Great customer service from Best Limo and TeamBuy.ca!

I recently bought a Best Limo voucher to go to the airport through TeamBuy.ca.  The day before I needed to use the voucher, I called them at 3pm on Sunday afternoon for a 3am Monday morning pick-up.  However, they said they couldn't do it because they need 24-hour advance notice via their website.  In my over 10 years of taking airport limos on both business and personal trips, I have never had to order a limo 24-hours in advance.  Furthermore, the Teambuy voucher didn't specify this in the fine print.  It just had the phone number and address for Best Limo.  So I flipped out at the Best Limo guy on the phone and I immediately emailed TeamBuy.ca to get a refund for the 2 vouchers that I bought.

I then called another limo company to order a car for 3am the next morning with no problems.  Then, I get a call from Best Limo and the guy said they could arrange for a stretch limo to come pick us up.  At that point, I was unsure if I should trust him as I was travelling with another family who also had a voucher and would also need a pick-up.  That's when he said he could arrange for a stretch limo (which fits 10) to come pick us both up for 2 vouchers.  I called my friend and decided to take a risk.  Best Limo said they would even arrange to send a stretch limo SUV to pick us both up for no extra charge.  So I cancelled my other limo booking and we decided on a back-up plan just in case the Best Limo didn't show up the next morning.

To make it even more complicated, I get an email from Jess at Teambuy.ca confirming that they would refund the vouchers, no questions asked.  I was very impressed that someone was even working on a Sunday afternoon but I had to email them back to cancel the refund.  After a few back and forth emails and phone calls, Jess was able to cancel the refund.  phew!

I'm happy to report that the SUV stretch limo showed up the next morning at 2:45am and both families were able to get to the airport right on schedule.

Nice ride!

My husband the mind reader?

The other day, we were at a Japanese AYCE restaurant and, without me telling him, he ordered all the stuff that I like to eat: seaweed salad, vegetable tempura, BBQ beef ribs, and unagi hand roll.  I was impressed that he ordered all this stuff for me but thought this was just because we've been frequenting AYCE restaurants way too much.

Yesterday, he asked me to bake a cake for some of the staff at work so I did and he brought it to work today.  In my mind, I was thinking, "It would be nice to get a piece of the cake so I can see what it tastes like" but I didn't verbalize it.  When he came home today, he said, "I brought the cake to work and I asked them to save you a piece."

Wow....either I have a husband that reads minds or I have the best husband in the world!

Keeping tabs

I am such a sucker for deals.  Here are all the online deals that I've purchased over the past year.

Groupon: Laser Hair Removal (4 sessions) - $89

Wagjag: Family of 4 pass to Fantasy Fair ($55 value) - $20

Maddeal: Kids Active Zone weekday pass ($7 value) - free
Groupon: Crepe Delicious ($30 value) - $14
Teambuy: Limo to the airport ($85 value) - $29
Kijiji daily deals: Mani Pedi ($65 value) - $25

Tooth meets Scooter

Yesterday, my son had an accident in the playground.  The preschool said he was riding around the playground on a scooter and fell because he was going too fast.  His mouth hit the scooter on the way down so his gum was bleeding and one of his front tooth chipped.  

I called a good friend of ours who is a dentist and she saw him right away.  She filled the chip and took an x-ray of both front teeth.  It turns out that it is the other front tooth that is more concerning because there was some trauma to the tissue surrounding that tooth.  (Must be some kind of spiritual lesson here).  He needs to be on a soft/liquid diet for 10 days to allow the tissue around that tooth to heal.

Click here to see some pictures.

I think he was in shock more than anything because he didn't cry much but he was very tired after the whole incident.  He fell asleep in the car going home so we just put him to bed and he didn't eat dinner.  

This is the first real accident that my son has had.  We are thankful that it was not anything more serious and that the tooth was able to be fixed right away.  He was such a brave boy.  It totally helped that the dentist is our good friend so he was not scared while she was working on his tooth.  We are so blessed to have good friends!

Long Story Short

My son is a very slow eater.  He can sometimes spend over an hour eating breakfast.  So I decided to start doing devos with my son during our breakfast time together.  We have been going through this devo book called Long Story Short for the past 2 months.  I really like it because it goes through different aspects of each Bible story over the course of 5 days, connecting each story to Jesus and something from the Psalms/Proverbs/Prophets.  So far, we've gone through Adam & Eve, Cain & Abel, Noah and the Ark, Tower of Babel, and Abram/Abraham.  Through these stories, he has learned the names of Jesus from Isaiah 9:6 "Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace."  He learned that we will worship God with one voice in Heaven.  He learned that to 'delight' in God's Word means we to 'read it, enjoy it, and can't wait to read it again.'  It's amazing how much he can retain.  Now I don't mind that he eats slowly during breakfast because that just gives us more time to delight in God's Word together.

My Photo Book Mar 10 2011

Click here to view this photo book larger

Potstickers

These dumplings are called potstickers in English, wor tip in Cantonese, jaiozi in Mandarin, or gyoza in Japanese.  What's in a name?  That which we call a potsticker by any other name would taste as yummy.  

Ingredients:

- 1/2 lb ground pork.  Don't use lean ground pork because the filling is not as moist if the meat is too lean

- 1 lb shrimp, deveined, shelled, and roughly chopped up

- 1/2 lb chives, about 2 cups finely chopped up

- 1 onion, finely chopped up

- 3 tbsp soy sauce

- 1 tbsp rice wine

- 1 tbsp sesame oil

- 1 tsp pepper

- 1 egg

- 1 package of wrappers (about 70 wrappers)

Mix all the ingredients together

Make the potstickers.  Watch this potsticker how-to video that my husband made.

Bring a big pot of water to a rigorous boil.  Add in 1 tbsp salt and 1 tbsp of oil.  Carefully put the potstickers in one at a time.  Don't crowd the pot.  Turn the heat down to medium and cook for 5 minutes.  Potstickers will float to the top when done.      

Using a strainer, transfer the potstickers to a lightly oiled non-stick pan on medium heat. 

Pan fry potstickers on all sides until golden brown.

Serve immediately with soy sauce, Chinese vinegar, hot sauce or all of the above!

Florida, here we come!

Booked our vacation to Florida yesterday.  So looking forward to getting away.  Hopefully it'll be warm.

Saved some money today

My electricity bill was over $400 last month so I called my supplier, JustEnergy, and asked what rate I'm paying.  Turns out we're in a 5-year contract at 8.99 cents/KWH which doesn't expire until July 2012.  Considering the Time-Of-Use rates offered by Toronto Hydro are currently 5.1 - 9.9 cents/KWH, my contract doesn't look too good.  But the JustEnergy rep was really nice and proactively offered to lower my contract rate to 7.5 cent/KWH without extending my contract.  Pretty good for just making a phone call but, when my contract ends, I probably won't renew again.