Ricky Shetty's Blog, page 11

Trip to Calgary

We decided to do a last minute trip to visit Anne’s sister in Calgary. We were debating how to get there (cheapest, most convenient, best views). After considering flying and driving, we finally decided to take the Greyhound (the cheapest option and it also allowed us to sit back and enjoy the journey). We tried to rent out our condo on Airbnb so we could earn some money while we were away but didn’t get any requests. However, we did get a few requests for November and December! In Calgary, we got an Explore Calgary Media Pass from the Tourist Office visiting the Calgary Tower, Fort Calgary, and the Calgary Zoo. Plus, we had our stroller so we just walked around and explored a lot too. The riverside walk is really beautiful with picturesque views of the downtown skyline. Since it was the end of October, it was starting to get cold. However, we loved how almost every day and bright blue skies and virtually no rain. This was a stark contrast to rainy, cloudy, overcast Vancouver. We’ll have to return to Calgary soon so that we can explore the surrounding areas such as Banff, Lake Louise, Jasper, the Icefields Highway, the Dinosaur Museum, etc. We were going to rent a car with a pick up in Calgary and drop-off in Vancouver but they charge a few hundred extra for a different drop-off location. On the journey back to Vancouver, there was already fresh snow, when we drove past Banff through the Rockies. I’m glad that we didn’t drive since we just have all-season tires and it’s much more enjoyable to just sit and enjoy the snow from the warmth of a bus rather than slipping and sliding, worrying about dry ice, traffic, and weather conditioning worsening. Anne’s sister was a great host. She’s planning on staying in Calgary a few more years so we’ll definitely be back! What better reason to return than a visit to our kids’ lovely aunty! Here are some highlights from our trip:

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Stories of a Dad

This is a guest blog post by Adam Hickmott, founder of the Stories of a Dad website. Make sure you check out Adam’s website for more great blog posts like this one! This is a story about the toughest time in our lives, Chelsea,  I, and our family had to try to over come a monumental mountain, as you will read as the story goes on the human body no matter how small is an incredible thing. If you are affected by anything you read please get in touch via the contact us page, we’ve been there. It’s not easy. So here goes.. Most women get to enjoy a pretty sound pregnancy, forty weeks is the standard gestation period for human beings, some go slightly longer, some finish sooner, the latter is what happened during our pregnancy. Our son Bobby was born at thirty-one weeks, he weighed 2 lbs 5 ounces, and was so small he could fit in the palm of my hand. Many parents will know where I’m coming from as many have been through what we went through. So, rewind to early December 2010 we found out Chelsea was pregnant. We were ecstatic, overjoyed, scared.. At the time we were both 20 years old, living together, and both working full-time jobs. This would be life changing! At first everything was normal and going great, we had told our families and they were happy for us. Then, just as we got to the starting line ready to begin our nine month journey to parenthood, Chelsea began experiencing some peculiarities, so we sought medical advice. We had been in the hospital since 7pm, after countless tests the news came with a shattering blow, the doctors were 90% sure we had lost our baby.. We were told we would have an emergency scan next week to determine if we were still going to be parents or not. However, there was still a 10% chance and that was all the hope I needed. We left the Accident and Emergency department at Maidstone Hospital in floods of tears, hand in hand. Me and Chelsea walked towards the exit, as the automatic doors slid open what greeted us couldn’t have been more biblical. A snow storm, a thick white blanket of snow. It was 1am. A few days later we received our scan appointment.. Christmas Eve! Of all the days it could have been, […]

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Your Greatest Present is Your Presence

Who reading this owns a cell phone? I’m going to go out on a limb and say anyone reading this in 2015 definitely owns a cell phone. Where is that cell phone currently located? Your purse, pocket, or at least somewhere in close proximity to you? You might even be reading this post with that cell phone. Let me ask you another question. Who likes presents? We celebrate birthdays, holidays, and anniversaries all of which usually include a present either given or received. Do you know another group that I know of who really likes presents? CHILDREN! OUR YOUTH! Have you ever experienced a Christmas morning with children opening up gifts? The excitement level for most reaches full volume. We’re currently living in a world full of constant distractions and it usually starts with our cell phones. Although, as I mentioned children love presents there is something else that trumps those material gifts. I truly believe the greatest present you can give your child is your presence, your attention, your engagement because we live in this world of distractions and what’s more important than your child? My philosophy when it comes to parenting is be present. As long as you’re present with your child I’m a big believer that all the other pieces fall into place. However, none of that happens if you’re not present. Presence according to Dr.Frank Lipman’s blog and an excerpt from Lauren Young’s book “Journeys of a Thirsty Soul- Thoughts of Enlightment and Evolution” define presence as following “Presence is about what we bring, the focus and the concentration that we bring into our actions.”http://www.drfranklipman.com/presence/. What has your presence been lately when it comes to you as a parent and your children? My two daughters were playing on the floor of their room as I was scrolling through my Instagram feed when it hit me. There will come a point when I possibly now what’s currently going on with my friends kids via pictures more than my own kids who are right in front of me if I keep up this behavior. Even more so, there will come a point where my girls will be grown and gone and I’ll be stuck there with my cell phone. The thought running through my mind of that happening was a turning point for me. Now let me be clear cell phones, technology, and social media are a beautiful thing. […]

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Northern BC Loop

It’s our annual family tradition to do a few Road Trips each summer. In August, we had the opportunity to do the entire Cascade Loop. In September, we decided to do a Northern BC Loop starting in Vancouver, taking a ferry from Horseshoe Bay to Nanaimo, driving up from Nanaimo to Port Hardy, then taking the day long ferry from Port Hardy to Prince Rupert. From Prince Rupert, we drove to Prince George and then stopped in Barkerville, Quesnel, and Williams Lake before heading to the Cariboo-Chilcotin Coast staying overnight in Nimpo Lake and Bella Coola. In Nimpo Lake, we had the opportunity to visit our good friend George Probek who works every summer at Steward’s Lodge. Finally, we drove back to Williams Lake and down through Hat Creek Ranch, Lytton, Boston Bar, Hell’s Gate, and Hope on our way back to beautiful Vancouver. We even managed to do the Rambo Tour in Hope exploring a lot of the sites from the movie including the famous Othello Tunnels. It was a great trip seeing so much of our beautiful province. Both of our kids did a great job even though we were on the road a lot and it was rainy for the first part. Our kids are definitely amazing travellers! I think it’s good that we have been consistently taking them on travel adventures since they were young so it’s become normal to them. We’ll be doing a lot more Road Trips so make sure you subscribe for blog updates, follow us on our various Social Media platforms (we post a lot of our travel pictures exclusively on Instagram), and watch some of the videos we make on our YouTube Channel (which is now close to 1 million total views). Thanks for your travel tips and support. Here is a Video Highlights we made:

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The Cascade Loop

We have been on several road trips from Vancouver including Harrison Hot Springs, Sunshine Coast, Okanagan, Bowen Island, Vancouver Island, Salt Spring Island, Seattle, etc. However, we have never explored much of Washington State. After seeing some pictures of Leavenworth on Social Media, we decided to head down to this area of Washington State and do the entire Cascade Loop. Here is a short Highlights Video of The Cascade Loop: Some of the places we visited included: 1) LEAVENWORTH 2) WENATCHEE 3) LAKE CHELAN 4) TWISP 5) WINTHROP 6) WASHINGTON PASS 7) MOUNT BAKER

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Trip to Leavenworth

One of our annual family traditions is going on different Road Trips from Vancouver! This summer, we decided to do the Cascade Loop stopping at Leavenworth, Wenatchee, Lake Chelan, Winthrop, Mount Vernon, and Mount Baker. One of our main stopping points was the German town of Leavenworth, which has an amazing entrepreneurial history. Originally, a ghost town with very few visitors, Leavenworth revived itself by turning itself into a Bavarian Village. It is a beautiful place to visit all year around! Here are some of our favourite places with some accompanying videos! 1) NUTCRACKER MUSEUM 2) UPPER VALLEY MUSEUM OF LEAVENWORTH 3) MUNCHEN HOUSE

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Profdy Cleaning Services

Have you figured out what is causing you stress? Is it lack of exercise? Lack of sleep? Poor diet? Overworking? How about your living environment? As parents of 2 young kids (3 year old Rianne and 1.5 year old Ryan), one of our major stress triggers is not having a clean living environment. I must admit, with kids, it’s super tough to ensure they always eat on the dining table, that they put away their toys, that they don’t spill stuff on the carpet. It’s definitely easy to get out of hand. A few weeks ago, I decided to surprise my wife Anne with a 4 hour deep cleanse of our place from the friendly team at Profdy. The maids from Profdy arrived early and brought everything they needed with them. I decided to stick around and get a few pictures and observe what they were doing. They started in the kitchen, cleaning the microwave, stovetop, and kitchen sink. All the stains and spills removed fully! Then was the living room and dining room!! I was super happy by how clean my office desk looked! They even removed all the crumbs from between the sofa cushions and dusted the bookshelves! Next was the washroom – they were super thorough cleaning the bathtub, toilet, and sink. Next up was the bedrooms and the glass doors and walls. Finally, the girls mopped the floors and vacuumed all the carpeted areas. Our place really looked like we had just bought a brand new condo!! Only one word can summarize my reaction: “WOW!” Here are some pictures showing the results: The team at Profdy are offering our Daddy Blogger readers a very special discount of only $25/hour (that’s the lowest price in the market currently). With such high quality cleaning at such affordable prices, I highly recommend getting a few hours of house and carpet cleaning done! Since the cleaning, our relationship has been stronger and we are more motivated than ever to keep our place clean!! Thanks, Team Profdy! Here is a video I made immediately following the cleaning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BSF8... Here is the reaction when my wife came home and saw our place fully clean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owhcR... Once again, here’s the link to get your: Home Cleaning Quote

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18th Amendment Barber Shop

Men’s Grooming is a hot trend lately and Daddy Blogger is always looking to review the best grooming places and recommend them to our readers!! This week, we got invited to 18th Amendment Barber Shop in the heart of  Gastown to do a review of their recently-opened shop. Immediately, as I was walked in, I was amazed by the 1920s ambience (hence the name 18th Amendment referring to the Prohibition Era in the 20s). Even the chairs you sit on while getting your haircut are over 100 years old and have been fully refurbished and restored! I got a haircut with the head barber Jake Hurn and we connected immediately since we had both done a lot of traveling. In my early 20s, I did a Working Holiday Visa in London, England (where Jake is from) and for 2 years, Jake is doing a Working Holiday Visa in Vancouver, Canada. Jake shared lots of great stories with me during the haircut and before you knew it, we had a younger, fresher, clean-cut Daddy Blogger!! 18th Amendment offers a range of different services from a traditional cut to a beard shave, a beard trim, a moustache trim, a facial, and even father-son Sunday where you and your child can get haircuts together! They also carry a wide selection of high quality grooming products and the friendly staff can tell you what’s best for you. They also offer a Gastown Residents discount so make sure you ask if you live in the area and make sure you let them know “Daddy Blogger sent me!” Here’s  the interview I did with Jake during my haircut: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noqaL...

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Vancouver Escape Rooms

Team building, creative thinking, and immersive entertainment? Where you can do all of these together? Escape Rooms…of course!! One of the things we love to do at Daddy Blogger is showcase, highlight, and analyze some of the latest societal trends. For this blog review, we spent 5 days visiting all of the different Escape Rooms in Vancouver: that’s 15 Escape Rooms in 5 days, averaging 3-4 Escape Rooms each day! Firstly, what’s an Escape Room? According to Wikipedia, “real-life room escape games are a type of physical adventure game in which people are locked in a room with other participants and have to use elements of the room to solve a series of puzzles, find clues, and escape the room within a set time limit.” We had a few goals in mind when doing these series of reviews: a) BE POSITIVE  – our goal was to support the Business Owners and the Escape Room Industry as a whole so we have approach our reviews with a desire to be encouraging, positive, and uplifting. b) BE OBJECTIVE – our goal is to be objective in our analysis looking at the strengths and weaknesses of each Escape Room (while maintaining our first goal to be positive) c) BE COMPREHENSIVE – our goal was to review as many Escape Rooms as possible to get an overview of the industry as a whole and how we can support each Business Owner So, here is our comprehensive review of almost every Escape Room in Vancouver broken down chronologically by date visited. We have included the picture we took after we succeeded or failed as well as our interview with the Business Owner or Team Member. DAY 1 (Time Escape, Lockdown, Smarty Pantz) 1) Time Escape   We started our reviews at Time Escape in Richmond and were warmly greeted by one of the co-owners Russell. We tried out Space-Ship Mysteries. They had some cool Space Outfits in the first room and the ambience really made you feel like you were on a Space-Ship. We only made it about 50% through the game since we were still “Escape Room Rookies.” One of my favourite features of Time Escape was how kid-friendly it is. Even in my video interview below, you can hear all the kids playing in the background and Russell emphasized the family-friendliness of Time Escape several times in the interview as well. I can’t […]

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Internet Marketing Mastery Conference

  Greetings Daddy Blogger supporters As a passionate father, I know you wanted to be informed and equipped about the latest marketing strategies to build your business so you can spend more time at home with your wife and kids. I wanted to introduce you to an amazing conference coming up in Vancouver called Internet Marketing Mastery, a 3 day content-rich event with over 30 of the best Internet Marketers from around the city sharing their experience and expertise on topics such as Branding, WordPress, Productivity, Social Media, Blogging, Podcasting, Email Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, eCommerce Stores, Membership Sites, and more!The normal price of this Conference is $397, but we’d like to offer a special discount. Enter promo code “DaddyBlogger” and get a massive $200 discount of the regular price! Attend the Internet Marketing Mastery Conference and you will discover… • How to become Google-Slap-Proof with brand new 2016 SEO strategies • “So much competition!” 10 Tips to instantly stand out in a crowded niche • Step-by-step to getting featured by top tier blogs to 100x your traffic over night • How to complete your ebook and make it a Kindle Top Seller in 31 days • How to use Reddit, LinkedIn and Facebook Groups to pickup coaching clients WordPress “Permalink Secrets” for front-page Google ranking = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = REGISTER HERE: http://yvrconferences.com Save $200 on Regular Rate tickets with the promo code “DaddyBlogger” = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Event Location: Executive Hotel & Conference Centre 4201 Lougheed Highway Burnaby, BC  How to Register:1. Go to http://yvrconferences.com 2. Scroll down the bottom of the page 3. Enter the promo code “DaddyBlogger to save $200 4. Click “Pay with PayPal” 5. Complete registration detailsLooking forward to seeing you at the Conference Join Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners from across Vancouver as well as our YVR Bloggers Group and 30 Internet Marketing Experts for this 3 day conference to discover the newest strategies in Branding, Social Media, Email Marketing, SEO, Copywriting, Book Publishing, Digital Monetization, and much much more!= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = […]

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