So I looked up brioche, I found a recipe- but also a review that said it was a gooey, messy and fattening bread. While delicious I decided to go a different direction to explore my French-ness. How about Canada! They speak French there.
OK so it happened like this. Jimmy woke up and said 'what should we do today' then he sat down at the computer and about 5 min. later he says 'let's go to Montreal'. Any other person might have discounted this as just a dream out loud. But with Jimmy I knew he was serious. I protested, worried about the long travel time, the not knowing what we would even do up there with two kids and so forth. He persisted and I started packing, because when he gets this way if you don't pack you'll end up in a foreign country with no underwear or toothbrush or worse, no diapers. After a quick google search for things to do in Montreal- and a check of some logistical things you need to do in order to leave the country.
We hit the road! For Canada!
On the way up the kids were wonderful, sleeping, playing together, just spectacular.
And when dinner time rolled around we were looking for a place to stop and I saw signs for Glen Falls, I thought to myself that my friend Steph lives there... oh wait that's Hudson Falls... oh well. The next sign said Hudson Falls! YAY. So we called them up and met them for dinner. It was so good to get to visit with friends and see their little girl, who is adorable. At that point I could have just turned around and gone home, my weekend was significantly full of good surprises. But onward we went.
When we crossed the border the crossing agent was surprised we were coming to Canada... in the middle of winter... when it is -4 with the windchill. But that's how we are.
I missed most of the entry into Canada because it was about 1am and I was fighting sleep; Jim was driving cause he loves me like that :)
This is getting really long. I'll continue our adventures later... I promise the next one will have pictures.
We went apple picking! And have been eating apple ever since. We picked them down low, we picked them up high- and we ate them (a lot of them).
After that project wrapped up we cleaned the table and moved on to paper craft - VALENTINES! Claire practiced her penmanship and Nick refined his fine motor skills while we enjoyed making some lovely valentines that will ship out tomorrow for destinations all over the country, and possibly some international ones if we can find the addresses we need.
Today Nick said the word 'kite', Claire colored 'in the lines' for the first time and colored an entire space instead of just scribbling.
So we drove for a little bit before we crossed the St. Lawrence into Montreal. (yes that's the lovely picture above that I took of the lovely city on our approach) We arrived at our hotel and got settled after some overflow issues. (overbooking so we got one bed instead of two, and parking further away since the regular lot was full) The kids went right to bed and didn't wake up until 8am. (This was a GREAT vacation) We took some time getting ready and spent a lot of timelooking out our 25th floor window, who knew bendy buses and commuter trains could be so fun?!
After an overpriced buffet breakfast we set out. First stop the Biodome! (a very large greenhouse or similar structure with a controlled internal environment in which plants and animals from regions are kept in conditions similar to nature or much warmer or colder) The biodome in Montreal was a big hit. The animals were right there for the kids to look for and find and there was plenty of room to run around (surprisingly it was not very crowded).
I missed most of the entry into Canada because it was about 1am and I was fighting sleep; Jim was driving cause he loves me like that :)
