Yesterday something rare happened: it was Ian who went to a birthday party instead of Miranda. 🙂 Ian was invited to his friend Joshua’s 8th birthday party. It was held at the Tuscany Club, not too far from our house. (More on that later)
They played floor hockey from 2:00 to 3:00, then had pizza and cake and unwrapped presents before going outside to play in the playground area. I could have dropped Ian off and picked him up at 4:00, but I elected to stay when it was offered. Ian doesn’t go to many parties (in fact, I can’t think of one that he’s been to without his sister) and in the morning, he had been somewhat upset about the idea that we would be leaving him there. So I got to play floor hockey too, along with Joshua’s dad, Rick. It was interesting to see the difference between the kids who obviously play hockey and those (like Ian) who don’t. The teams ended up with the two boys who could play plus a goalie on one team, and everyone else plus the dads on the other. The kids who could play won easily.
Ian was pretty tuckered out and crashed at bedtime.
The Tuscany Club is something that is worth musing over. It was my first time there, but it’s been something on our minds ever since we bought our house.
First, a little history: Tuscany is one of the newer communities in Calgary. Due to a change in planning, though, there were two stages of development: Tuscarora and the rest. Our house (blue circle) is in Tuscarora, on the east side of the Ravine. The Tuscany Club (purple pin), the shopping centre with the Sobeys, and most of the houses are on the west side of the Ravine.
Tuscarora was built first, so our house and the others around ours are older and somewhat different from the rest. You can easily see the “compass rose” street orientation of Tuscany proper in the picture above. The planners included a common “clubhouse” facility, the Tuscany Club. It was paid for via the building fees on the houses and ongoing membership payments by the homeowners. The membership and fees are mandatory and are part of the title on the properties in Tuscany.
Except for houses in Tuscarora. They were built before the club was planned. So, we in Tuscarora don’t have to pay the Tuscany Resident Association fee, but we don’t get access to the clubhouse, either. When we bought the house, the realtor explained that we could pay a $950 legal fee to add the resident association designation to our home’s title, and then pay the fees after that and then we would have access. We haven’t done that, but it’s been on my mind for a while.
The club has a gym, facility rooms, wading pool in the summer, outdoor ice rink, fitness classes, kids activity classes, childcare and other things, such as providing facilities to host a birthday party, like Rick and Michelle did.
I’m sure this will come up again in the future, so I thought I would get some thoughts down now. I think it boils down to that legal fee: if it wasn’t there, we would get on board with the clubhouse. From what I can find, the community fee is $240/year, which isn’t that bad considering the facility.
Pretty tired looking boy! But sounds as if he you had lots of fun. Grandpa