Visiting a Calla Lily Greenhouse

This morning Sarah and I went on a tour of a calla lily greenhouse. One of the women in my women's Bible study group (Linda) has a huge greehouse of calla's that they ship throughout North America. Our group decided to meet at her house this week to have a little social and see the flowers. Since Mother's day is just around the corner the greenhouse was stocked with flowers ready to be shipped out to retail stores. The flowers were so beautiful! What a neat experience! Of course I brough our camera to take some pics.

The following picture is of the potting machine. Not very pretty, but I thought it was pretty neat.

So many flowers! There were many of these types of buildings and rooms.

I loved the bright yellow ones!

Sarah met "Caramel" the bunny. She was pretty hesitant at first, but then seemed to find the bunny pretty interesting. Below is Linda and her bird "Wilson."

Quebec City

After visiting Montreal we made the 2.5 hour drive to Quebec city. Out of the two cities, Quebec was our favourite. The old city was MUCH larger, more beautiful and there was more history to be seen in Quebec. Quebec city is the only fortified city north of New Mexico and is an Unesco World Heritag site. We kept feeling like we were in France and being in Quebec made us want to go back to France that much more. It was amazing to see how different Quebec is than the rest of Canada, it truly has it's own culture. The only thing that stood out as Canadian was the money. We had a wonderful trip and were glad we got to see and experience lots, even with a one year old.

There are many places around the walled city that have line ups of cannons.

Walking around the lower part of the city, just outside the walls, Le quartier de Petite Champlain. We loved this little area. Sight seeing on a Sunday evening and Monday in spring meant not a lot of tourists, loved that! So many cute shops and little cobblestone streets.

The big Champlain monument just in front of the Chateux Frontenac. After taking so many Canadian history classes and teaching about explorers for so many years it was great to finally go to some of the places that the explorers are famous for. Champlain was considered the father of New France since he was more interested in settlement than exploration (that's for you Melanie and Diane!)

Looking out over the St. Lawrence. I love how Sarah's waving to me in this pic.

All the little houses below.

Chateux Frontenac is the huge Fairmont luxury hotel right inside the walled city. The hotel is also an icon of the city and is pictured on most postcards and art depicting the city. It was indeed impressive, too pricey for us though.

We went for a long walk just outside the city wall and ended up in the Plains d' Abraham. This is where the battle of Quebec occured back in the 7 years war. The battle was a key moment in deciding the fate of New France and the later the creation of Canada.

Right next to the plains was the Quebec citadel. This is a large fortress (built under British rule and covers over 37 acres) and is considered the most important fortification built in Canada. Also really impressive in reality but hard to show in pictures.

The citadel is still an operational running army base today.

We were amazed how many sculptures, murals and art pieces were around the city. They helped make the city even more unique and enjoyable to visit.


After a day of walking around old Quebec city we decided to go have crepes. Once inside the little restaurant we saw that Raclette was on the menu and so we decided to have dinner instead. When I lived in Switzerland as an au pair (nanny) this was my favourite special meal to have. David had never tried it, just heard about me rave about it, so we thought this was the perfect time.

Raclette is actually a type of cheese that you melt at the table and scope off as it's melted. I had only ever seen raclette machines with individual cheese servings, so this was all new to me. It is always served with potatoes (small new potatoes are best), pearl onions and baby gerkins. Ours also came with ham and a dried meat. Yummy! Yep, we ate the whole block of cheese, how can you not love melted cheese!

David found scooping the cheese off a little tricky, we had some good laughs though.

On our way back to the car.

On Tuesday morning we headed back home. It was a 10 hour trek, but surprisingly went by pretty fast. Sarah slept for nearly 3 hours in the morning and had her afternoon nap as well after we stopped for lunch. Since we were going into Toronto right at rush hour we decided to stop at a mall on the outskirts to look around, stretch our legs and have a bite to eat, as to avoid traffic. There was even a Moores Clothing store there so David got fitted for the wedding right away. The plan worked out great, we got back onto the freeway at 7 and were home by 8:30. It's always good to go away but it's always good to be back home as well.

Montreal

We arrived in Montreal at around 5ish on Friday. The drive went really well and Sarah did great, what a relief! We were thrilled that the condo that we rented was right downtown and a 5 minute walk to the old town and port (and it's new and beautiful). After checking out our new home base we decided to go check out down town and walk the streets. We had heard that Montreal has lots of shops and restaurants, so true! We enjoyed window shopping on streets quite similar to Robson St. in Vancouver. At the end of the evening we stopped to pick up an order of poutine to go from La Belle Province. Oh so very good! So much cheese curds! And yes, poutine here (3 orders later) does taste different than the poutine that I've had before. Not as salty, so I liked it better. David likes the salt so he thinks he still prefers Abby Costco.

On Saturday morning we arrived at Jean Talon Market at 9:15. Oh how I wish we had a market like this one where we live, I know that we would go weekly. So much fresh produce, meats and cheeses and all for great prices!

We found an amazing Fromagerie (cheese store), the most different kinds of cheeses that I have ever seen in one place.

Yep, we do loved food indeed! How can you not? David and I try to visit a market wherever we travel; we love how it gives more of a feel of the local culture and people. We also went to an amazing bread shop, yummy!

After the market we came back to our place so that Sarah could have a little nap. Once she woke up we headed out to check out the old town of Montreal. It was 27 degrees yesterday with a breeze, beautiful! It's feels like we're in a foreign country with all the french speaking, this feels especially odd since Montreal is just a 7 hour drive from where we live. It feels wrong to pay in Canadian currency, but good to be able to at the same time. Quebec is indeed VERY different than the Canada that we're used to.

Some pics of the old town:

Spending some time at Jacques Cartier square

Visiting Notre Dame, every big french city has one. This one was quite impressive. There was also a wedding going on while we were there, kind of neat.

Sitting on the grass along the St. Lawrence. For some reason Sarah loves to pick grass!

David enjoying his Reuben Montreal Smoked meat sandwich (with more poutine on the side of course). You could say this has been 'get fat' weekend, ha ha.

Anyways, late this morning we pack up and head to Quebec City. Time for our next adventure!

Our Backyard/ Garden

It was beautiful and warm here a few days ago but then the rain came, thankfully the forecast is for sunny skies and warm temperatures this weekend (22-25). Last week I even cleaned the garage as an excuse to be outside and have something to do. Since today is earth day I figured I would write a little bit about our little piece of earth in the back yard. The warmer weather has got me thinking more about getting our place ready for summer. Although it's tricky renting and not having any extra income for things like topsoil, planters, plants, etc. So I've started looking on Kijiji more in hopes of finding some very cheap or free deals to perk our place up. I'm always up for a challenge and love having goals, not to mention that I love to be outside in the summer, so this is right up my alley. I’ve given myself a budget of $50 for the entire yard (soil, plants, planters, furniture, etc).

I only made up my plan and started the hunt less than a week ago and I am already feeling hopeful and excited about our little backyard transformation. Several neighbours (one with a yard that is made up entirely of flower beds!) have offered me perennials while they’re dividing their plants. By the looks of how many flowers the one woman alone has, I know that I’ll have enough flowers. While my mom was out we went to the Stokes Seeds store/ warehouse since it’s just a 2 minute drive down the road. (Stokes is a major seed distributor and sells their seeds by catalogue) My mom gave me seeds from her packets, since we both don’t need that many, so all the veggie seeds are covered. A woman also e-mailed me today to tell me I could come dig up as many day lilies as I wanted from her garden.

I put an ad on Kijiji to see if anyone had anything they wanted to get rid of for cheap or free. I got a composter (could have had 10 if I wanted) that’s in perfect condition as well as an assortment of pots (plastic and terra cotta) in various sizes and lots of packs of flower seeds. The best score yet has been 2 half wine barrels… all for free! I’ve decided to plant herbs in one of them and flowers in the other. Recieving so many emails for free offers from so many different people sure warms my heart and reminds me of the goodness in people. It's amazing how generous some people can be, it's very inspiring. I feel so blessed.

So I’m feeling pretty set up so far. I think that the only place that I’ll have to spend money is on topsoil and compost. I think this is kind of funny since those are the two things that I find the silliest to spend money on. Now I just need the ground to dry up again and the sun to come out so that I can continue with turning over the soil and edging the new flower bed.

I thought I would post a couple pictures of our sad backyard at the moment. Hopefully it will look much better as time goes on. This should also be a measure of accountability for me. It would be pretty sad to post similar pictures at the end of the summer.

I'm digging up a flower bed to line the corner of the house and fence.

Quebec Bound

With David's classes, the uncertainty of his co op position and not much extra funds, we decided it would be best to hold off on our big roadtrip out east. That said, we still wanted to have an adventure somewhere. So David made it up to me to choose a destination that filled 5 days and make a plan. Planning always seems to be my department in our marriage, he' more of the idea man. Well the plan is to leave first thing Friday morning and come back late Tuesday evening since David has a class on Wednesday.

Since our first destinations on the big trip were Montreal and Quebec City I figured this would be an excellent little holiday for us. The drive from where we live to Montreal is 7 hours, so Friday will be a long day. I was able to find a great looking 1 bedroom apartment right in Montreal that only costs $50 a night for all of us. I love the idea of having our own space rather than being in a hotel or B&B, not to mention that it's much cheaper. I think that it will also be a better option travelling with a one year old. We're going to spend 2 nights inMontreal and then drive 3 hours to Quebec City.

I was also able to find a great looking apartment in the lower city for $150 for 2 nights. We'll be 2.5 km from the entrance of old Quebec city, which we figure is close enough, especially given the savings in accomodations. We're looking forward to checking out the markets, walking through the old towns, seeing the historical sights, not to mention eating lots of poutine! Can't wait.

We'll have a 10 hour drive home in the end, which I'm sure will have to include many stops and will be a VERY long day. Oh well, at the moment I would rather have a long car ride than a long wait at an airport, flight, etc. We'll see if I think any different after the trip. Just 2 more sleeps, can't wait!

Mac and Cheese

One of the things that I'm loving about Sarah's age is being able to feed her more of what we eat and less "baby food." This past week she had mac and cheese for the first time. This was also the first time that I gave her food in a bowl, a spoon and didn't help her eat at all. We were both pretty hesitant at fist, after many unsuccessful tries with the spoon Sarah finally resorted to using her fingers and hands.

Sarah LOVES to eat! She is always eager to try whatever we're eating and so far has always responded with smiles, claps, mmmm's, etc. Yesterday she ate a bowl of chicken pot pie, the day before she had chicken cacciatorie (sp?) and rice. This is on top of all the little niblets from our plates that she normally gets.

Getting the hang of the spoon

Look at me eat!

What you see is all that remained of the noodles once she was through with them. Such a happy little girl!