Jenny and Glenn

Last weekend Steve and I took a roadtrip to Ottawa to visit our good friends Jenny and Glenn. We had such a fun time! After a delicious and body concious breakfast of eggs benny and hashbrowns at Glenn's house in Kanata (a suburb just outside of Ottawa) we were off to enjoy a day at the spa. Le Nordik is located just outside of Ottawa in the Gatineau hills. You rotate between hot-cold-rest stations which means that you start with either a steam or a sauna and then a freezing cold waterfall followed by resting in a calming room sipping tea. You do this three or four times and then relax in a hottub to finish off. It was wonderful!

Hanging the Hook - Part Trois

Did I mention that we had a mascot?

Hanging the Hook - Part Deux

Did I mention that we had a mascot and a sponsor (tower of Base drink shown above), the music rocked so loud that the speakers blew and all of our neighbours still love us? Viewer discretion advised for the following photos!

Hanging of the Hook

This past Saturday we celebrated the "Hanging of the Hook" which in Alberta terms translates into the "House Warming Party". The Hanging of the Hook used to occur when someone built a new home and then hung the hook for their pots over the hearth. While we didn't actually hang the hook a lot of us ended up hung over!

Our first house warming gift came from the Quebec government a couple of weeks ago when they issued us what is known as the "Welcome tax" (a tax equal to your property taxes that must be paid each time you purchase a new property). However, lessening the pain somwhat significantly were Dom and Jenn's friends along with our Edmonton celebrity, Zippy Zarzeczny, and Steve's friends from school who came over to help us celebrate our new home. Attached please find 4 of the 5 blog appropriate pictures.

Note, the following all take place prior to our guests arriving!

Let's go Oilers, Let's Go!!

Steve, Jenn, Dom and I went to the Edmonton/ Montreal hockey game on Tuesday night! What fun and what bang for our buck - 4 goals, 40 fights, overtime, shootout, and to top it off we got to park where the players do! Throughout the game Steve and I loudly cheered for the Oilers, Jenn sat on the fence and Dom cursed, hissed and applauded with all the other Frenchies in the building that were cheering for the Habs. Here are a couple of pictures from the night. The Bently in the picture belongs to Saku Koivu and is worth +$350K. Just think, if we put our houses on wheels we all could compete!

I'm on a roll...

We really do live in the best area of town. Everything is close to our house - grocery stores, market, parks, restaurants, movie store, movie theatre, Rona, car inspection shop, winshield repair shop, Costco, recyle centre, UNESCO World Heritage Site - basically, you name it and we got it. Today it didn't start raining until later in the day so Jenn, Dom, Steve and I headed out for breakfast. Check out the line-up for the restaurant - that's how cool our neighbourhood breakfast spot is!

Also, we have ginormous squirrels in this neighbourhood. We thought of marketing them as purse squirrels, kinda like the celebarity purse dogs...if this take off good-bye law!
Anways, here are a couple more pictures from our hood.

Our Beautiful Wedding Gifts

This blog is mostly for my parents, my grandparents and for Steve's Grandma so that they can see the beautiful wedding gifts that they bought us. After scouring the city for furiture and lamps these were the pieces that we took home with us. Well, actually the Bay delivered a lot of it and the moving men we not impressed to find out that we live on the third floor and there is no elevator! They likely won't ever come back. Thanks again so much everyone, we love it all.

More of the Pad

I've been a bad blogger as of late. It's really not my fault though - more, Montreal's. See, as I have mentioned before, all it does is rain here which puts quite a damper on exploring and wandering around the city. Steve was having coffee with one of his profs last week and commented that this fall has not been that nice. His prof's reply, "Not that nice - this weather is Sh*t!". Well, I second that! And, what makes things even tougher is that with the daylight savings out here, it's pitch black at 4:30!

But, Montreal is known for its shopping and this is one indoor activity that we have been taking advantage of lately. We have been shopping up a storm for our new condo and basically have everything up and running. Jennifer also now has the skill set to be one of the IKEA dudes that drives around an puts together the furniture for an extra $100 bucks after spending all of last week assembling a mammoth wardrobe!

So...here are a couple more pictures of the condo with some of our new acquisitions. We have a housewarming party next Friday and of course everyone is invited but so far the only on to RSVP is Amy. Appetizers start at 6pm, pre-party hosted by "Frank the Tank" at Chez Magnon starts at 4. We promise it will be a good one...

Old Montreal

Today we cruised around town and checked out some of the historical elements of the city. We started at Old Montreal and saw some neat stuff there! The blue bus is an Amphibus (how cool) as it drives around town doing tours and then cruises into the water and turns into a boat! I wanted to go for a ride but it was 30 bucks.

After Old Montreal we cruised over to our neighboorhood and refuelled with some delicious poutine! (it was a good thing I got lost running yesterday and ended up running for 1.5 hours!). Finally, we stumbled accross the oldest building in Montreal. This house was owned by Marguerite Bourgeoys and she housed the Filles du Roi (the Kings Girls) who came over in the late 1600s to marry the French-Canadian men. The Kings Girls were poor or orphaned Frenchwomen that didn't have dowrys. So, when they came to Canada they learned how to run a homestead and the King paid their dowrys when they married. Apparently the ratio was 12 men to 1 woman (a ratio that even Tom might not have been successful with).

The Pad

Here is our home sweet home. It's been really fun sharing a place with Jenn and Dom and we have been madly scrambling around these last couple of weeks to outfit our new digs. Since Jenn and Dom have been in Europe, Steve and I have taken the liberty to hang a couple of pictures without clearing it with the boss...Jenn we hope these meet with your approval! We miss you guys both and cannot wait to take you to dinner at this new little restaurant we found called Steve Beef! Also of note, Steve and I got our mattress this weekend and our new bedroom furniture comes next week so good-bye floor.

Out and About

Well, it's almost been a month so as seasoned Montrealer's we feel qualified to make some generalizations about the city now: 1) they speak French here 2) it rains a lot 3) they drive faster than my dad 4) you don't have to pay a deposit on wine bottles 5) there are a lot more people here than at home. We are also offering tours to anyone interested! Just let us know when you are coming. The pictures here are from different places that we have been to throught the city. The "castle like" structure is Steve's music building, the skyline close to our house, the Robin Hood flour factory (seriously they are one of our neighbours!), a parkclose to our house and the St.Lawrence River at the start of the Lachine canal (looks more like a lake here!). We miss you all!