Rocky Horror Picture Show

 Misha, and her girlfriend Genevieve, at the Rocky Horror Picture Show for Halloween.

Montreal Day Five

Chris had some work calls this morning. 

I started a load of laundry before breakfast and while he worked, I roamed Old Town a couple of blocks away, took some pictures and bought a few mementos. 

We left for the airport around 11:30 am in order to return the rental car before noon. 

With our early arrival at the airport, we had time to enjoy the Air Canada lounge before our flight. And then we visited the United Lounge in Boston as we waited for our final flight of the day. 

Kind of a long roundabout way home, but the Fall color in Boston was amazing from what I could see as we took off. We should have gone to Boston!

Montreal Day Four

We enjoyed a slow morning. Chris was still feeling blah with a cold. 

We watched church on Zoom and then drove toward the Laurentides (Laurentians) about an hour and a half outside of Montreal. 

A famous tourist town, Mount Tremblant, was also between seasons. It was a ski town with a cute little Old town, chapel, and cobbled streets. We drove around a couple of lakes and again noted, “If only we had been here two weeks ago.”

The color of the trees and mountain scapes would have been outstanding. Mostly we spent a relaxing day just driving around.

Habitat for Humanity

The youth in our ward were able to help with a Habitat for Humanity project. Kristen was up early on a Saturday morning to participate. Chris and I were in Montreal; we were proud of both Misha and Kristen for getting up to serve others on a Saturday morning.

The youth were helping to build a house and Kristen said she was now an "official fenestration artist". She was working on the installation and insulation of the windows.

Fenestration (n): the arrangement of windows and door on the elevation of a building

OUR Center

While Chris and I were in Montreal, Misha came to stay with Kristen over the weekend and to volunteer on our ward's service day at the OUR Center.

Misha has volunteered there so often, I think she could be in charge of the meal prep and serving.

Montreal Day Three

The view from our window.

Sadly, Chris caught a cold and was just beginning to feel kind of blah, but we were in Montreal, so he did his best to power through. 

Chris found a Saturday market—Marche Jean-Talon. We wandered around for a bit, but it was mostly produce. If we had longer to stay and enjoy the fresh veggies, we would have bought a few things to eat.

We ordered an Uber to take us to the airport where we picked up a rental car that we would keep until leaving on Monday afternoon. 

One of Chris’ coworkers suggested that we drive to an Abbey St. Benoit du Lac. We arrived too late for a concert and weren’t able to take the tour of the abbey either. It must have been canceled for the day. 

We went down to the shop and found some smoked cheese and chocolate to buy. The Benedictine monks who live at the abbey have apple orchards, a fromagerie, and chocolaterie. Sadly, we weren’t able to tour any of it. 

So, we drove around and ended up in Magog, a tourist town, that didn’t have much going on in between the summer season and the winter season. We did walk around the lake a bit and then drove back to Montreal for dinner. 

We walked the few blocks to Saint Paul Street and looked around for a place for dinner. We ended up at Creperie St. Paul’s. 

Kristen's Halloween

While Chris and I were in Montreal for the weekend leading up to Halloween, Kristen had some fun plans with friends. Well, fun may be a relative term as they went to a Terror in the Corn at Anderson's Farm. Apparently there is lots of scaring as you wind your way through corn mazes.

And, to sooth their scared little hearts, they went for ice cream and hot cocoa after ward.

Montreal Day Two

I didn’t sleep much in the flight. Maybe an hour if I was lucky. Once deplaned, I made my way to the terminal and asked for directions to the Uber pick up area. Yay for friendly people. 

I found the Uber driver and had a twenty minute drive to the Marriott Residence Inn Downtown. With a quiet knock on the door, I woke Chris up and was glad to have finally made it. After removing my makeup, we both slept for about three hours. Chris was finished with his meetings for the week, so we had a couple of days to explore. 

We were switching from the Marriott to a Hilton Homewood Suites. It was located right on the edge of Chinatown. The hotel was fairly new and the first six floors were a Hampton Inn. The next 14 floors above that were the Homewood Suites. Our room was on the top floor and we were pleasantly surprised to find a washer dryer in our room. That was a first. 

We dropped off our stuff and headed out to explore. We started out by taking the metro to “the Mountain” where we walked/hiked up to the top (it is not really a mountain by Colorado's standards). 

It is a popular area in town, and many people were out walking, jogging, even roller skiing along the path. We reached the chalet at the top and stopped for a snack, pictures, and a rest. 

If only we were visiting two weeks earlier, the color would have been amazing. As it was, most of the leaves had fallen off the trees. But it must have looked amazing.

We wandered around in Old Town Montreal after catching the bus and found a small cafe where we shared a pizza and salad. We opted not to ride the Ferris wheel but took pics instead and walked along the old town street of Saint Paul’s. 

We had tickets to the evening light show at the Botanical Gardens. After returning to our hotel room to add a few extra layers and pack gloves and scarves in the backpack, we took the metro to the Botanical Gardens. We stopped for a few minutes to tour the gardens in the day time. There was a tiny bit of color.

We then went in search of dinner at a restaurant that was a walk, train ride, and then more blocks of walking away from the gardens.

Fusion Loco was pretty good and worth the effort of getting there. At the servers suggestions, Chris and I shared a plate, but I bet we could have enjoyed the same plate for each of us. 

We returned to the gardens, bundled up in our puffy jackets, scarves, and gloves for the Garden of Light and Lantern show. The show had us wandering through the Chinese and Japanese Gardens and was packed with lots of puffy clad families. 

With the going down of the sun, the temperatures dipped and Chris and I kept moving in order to stay warm.

Montreal Day One

Chris left on Tuesday afternoon for a business trip to Montreal, Quebec. 

We thought it would be fun for a quick weekend for me to meet him in Montreal. My flight was supposed to leave around 5:30 pm on Thursday evening. Around noon I started receiving notifications that the flight would be delayed. It started with two hours and then just continued to be delayed more and more as the day went on. The final notification came for a departure of 10:45 pm. Ugh. 

I am so not a night person. I left for the airport a little before 8:30 pm. I drive down the road in our neighborhood and realized that I was still wearing my berks. I quickly turned around to change into my Asics after saying another good bye to Kristen. She was just getting ready to start her online seminary class for the week. 

I made it to the airport and found parking relatively close to the terminal. Security was a breeze and left me with about an hour to wait before my flight took off. With the two hour time change, I would arrive in Montreal at 4:30 am!

Amy Fall Photos

Amy's roommate had a little fun shooting some photos of Amy up in Provo Canyon. I don't always get to take a lot of pictures of her, so I am glad when someone else does!

Air Force Football

Chris and Kristen went to the Air Force football game this year. Misha was supposed to go with them, but she got pretty sick. I put together a care package of food and meds that Chris dropped off on their way to Colorado Springs.

Getting to see the flyover is always the highlight. They were glad that they took puffy jackets. It got cold pretty quickly once the sun went down. 

Like Father Like Daughter

Hmmm, who is whom?

Kristen's Senior Photos

Misha has been working on Kristen's senior photos for her.

They have had fun on a couple of photo shoots. Isn't she lovely...

I would still like to take a few myself, so hopefully sometime this week before the weather changes.