quick journal entry.  More than ever before, our website is living up to its name - Life Is Grand!  We are a bit more than a week away from our move to Ontario and most of the packing is done so we actually looking forward to some free time this week.  The last three weeks have been consumed by Stella's birth and our trip to Saskatchewan with Ana's folks to work on our new cabin.  As usual, there ended up being a lot more work than we expected but happily the interior and exterior of the cabin is now 99% complete with just some landscaping remaining for next spring.

Stella has been a wonderful baby thus far, great sleeper, huge eater and body functions working at full capacity.  I believe Magnus is through the denial stage and has now actually been paying some attention to his new sister.  He's fond of jamming the soother in her mouth whether she wants it or not as well as feeding her and even giving her little kisses throughout the day.  It was a great help having the in-laws here to help out with our new arrival, and was especially good for Magnus as he loves being around his grandparents.

That's about it for now.  Thanks to everybody who've sent us "congratulations" emails recently.  We haven't replied to any of them yet but will get to that soon.  I'll be posting new pictures on Stella's page frequently so please check back often.

Kris