It was a lovely day. We started off with breakfast at our usual haunt. Breakfast was nice, the lady even remembered to bring J an empty teapot without asking! We had gotten started kind of late, so the “frog tour” (tour on an amphibious like water/road vehicle) was booked for the times we wanted. We changed plans, and wandered down “Catherine” st, which is much like Bloor St (near Bay) in TO. Our plans were to amble down to a set of shopping malls. Grandma and Grandpa decided to tour churches and meet up with us later. We set of wandering. It was nice, busy, but not a busy as the day before. One block in, and we found my absolute favourite store!! Swatch! Whoohoo! Yup, I got a new one….R was not happy though, they had a cute kid section and she REALLY REALLY wanted one too. The ladies in the store somehow thought they were ‘helping’ by asking her if she wanted to try some on, well of course she did!! We made it out with just my purchase though.
By about the 3rd block, we ran into a parade. We finally figured out that it was a parade of ‘native’ cultures. We saw “Bolivia”, “Aztec mexico,”, “Peru”, “Venezuela” and a few others. We were trying to catch up with the Natives, when we were waylayed by a CBC reporter who wanted to know what we thought of this. We proudly gave our spiel about how it is great to be in a place where we can see all these cultures, and all these cultures are accepted. We never did see if we actually made the news later. There was some sort of festival going on in a plaza a few blocks down. We got some relief from the heat in a mall, and decided to lunch there. These food courts had so much variety it is really astounding. Grandma and Grandpa met us here.
After changing R into some swimwear, and J into a swim diaper, we headed back across the street to the gathering. There were quite a few teepees, and fountains that bubbled up from the pavement, with large statues of moose, and live fir trees. It turns out we had stumbled onto a large Native dance festival. I’m guessing groups from the parade all ended up there. Anyways. The kids had a great time in the fountains, and we had a good time watching them, and swaying with the music. At one point J crawled away from the fountains, and towards some steps. R was very dutiful, and followed him closely, (also crawling ?) He really likes steps now, up, down, crawling, walking, you name it. She was also very very sweet whenever he got water sprayed in his eyes, she would wipe the drops off of his face…It made my heart melt to see it…. We dried off and headed back to the hotel.
Once here, we realized our room still wasn’t cleaned, so we went off to the pool as a family for some swimming. J is really loosing his fear of the water. He likes to be independent on the steps, going up and down. He also really REALLY enjoys “motor boat, motor boat”. He may be ready for parent/tot swimming yet. We got ready, and checked in with the grandparents. We got to sneak away, they took the kids for supper. Daddy and I took the subway back into old Montreal and found of fav restaurant from last time “Gallianos”, a lovely Italian restaurant in the old city. There were lots of weddings to watch. The food was lovely, and it was really too bad we couldn’t take it home in a doggie bag. We spend a little more time after supper wandering around, then finally made our way out of a narrow alley filled with artists and their work. There was another bride & groom about 50 meters ahead of us, and we realized their photographer was right in front of us, she stopped and asked her assistant to “Clear the way of tourists”. I must have snorted in laughter pretty loudly, because she turned and asked “well, if you could just walk to the side”….i was quite annoyed, but hey, if she really wanted to fight the hoardes, well, good luck. As we were walking (along the side just to be compliant), there was this artist who was holding up a huge piece of Bristol board and angrily waving his arms at the wedding photographer. He was annoyed that his “art” was going to be in those pictures. The arrogance of both of those ‘artists’ just astounded me!!!
We made it back to the hotel despite the oppressive heat, and stumbled into our cool room. The kids are now finally asleep, and I am sort of done the packing. Well, at least the stuff that really matters, the dirty laundry can just get shoved in without much ceremony in the morning.

J was up with daddy at 6 this morning. I got up at 7am, the playpen is right between our beds, and when J stands he can just peer over the top. He is pretty soft spoken, but still “mama”….”mama”…..then he tries to reach for various things that I’ve got on the nightstand like my ipod, Kleenex etc. Anyways. I played with him a bit, then pulled him into my bed we played some more. This was shortly before 7am. R didn’t get up until 7:30. I don’t know why, but it was unusual. Both kids gave me the `fish lips` this morning, that`s the picture above. We went to a cute little diner for breakfast, complete with booths with shiny metallic vinyl. The owner served us, and was just lovely. We tromped off after to the subway. I still can’t quite believe how ‘in-accessible’ these subways are. Escalators don’t always work, and elevators are few and far between. How do people deal with this? Anyways. We arrived and went into the biodome. It was nice like we remembered, areas divided into different ‘eco’zones. So there was a rainforest, Laurentian maple forest, st. Lawrence waterway, arctic etc. My favs were the large lake where you can watch all the fish/crabs/lobster/mantarays/sea ducks etc from the bottom, then go around and see the top of the lake too. Still, my absolute favourite were the penguins. They can swim super fast! A few of them were chasing each other in the water around the rocks, then can dive, glide, then propel themselves out of the water for an extra bit of speed. Fantastic to watch! The water level was right at Joseph’s height, so he got a kick out of watching them zoom around too. We had some lunch, and braved the gift shop. I must say, we didn’t even get anything from the shop! Sad. We went back to the hotel. J crashed in the stroller as soon as we left the biodome, and of course woke the instant our elevator made it to our floor…Still we all lay down in our beds anyway. Turns out I was the only one who fell asleep. I woke to a quiet empty room. Turns out the rest of them were at the pool. Mom met a friend for supper, so dad and us went to a little Italian restaurant around the corner. The food was really good. Daddy got a pizza with peperoni, mushroom and garlic, and for once, they took the ingredient garlic seriously. It smelled lovely. J had a good time eating his noodles, until he rubbed his eyes, then the tomato sauce must have stung, he cried. Despite that incident, he is getting more and more difficult to contain at restaurants. He ALWAYS wants to “GO”, and will willingly go walking anywhere with 2 fingers to hold. He is very unhappy in highchairs unless the food is right in front of him. At breakfasts we keep him occupied with his own teapot (empty). If you don’t get him one, he just yells to touch the hot ones, and is very crabby….sigh, life with a 2 year old.

It was an overcast morning. The kids were up early, and my lovely husband took them out to the Tim Horton’s express for snacks. I got a little more sleep. Finally I moved, showered, and we were ready to go. We had breakfast at the same place we had dinner last night. It was alright, not amazing but ok. Since it was overcast, we decided to take the subway to old Montreal, and walk around. It was a maze to get to the right subway station, to the correct platform, especially since only some places were ‘accessible’ with the stroller. Old Montreal was lovely, like we remembered. We wandered around, in and out of shops, fun time. Grandma and R had a little chat with these ladies we met on the street.

We actually ate at the same pizza place we ate at 2 years ago, it was still good. By now the sun was out. We went into one last shop “picnic” before heading back. J fell asleep in the stroller. He slept through most of the subway ride, but of course woke up on the last bump on the escalator coming up the last station. Daddy took the kids swimming, and I had a little rest. The pool was quite nice.
We went to the indoor shopping complex late afternoon. I shopped at my favourite store Souris Mini. I made R try on all sorts of things, as she is getting so picky. They have some cute, unique stuff. J got a few things too. I also briefly checked out the store “orchestra”, but I was too tried to shop by then. We ate in one of the mall food courts. There had to have been at least 20 food choices. It was overwhelming! We wandered back, and Grandma, R and I spent another hour in the pool while J went to sleep.

We had our usual breakfast today. It seems that someone better was in the kitchen, as the potatoes were actually crispy, not just soaked in oil as dad pointed out that the previous days had been. I went out to pick up a few groceries, and R went swimming with daddy. We packed up, and were on our way. I convinced the driver (daddy) to stop at a kids’ boutique I had missed the previous day. I got R 2 super cute tops and one pair of leggings, one has a Matroschka (sp?) doll on it. Funky stuff, not your typical kids clothing. After, dad directed us to a winery. It had a lovely yard, with a fountain, and a beautiful arbour of grapes. Very picturesque. We had a picnic here, and then were off to another winery. The next winery while also beautiful was a dud, you had to pay for samples, and apparently this turned my parents off. Well I guess so. If you drive into the country to find these places and are interested in their wine, I would guess it would just be in your best interest to give free samples. Anyways. After this I don’t know what we did, because when I woke up, we were blocks away from our hotel in Montreal. We checked in, and even had adjoining rooms. We are on the 21st floor, and have a good view of the city. Daddy and R went swimming, I tried to nap a super cranky boy. It didn’t work. Grandma and Grandpa meanwhile, had done some exploring. So off we went for supper, at a little restaurant attached to the YMCA. The waitress had moved here from Vancouver. It was nice, if a little bland. We had chocolate cake for dessert, and boy did J like it. He stuck his fingers in the whipped cream, then decided that was not enough, and stuck his whole hand in it. I was giving him tiny forkfuls of cake, and he just grabbed another fork, stuck it in the cake and helped himself. What a mess. We walked around some more, and found a payless. R only has flip flops and runners along, and those flip flops! Don’t get me started. I hate them. They don’t seem to fit her right, never stay on her feet, and the soles have no grip whatsoever. While crossing the street yesterday she lost one, and that’s when I lost it. So today we found a pair of sandals with Velcro at payless. 10 bucks, and thank goodness they had her size. Hopefully we will not have anymore shoe malfunctions on this trip.

We had an ok night. Breakfast was fine, but the hotel seem very full of people, in particular people with small children. So it was quite a wait for food. After, R and daddy decided to spend the morning at the pool, and grandma, J and I went shopping. It had rained overnight, and was definitely cool. Cool is not something I’d have used to describe many days at all this summer. We hit some local shops, then the mall. On the way back to the hotel we picked up some food and picnicked by the hotel. Naps were lovely, although J is quite the stinker. He just would not settle, and finally daddy put his whole playpen in the bathroom and shut the door. All good until I needed to pee. Turns out he only slept maybe 45 in anyway. We all headed over to the icecream place, and had a fun time exploring the treehouse. Quite neat! After, we took a walk along the lake and into town, and found a surprisingly good pizza place (serving all sorts of stuff not just pizza) for supper. We were all tired, so our hero, daddy, walked back and got the car for the rest of us. I took R swimming where she really tried to make a friend despite the language difference.

Had a so so night, both kids were up once. We got up and went down to breakfast in the hotel. They were none too speedy, but breakfast was good. Daddy had maple French toast, I had a poached egg, yogurt and fruit, and R had eggs and sausage. J just didn’t feel like eating much of anything. R was super eager to check out the little fake pond in the yard of the hotel, so we let her. She promptly stuck her feet in. After some time we walked down to the tourist office. They were super nice, and had some good ideas of things to do. There is a lovely path along the lake from the tourist office back to our hotel, so we walked along there. It has 2 main paths, one for bikes/rollerblades the other for walkers. It is really lovely. R watched people rollerblade along here, and now she thinks she’d like to try that as well.
We packed up, and headed for the zoo. For the most part it was overcast which was really nice as it was still pretty stinkin’ humid. We wandered through Africa. The best thing was that there was this tunnel kid (adults) could go in, and pop up to the surface. We didn’t realize until later while viewing the meerkats, that the tunnel actually popped up in the meerkat compound! It was hilarious to watch these people’s heads pop up beside the meerkat who was standing sentry!
A lot of ‘Africa” was a large open plain where giraffes, ostrich, zebra and a few other types of animals roamed. Again, they made lovely paths that circled this area. It went up at one point, and there was a large lookout, with a large picnic area. They hung the giraffe’s straw from the edges of this upper portion, so they’d take a bunch of food in their mouthes, then lift their heads and gaze at you over the railing. Too nice.

At this point the sun came out and it got hot. We stopped for snack/lunch and decided to head back to the hotel for naps.
Napping once everyone in our room was finally asleep was blissful! Getting up, another story. Back to the zoo we went, and straight to the waterpark. We had another quick snack, then went into the water. There was a big open wavepool, then up the hill, there were a few other pools. One with a fake Volcano near the edge, which “erupted” complete with sound and mist, and another wave pool behind that which had statues of Mayan-type Gods. These got ‘angry’ when the volcano blew, and started making ominous thunder noises, misting, and playing angry music, then of course, large waves. R loved the area, J did not. We left daddy and R up on this angry mountain, while the rest of us went down to a more tame wading pool area. J had a good time here with grandma. It was heavily overcast by this time, and sure enough before long we were chased out by the rain. Grandpa was a good sport, and even waited patiently while we checked out the gift shops on the way out. We had supper at a local diner in the downtown area. The service wasn’t great, very slow, slightly rude, but the food was ok. My lasagne was a little strange, noodles and cheese on one side of the plate, tomato/meat sauce on the other side. R had poutine, but said the poutine at Johnny Fresco’s at home was better. She happily helped me out with my lasagne. She has a good time making J laugh at the end of supper. Both kids were super tired (as am i!) Grandma and Grandpa came to our room to sit with them while they fell asleep, and daddy and I went on a ‘date’. Nothing too glamerous here, a trip to the drug store to get things we forgot, water and snacks. We did however check out the ice cream place across the road from us. It is pretty unique, trying to be all muskoka-y, large logs, rough tables etc. The whole back end of the place is a tree house which we didn’t feel up to climbing, we’ll go back with R, she can fill us in. Very good soft serve though! And here I sit writing this up now, but really longing for bed.

Driving driving driving. It was a long day. Stopped in Belleville for lunch, and I even convinced the male drives to look for some place by the water, with atmosphere…heheheh. The were not pleased by the request, but did a fine job of locating a place beside the marina. Great food. More driving, more driving. At 4pm it looked like we’d arrive within the hour, but then we hit a traffic jam. It took us an extra hour, which felt like eternity at that time of the day. Still arrival went smoothly, nice hotel, easy to find. We got some supper tips from the concierge, and headed out to a lovely café by the river. Service was slow, but the food was spectacular. Hope to come back here sometime!

R was super sweet and pitted cherries for J…now on the other hand he got incredibly annoyed that he was not allowed to play with the cherry pitter!