I’m a proud mother of two boys.   Although I’m presently taking a year off for mat leave,  I am still an engineer down to my bones – I love problem solving.  With my first ds,  I used mostly brand name commercial baby products available in the big department stores and big name grocery stores that are both convenient and eye appealing.  With my youngest ds, I’ve decided to take a different route – a more ECO route.

I’m exploring ways to raise my children in a more ecological, environmental friendly, and natural way.

I live in the historic capital of Canada – Ottawa.   Our city has a nickname of silicon valley in the north because we have a high concentration of high tech workers here.  Besides, Ottawa has the largest civil servant workforce in the country.  You can imagine that we live in a city with a large population of highly educated folks with relatively high and stable income.

I would say that children in Ottawa are very fortunate.  We have a very family oriented atmosphere here.  Many public schools here are ranked top 10 among other schools in Ontario.  With the parliament hill right in downtown, it’s not surprising to find that prime ministers, senators, or members of parliament are among alumni lists of many local schools.

We have many museums across Ottawa:  Canada Agriculture Museum, Canada Science and Technology Museum, Civilization Museum, Museum of Nature, Canadian Children’s Museum, National Arts Gallery of Canada, Canadian War Museum, Canada Aviation Museum to just name a few.  Our family is proud members of these museum from time to time, so my first ds feels like home upon a museum visit.

We are not far from the US border.  When I was still quite young, I used to take a 1.5 hour lunch break and drive down the states to pickup books and magazines I subscribed with my US mailbox, and that makes online shopping a lot more flexible as I can order from both Amazon.com and Amazon.ca for example.

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Our real estate market here is not as crazy as Vancouver or Toronto.  We have a few popular residential neighborhoods here, but no matter where you live, the big box commercial shopping plaza will still be around the corner.  Our start up single family homes here still around the $300k-$400k

price range.  There are also tons of non-profit housings across the city especially in the downtown area.  You will be amazed to realize those newer high-end looking condo apartment buildings right in the downtown core are actually non-profit housing subsidized by the government’s affordable housing project.  There are also newer beautiful garden homes among those most popular neighborhoods subsidized by

Well…nothing can be absolutely perfect, we do have a harsh weather in Ottawa.  Our summer is often feel like 37 degree Celsius while long winter often falls to -40 degree Celsius with wind chill.  However, thanks to the continuous increase of property tax, the city’s snow removal service in the winter is really the best I’ve ever known.  I spent my whole high school years in Vancouver, and it’s truly incomparable. the affordable housing project.