Richer Than We Think

Usually, my family and I spend our March Break vacation at home, relaxing or visiting with friends. This year, partly in honour of Canada's 150th "birthday", we decided to take a trip to Ottawa. My son and daughter had never been to the capital city of Canada and we thought it'd be a new and fun experience. I had only been to Ottawa twice before, and the last time was in 1999. We did some research and chose to stay at the lavish and historic Chateau Laurier.

We drove to Ottawa and spent three days in total there. Monday and Wednesday were mostly dedicated to traveling there and back, but Tuesday was jam-packed with activities. We reserved a tour in advance with the Canadian Mint and my husband lined up early enough on Tuesday morning to snag us tickets for a guided tour of the Canadian Parliament.

Maman by the Portrait Gallery with Parliament in the distance

In the Parliament Building

In the library

On Tuesday afternoon, we were also able to squeeze in a visit to the Canadian War Museum and on Wednesday morning, before we left for home, we toured the newly renamed Museum of Canadian History.

My feet - I'm not flatfooted so I could've enlisted in WWI if I was a man.

Hubby in the replica of trench warfare - oppressive, scary

A piece of the actual Berlin Wall

Totem poles at the former Museum of Civilization 

Mexican creation myths in yarn (I thought of Lisa Noble)

My children are both at an age and stage where they can enjoy and appreciate various museums and have the stamina to walk around. (I logged over 22 000 steps on my Fit Bit on Tuesday!) In fact, I think my son most enjoyed exhibits that he had some sort of connection to - he had completed a history project on the Fenians back in Grade 8 so he was interested in seeing the Fenian artifacts. Our favourite place was the Mint, where we bought some souvenir Canadian 2017 coins, and our favourite place to eat was Zak's, a diner close to the By-Town Market. My bacon and sausage poutine cost a lot more than I'm used to paying for poutine, but it was delicious!

Bacon and sausage poutine

Hubby's foot-long hot dog really was that long!

It wasn't until after we returned home and did some "minor" things that it really hit home to me how fortunate and financially comfortable we are, to be able to afford to go places and do things. When I returned to the GTA, I saw a couple of friends, Jennifer Casa-Todd (York Catholic DSB) and Alanna King (Upper Grand DSB) who introduced me to some decadent gourmet donuts. The next day, not only did I drive all the way to Aurora, ON to buy a dozen of these donuts for my family and for some other friends I spent time with that evening (Francis Ngo, Diana Hong, and Rob Reyes), I also did some shopping at Yankee Candle and Lush. I was a bit ashamed at blowing over $40 just on donuts, but then I looked at how much I spent on candles ($100) and on bath bombs ($30), neither of which are necessities.

I considered myself to be blessed (good job, roof over my head, wonderful spouse, healthy and happy kids) but I don't think I ever realized how financially well-off we are. I thought that, since we are a one-income family and we live in a much-maligned area of the city that we were just "average". Well, I looked it up and according to CBC News, the median family income is $76 000 and the richest 10% of individuals in Canada make more than $80 400. This is as of 2013.  Here's the Statistics Canada results, which are similar.

There are many other ways that we are richer than we think. My family is so lucky to be able to have all the adults and children with open and free schedules at the same time on March Break. Time together is such a treasure. Some families need to arrange time off in advance, or can only have one parent free to travel at this time with their kids. Other families have to scramble to find accommodations for their children because both parents work and can't manage to take time off. The members of my household get along extremely well with each other, so there are no "I hate my sibling" wars in the car or elsewhere - we enjoy spending time with each other. We have enough shared interests that we liked the places we selected to go as a group, but we also respected personal time and everyone had a chance to have it in Ottawa (reading, visiting friends in Ottawa, using the computer, or swimming in the chilly but stylish swimming pool).

How can I demonstrate that I'm aware that this isn't the reality for everyone, including my students?  I've struggled with this before and wrote about it here. I suspect that it won't be as big of an issue because for the first week back from the Break, I have three field trip planned (in a week and a half I will have taken 8 classes on 4 field trips - more details on where in a future post). Still, my time in Ottawa and with my friends made me very grateful for what I have.