Category: Real Life
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Best Masks For Kids In Calgary
Sadly the need for masks for both ourselves and our kids is not going away. The list below has both medical and non-medical masks that are perfect for kids both in size and in colours/patterns. These masks are available in Calgary and can ship right to your door so if you’re looking for the best…
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Things To Do With Your Kids: Mountain Top Christmas and Nightrise at Banff Gondola
The holiday season is upon us and if you live in Alberta then, in my opinion, heading to the mountains is one of the best things you can do with the family. Last week, we were lucky enough to be asked to visit the Banff Gondola to experience its newest attraction Nightrise as well as…
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Creating True Holiday Spirit At Southcentre Mall
*This is a paid collaboration post with Southcentre Mall* Having grown up in Lake Bonavista, Southcentre Mall has been my favourite mall since we moved to Calgary in 199…..on second thought you don’t need to know how long ago that was (I’m not old, right? RIGHT???). In my humble opinion, Christmas isn’t Christmas without a…
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Life As A Diabetic Parent: Diabetes Technology has come a long way
I was first diagnosed with type one diabetes over 35 years ago. That makes me sound really old, but I was actually diagnosed at just over one-year-old. At that time, diabetes management was WAY different than it is now. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for my parents. There were no devices…
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Profit Share with Servus Credit Union
As we head towards the first part of June, we have now been working with Servus for almost six months. In those six months, a LOT has changed. For instance, we bought a new house. But also, our spending habits have changed. Our partnership with Servus gave us the opportunity to sit down and evaluate…
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RESP: Free Money For Your Kids
If you’re anything like me, then a Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP) sounded like one of those adulty things you should really do once you have kids, but the why and the how were a little less specific. Well here is a doozy of a why, and if you take nothing else from this article…
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Recapping our savings journey and winning $1 Million with Servus Credit Union
As we head towards the end of April, that means we’re only eight days away from the Servus Big Share contest ending! There’s still time to enter and it’s worth it because you could win $1 MILLION! With the Servus Big Share, every time you save $500 you get an entry to win $1 Million.…
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What’s the difference between a bank and a credit union?
I touched on this briefly in my first post with Servus Credit Union, but really what is the difference between a bank and a credit union? We’re all familiar with Canada’s major banks, but credit unions seem smaller and more local, why is that? Well in this blog post I’ll break it all down for…
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How To Teach Your Kids About Money
Out of all of the blogs I’ve written about our experience with Servus, this blog has been the most requested. Money is an emotional subject for most people, couple that with the most important little people in your life and suddenly the topic of teaching your kids about money is one fraught with years of…
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Tips for choosing a financial advisor
This post is part of a paid collaboration with Servus Credit Union. I think for a lot of people the hardest part of getting started on your personal finance journey is the actual GETTING STARTED part of it. How do you choose a financial advisor? Let’s face it, our education system lets us down when it…
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TFSA vs RRSP – What are they and which is better?
For the latest blog on our Servus Credit Union financial journey, we start to dive into the real meat and potatoes of savings. And as it turns out, this is also the part of savings where I get overwhelmed and confused. TFSAs and RRSPs. What are they? What’s the difference? What should we be invested…
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Financial Goals and How We’re Working Towards Freedom
As we embark on our savings journey with Servus Credit Union we started meeting regularly with our financial advisor Brock. In our first meeting, we talked about our life and Brock really took the time to get to know us as a family. He wanted to know what we do, what we’d like to do…
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A Dive Into The Dashing Family Finances
I’m very excited to announce a new collaboration for Dashing Dad – Servus Credit Union. But why should you care? BECAUSE YOU CAN WIN A MILLION DOLLARS! I’m not joking. I’ll get to that in a bit. Personal finance is something that Dashing Mom and I have been interested in for a while. Ok, I’ll…
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Forest Schools In and Around Calgary
As the clock turns over to 2021, we’re quickly approaching the need to register Clara for Kindergarten. With our love of spending time outdoors, we wanted to investigate putting her into a forest school for Kindergarten. There are a number of proven benefits to forest schools including hands-on learning, exercise and real-world examples of learning…
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Daycare, Dayhome or a Nanny? Which is right for you?
Even under normal circumstances looking for childcare is stressful. Juggling the cost with what values are right for you and your kids, with the distance from your work and home is a lot, but throw a global pandemic on top of it and suddenly there’s a whole new set of things to worry about. After…
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Updating My Dad Fashion
Now that I’m a Dad, dressing like I’m a teenager looks bad and feels wrong. With the help of some local brands I updated my Dad fashion and can help you too
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Calgary Restaurants, Breweries, and Coffee Roasters Offering Delivery
Unprecedented times, call for an unprecedented amount of ordering in. Delivery drivers are busier than they’ve ever been and it’s easy to see why. If you’re keeping your social distance but still want to support local businesses I’ve assembled a list of restaurants, breweries and coffee roasters that offer delivery options either via in-house delivery…
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Things To Do With Your Kids While Self Isolating
We can all get through this together. While it’s called self-isolating, and social distancing, we’re not alone. In fact, we’re more connected than ever as we band together to stop the spread of disease.
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What is an Applesauce Sky? Top Parent Theories
The new season of Word Party has been released on Netflix and it will surely bring mixed reactions from parents. Especially this quote from Halle Stanford, President of Television for the Jim Henson Company. “Kids and parents have been asking for more ‘Word Party’ fun and our new episodes will deliver with a new baby,…
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11 Awesome Calgary Instagram Accounts For Parents
Awesome Calgary Parenting Instagram accounts you should be following now.
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Here’s to 2020, the year of possibilities
As we head into the 20’s, I can unequivocally say I am happier now than I was then and what’s perhaps more indicative of my growth as a person, I’m envisioning and planning for a future more than I ever had before.
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Can Kids Ride Lime and Bird Scooters?
Calgary now has scooters from Lime and Bird, but can your kids ride these scooters? I went straight to the source to see if your kids can ride e-scooters …
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16 Modern Tattoo Ideas For Parents in Calgary
If you want to celebrate your kids and your family with a tattoo then here is a list of some of the best tattoo ideas for parents to get about their kids
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How to Fly With a Toddler
If you’ve ever flown with a toddler then you know how anxiety inducing it can be. I wanted to share all of the tips and tricks we used to make flying with a toddler run as smooth as it could.
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Things are changing
It’s a quiet moment in the Dashing family home so I wanted to take a moment to talk to all of you. It’s become increasingly clear as I try to take pictures of our family that we can no longer keep this a secret, so I am SUPER excited to announce that things are changing…
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Why Grandparents are the best
Grandparents are just awesome. As a kid growing up, your grandparents are often the ones you get to stay with for fun weekends where they spoil you and perhaps look past some of your minor mistakes. They always make your favourite food, and will often pay you absurd amounts for helping out with the simplest…
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Mental Health and Children
Welcome to part three in my three part series on mental health for Bell Let’s Talk Day. To read part one about my own mental health click here . To read part two featuring Matt Boudreau and men’s mental health click here. Today is Bell Let’s Talk Day. Bell has done a great job over the last 8 years to end the stigma surrounding…
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Men’s Mental Health
Welcome to part two in my three part series on mental health as we lead up to Bell Let’s Talk Day. To read part one click here. I recently had the chance to interview Matt Boudreau about Man Enough YYC and the changing conversation surrounding men’s mental health. Matt is a Calgary Dad who is…
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Strengthening Our Mental Health
January is known as a blue month. The excitement and pandemonium of Christmas is over, everyone is back to work and school. The weather is usually cold (although this January has been awesome in Calgary) and spring seems a very long ways away. It’s easy to see how our mental health could take a hit…
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Like father, Like son
The phrase, Like father, Like son can have many different meanings to many different people. I have it tattooed on my shoulder to remind me that I am like my father. How we are raised influences us in so many different ways and as you become a parent you can’t help but look back on…
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What I’ve Learned In My First Year As A Stay-At-Home Dad
Today marks the one-year anniversary of me officially becoming a stay-at-home Dad (SAHD). Since starting this blog I’ve written about why I love being a SAHD, shared the thoughts of other SAHD’s on what it’s REALLY like and over the course of this first year I have definitely learned a thing or two. So as I…
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Raising a Child With a Peanut Allergy
“Unfortunately, it looks like Clara is allergic to peanuts.” At these words, my heart sunk. Since we first found out Dashing Mom was pregnant I had been worried about Clara being Diabetic, but being allergic to a food had never even crossed my mind. And I had no idea what to do. Raising a child…
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The Meaning Of Being A Dad
I never grew up with a strong conviction that I was going to be anything when I got older. When I was eight, I was sure I was going to be a baseball player. I was a pitcher and I had a mean slider that no batter my age could touch. I couldn’t hit to…
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Tips and Tricks For Driving With A Toddler
This is Part Two in a series of How To Take A Road Trip With A Toddler, Part one is here. When I wrote How To Take a Road Trip With a Toddler I was unprepared for the nerve it would strike with people. Apparently road trip struggles are real for EVERYONE, and the response I got…
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9 Stay-At-Home Dads Tell Us What It’s REALLY Like
You know those times where you’re at work and everything is going wrong so you turn to your co-worker to vent about how you hate everything. They listen, offer up some advice, or offer to buy you a beer after work. You don’t get that as a stay-at-home parent. Finding a sense of community as…
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How To Take A Road Trip With A Toddler
This year, for Stampede season, we decided to get the heck out of town and headed to beautiful Christina Lake, British Columbia. My cousin and his wife own a cabin there and are gracious enough to let us use it. The only downside to the whole experience is you need to take a 7 hour…
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Raising A Child As A Parent With Type 1 Diabetes
Raising a child as a parent with Type 1 Diabetes has introduced some interesting challenges, but it has also made some things easier. This year we’re introducing Clara to volunteer work and fundraising by taking part in the Sun Life – Walk For The Cure. What is Type 1 Diabetes? Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is…
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I’m Not The Dad I Thought I Would Be
I’m not the Dad I thought I would be and that has left me not feeling like a Dad. It’s a weird feeling. In some ways I Dad more than a lot of the Dad’s that Dad out there. But having grown up with a stay-at-home-mom, and with the societal expectations of a family having…
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How To Make Cooking With Your Toddler Fun
Cooking with toddlers can be awesome, however, cooking is not one of my specialties. Try as I might I have not got better. Sadly I am full-grown adult still capable of burning water. Which is why I am so fortunate to be married to Dashing Mom. Not only does she work hard all week for…
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5 Things I Love About Being a Stay At Home Dad
I won’t lie to you, there are lots of reasons I love being a stay-at-home-dad and I think being a stay-at-home-dad is the greatest job in the world. There hasn’t been a day where I have thought to myself “Man I wish I was back at work,” or “boy I miss those long commutes in…
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Why I Thought We Didn’t Need Toddler Swimming Lessons
Looking for the best toddler swim lessons in Calgary? Check out my post here with my recommendation. If you’re looking for a review of the YMCA lessons as well as a list of available options around the city, see below! **Updated September 2018** When I first wrote this post, I didn’t know too much about…
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Giving yourself permission to stay home
The toughest days for being a stay-at-home-dad (or stay-at-home-mom) are the days where you’re just done. You’re tired, you woke up on the wrong side of the bed, everything’s going wrong, or you just don’t think you have the energy to do it today. Unfortunately, your boss (or bosses) won’t give you the day off.…
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Dashing Family’s Birth Story
Maybe a more apt title would be AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!! Every birth story is unique, but I think for new parents the nervous, anxious, exciting feelings and straight out fear are common. I was certainly a ball of all of these things. Clara was due November 7, a day that came and passed with no sign that…
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How I Became a Stay-At-Home-Dad
I love being a stay-at-home-dad (SAHD). My story of becoming a stay-at-home-dad is a pretty simple one and one I suspect a lot of parents can relate to. I graduated with a diploma in Journalism, and for the last 13 years have been working as a journalist, writer, communications and marketing professional. In the last…