Aylmer Express "MoHo" Extravaganza 2006

Today marks the end of the fifth month of the Aylmer Express MoHo Extravaganza. So, as I’m sure you already know, that means that it is time for another installment on how the budget is going. Our daily costs for each category are as follows:

Accommodation: $29 (AVG from Oct = $27, Sept = $29, Aug = $30, July = $19)
Food: $51 (AVG from Oct = $49, Sept = $52, Aug = $48, July = $48)
Entertainment: $35 (AVG from Oct = $28, Sept = $27, Aug = $24, July = $19)
Misc: $35 (AVG from Oct = $30, Sept = $32, Aug = $26, July = $25)
MoHo/Auto Maint: $18 (AVG from Oct = $14, Sept = $12, Aug = $15, July = $15)
MoHo/Auto Gas: $33 (AVG from Oct = $36, Sept = $37, Aug = $44, July = $48)

And our current km/day works out to be:

MoHo: 118 (AVG from Oct = 120, Sept = 115, Aug = 128, July = 168)
Matrix: 60 (AVG from Oct = 63, Sept = 62, Aug = 54, July = 39)

Overall, it looks like we stayed pretty much on budget for food and entertainment and actually came in noticeably under budget with accommodation, gas and auto maintenance, which is very good news … for us. And our overall daily mileage estimates were also much lower than planned which may explain why the gas expenses were lower as well. But one thing I had not really factored in was the fact that we drove almost half as much again in our Matrix as we did in the MoHo itself. I guess this data corroborates that fact that it was a good idea after all to drag the car around with us.

Today also marks the American Thanksgiving holiday. In honour of this momentous occasion we decided to take it easy. Not too much of a stretch for us at this point. One thing we had not yet done is check out our old neighbourhood. So Chantal and I went for a long, leisurely walk all around "Walden Creek". We saw our old street, and our old house and, as if a harbinger of things to come, it had a new Honda Odyssey in the driveway. Hmmm. We also reminisced a lot along the way as we saw the many houses where people we knew when we were there used to live (or perhaps still do!). It was a wonderful, sunny day which saw the tempurature creep into the 60s (over 15C). (Now that would have been a little better for my birthday, don’t cha think? Ok, I’ll drop it.) When we finally returned home we were treated to the most succulent turkey dinner I think I have ever enjoyed. No offence to anyone else who has ever cooked a turkey for me (and that group includes me too), but this was one juicy, tasty turkey dinner to remember. Michael had a special technique that he shared with us so we are definitely going to try to replicate the next time we cook up a bird.

Today’s word:

corroborate \kuh-ROB-uh-rayt\, transitive verb:
To strengthen or make more certain with other evidence.

# posted by Jeff, Chantal and the kids @ 4:52 PM