Transitions-Oakville, Burlington and Mississauga Real Estate Blog: April 2008

April has been a very busy month for me with many trips taken to the Burlington, Niagara and Guelph regions of Ontario. They were partly for business and partly for family and personal reasons. I enjoyed each trip I took very much and had the opportunity to become closer to many people in my family who I love dearly.

One of the trips was to the University of Guelph where my youngest son was finishing up his second year in the Criminal Justice Program. I drove him to write his final exam and to pick up the remainder of his things that were in the house he was sharing with 3 other students.

We had a wonderful 3 hour drive there and back and chatted about many things to do with life, happiness, goals, taking risks, living life to the fullest and so on.
Rob, my son, loves old heritage houses as much as I do and he had discovered two beautiful, stone, heritage homes in Guelph on quiet back streets that were high up on a hill overlooking the valley and the downtown below.

I was quite impressed with Rob's sleuthing skills as I had also attended the University of Guelph, where I attained my Bachelor of Science, Honours degree and never, in 5 years of living there , had come across these houses before.

I fell absolutely in love with one of them. Enchanted is a better word.
This house, pictured in the photo I took to the right, is set on the most beautiful, private, grounds imaginable and is protected from the outside world by a large wrought iron gate where visitors have to buzz and speak into the intercom before being granted permission to enter.
I'm absolutely enamoured of this property and would love to take a tour of it.

Rob is finished his second year now and on a subsequent trip this month, I drove him to the Lester Pearson Airport in Toronto (about 2 hours from here) where he took a plane to Kelowna, BC to spend the summer with my two older sons, David and Iain. He is enjoying it out there very much and loves the mountains and views.


These are some pictures David and Angie (David's girlfriend) sent me of Kelowna and a few that Iain sent me. It's absolutely beautiful out there:

Southern Ontario seemed to go directly from winter to summer this year, in less than a week. One day it was snowing and cold, then a few days later the sun was shining and we were experiencing temperatures in the 70s (20Cs). I enjoy the climate of southern Ontario very much and relish in the long hot summers that start in early spring.

My little nephew Jared, clearly a photographer of great artistic talent and vision, took these two photos from his deck at Sherkston Shores, the place they spend the summer. They were both taken on April 19th. They clearly illustrate how quickly things change here. Sherkston Shores is on Lake Erie and in the morning when Jared arrived there with his Mom and my other two nephews and niece, there was still ice on the lake.
















Later in the afternoon Jared captured the lake again as the ice had almost completely gone out to the middle to be carried away through the Great Lakes system.

On another visit to the region, my brother Clayton took me to an Al Stewart concert in St. Catharines. We had a wonderful time and we both laughed so hard. Who knew that the man who sang two of my favourite songs when I was a youngster, Time Passages and In The Year of the Cat, could be so funny? Al Stewart is the quintessential entertainer and has a certain charisma and charm all his own. The video below was from 20 years ago and he hasn't changed too much. Just a bit less hair.

I feel very fortunate to be living the life I'm living; to have the wonderful family I have with whom to share in life's pleasures.

~Jo