More food

 1. Last week, when we walked back from the JFK park (it was the day Charlie Kirk died, and walking to a JFK park made me think a lot about assassination even before it happened), we stopped at a boulangerie called Mamie Clafoutis. The cashier didn't really speak English, which isn't a big deal because I know enough words for a boulangerie, but I was also a little flustered by my kids breathing on the bread and Julia chewing on a stick. I think I'll have to go back there again once my French is better and we are stick-free. 

On our walk to JFK park

2. I already mentioned Boulangerie Cheskie in my previous post. I think we went there last Tuesday. Those were really delicious pastries.

3. We are really trying to be careful about lead since some of the paint tested positive for it, so we've put some contact paper down and gotten some HEPA filters to collect any lead paint dust. Then we realized that we probably had lead pipes (which is weird because the city map shows that the other half of the house doesn't have lead, but we most likely do, so why didn't they take care of it all at once?). So we also got a water filter. And that water tastes very good.

4. Apples! I got up all my courage to finally drive (okay, I drove to a park 1.1 km away on Friday, but those were just neighborhood streets) and left Montreal to go to an apple orchard about 80 minutes away.

So, in addition to yummy Rave apples from the store, we've been enjoying some sunrise, Golden, and Gala apples from the orchard. On 9/16/25, I made an apple pie pizza and made sure to make a slice that was 3 inches on one side, 4 inches on the other, and 5 inches for the hypotenuse.

side note -- this crust was perfectly crisp on the bottom, which is always my goal when I make regular pizza. All I did was bake this on a dark cookie sheet. Is this what I should have been doing all along instead of a pizza stone?

4. Poutine! We walked up to Parc Avenue to eat at Frite O Folie, which was a standard burgers and fries place. However, it did also offer poutine, so I ordered it. And it was yummy!

5. Dark chocolate. The kids didn't mind the high cacao content because it just looked so cute! And it's probably really good chocolate, too.

I promise we do cook and buy lots of fruits and vegetables! But we definitely also like being able to walk for our treats!

Three stories about squirrels

 1. One of the first days we were here, I took a few of the kids to the park. I think Luke was trying to go up the slide when other kids wanted to go down, so I tried to find something else to catch his attention. I saw a squirrel hanging out close to me and called out, "Luke! Come catch this squirrel!" I figured he would chase it and it would run away.

He smiled and said, "Okay!" Then he ran right over and grabbed the squirrel. I told him to let go, and he did. And that squirrel still didn't run away! It was so content to hang out with us and a few other girls who had noticed it. At one point it got really close to a little toddler, and she cried and cried until her sister picked her up and put her back in the stroller. Anyway, I learned that day that the squirrels are not as afraid of humans as they should be. (And I washed Luke's hands of course.)

2. When we went to the park this week, Joseph found a knobbly stick and pretended to be an old man chasing the squirrels. He chased one up a tree, and then he came over and said, "I think a squirrel just dropped an acorn on my head." I guess even the squirrels that are scared of humans aren't afraid of enacting a little revenge.

3. We brought a few French picture books with us that we got from dual immersion. And today I figured out how to scan the words into Google Translate and have them change before my very eyes. I sort of understood the gist of the story before, but now I really understand it!

Ironically, even though we've seen lots of squirrels, I haven't taken any pictures yet. But the kids are always excited to see them.

And pigeons and chipmunks too.

My favorite street

We have loved exploring our little part of Montreal, and Bernard Avenue is a big reason why!

We live two short blocks away from this street. To the right, we immediately get to enjoy a pedestrian area where the streets are entirely blocked off to cars.

Last week (I think it was Wednesday), I was feeling a bit burned out from a long day with kids. So Kevin and I took Julia in the stroller to Boulangerie Cheskie and got the most amazing pastries. Mine was a chocolate eclair with chocolate on the inside and it was huge and just $3.50 Canadian dollars and I am so excited to go back there again! Anyway, on the way back, we noticed this checkerboard. On Friday, we took the kids to get ice cream and made sure to stop here. There were also hula hoops, balls, and chalk. 

They pretended to be chess pieces. So I kept saying, "Not me, not Hermione, You!" and I don't know if they've seen enough Harry Potter to find that funny.

I also noticed this piano and thought it would be fun to play some music for the people sitting under red umbrellas outside the cafes. But based on the handwritten note on the sign, it looks like it's hard to reserve the piano.

Beside Boulangerie Cheskie, we've also liked Bilboquet Ice Cream and Boulangerie Premiere Moisson (they've seen plenty of us at that bakery and have been nice to us each time!). I am intrigued by all of the upscale restaurants on the street, but I am also a little intimidated by them. You can see people wearing tuxes inside! I also wonder if the cafe named Les Enfants Terribles is called that because kids might not behave their best if offered salmon tartare and calamari. (Maybe at some point we'll find someone willing to babysit a busy 1-year-old!)

If we take a left on Bernard to walk to Joyce Park, we pass by lots of lovely buildings and lovely flowers.

so many vines! My kids said it reminded them of their grandma's house. She doesn't have nearly this many vines, though

The medians are full of lovely flowers. I need to take better pictures!

We're glad we get to explore this part of Montreal!

Food so far

It's always fun to go to a new area and try the food there. Here's a bit of the food we've gotten to enjoy since moving here: 

1. Peaches and grapes and plums! It was great to go from my mom's peaches and grapes to my friend's peaches and grapes. I wish we still had some!

Speaking of plums, on Labor Day, we were invited to pick a ward member's house for a potluck and plum picking. We didn't pick any plums because we had some, but there was a treat with like a sugar cookie base and plum jam and then a crumble on top. When I said I liked it, she gave me the whole pan! And let me tell you, when you move to a new place, it is great to have food like this in the fridge.

2. Pastries at Boulangerie Premiere Moisson. Kevin went there once to get food when everywhere else was closed, and I've been two other times with some/all of the kids. They call pain au chocolat "chocolatin" here, and it is yummy! This picture was an almond pastry which was delicious and reminded me of Le Croissant in Logan.

While we were there the second time, a woman congratulated Kevin and me on having so many kids. Then the cashier said we could get little free treats for the kids. She probably doesn't give 6 away all at once that often, but she didn't mind!

3. Ice cream! We live very close to Le Bilboquet Outremont and we went there once. I think I packed too many light-colored shirts for Luke because he keeps eating things that stain his shirts (sometimes I catch it in time with stain remover, but not always!). 

4. Bagels! We met up for lunch with Kevin last week and went to a bagel place. We were first interested in going to St. Viateur, but it only accepted cash, so we went to District Bagel which was still not too far. Kevin got a lox sandwich and the kids liked a pizza panini. The bagels were good too, but it was clear that they weren't fresh. When I saw St. Viateur bagels available at Walmart, I figured that they would be as fresh as the ones at the bagel store itself, so I ordered some. And they were delicious! Just nice and chewy and with this nutty sesame flavor. I do hope to try some fresh ones sometime, but the toasted ones have been great!

5. Smoked meat. There's a place called Snowdon Deli which is close to the church, so we planned to go before Young Men's on Wednesday night. However, we saw that it closed early, so Kevin ran to a deli which was a little closer. The flavor kind of reminded me of hot dogs, which Lydia really liked. I liked it fine, but I think I like the meat from our smoker back home more.

6. After we went to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts last Saturday, we went to a nearby restaurant called Chef Istanbul because it had a family platter. Everything about it was great. The owner was so kind to our kids and seemed genuinely happy to see a large young family. The sesame bread was so amazingly soft inside. The fries were perfectly crispy and paired well with a spicy fry sauce. The rice and salad and meat just all had the perfect flavors. And our kids loved it too! 

7. Another ice cream place! We walked to Ripples on Friday, and it was really good ice cream! I decided to try a soft-serve ice cream cone dipped in milk chocolate, and it was delicious! The soft serve was a little creamier than I'm used to, and the dip stayed soft and a little fudgy. The few bites of ice cream I got to try from the others were also great.

8. Apples! The kind that we have been trying from Walmart are called Rave apples, which I hadn't heard of before. They are crisp and taste like apple cider. We're going to miss them when we go home!

9. Baguettes! We have gone through so many 87 cent (now 97 cent, sad) baguettes from Walmart the past two weeks. So, so many. I figure it's healthier than snacking on crackers. Back home, I can tolerate the bread products in the Walmart bakery, but the rolls and French bread have this sort of sour, processed aftertaste I've never liked. And these baguettes don't have that taste. Does that make them healthier? Maybe! 

I promise I cook sometimes, even though our kitchen is tiny! But it sure has been fun trying local food too!

Surprises

We've been in Montreal for more than a week now! There have been a few surprises, but by and large it's been a smooth transition for us. 

Here are a few surprises:

• We knew that the upper floor of the house we're staying in is also an Airbnb, but I hoped that no one would rent it, or that they wouldn't stay for very long. (I guess Montreal has rules requiring long-term stays in Airbnbs when it's not the summer, so that hope was probably impossible.) Anyway, there is someone staying in the upper floor the whole time we're here, and he seems nice. However, I feel bad for how loud we are, and I also feel bad that both of us have to park one right behind the other on the same little driveway. Since he leave early for work on weekdays, it's not a big deal during the day. However, in the evening or on the weekends, we have to coordinate with him when we need him to move his car. Alternatively, we can park on the street, but we have to move the car every two hours or get ticketed. I think he's going to get a street parking pass so we don't have to play this game of do-si-do, which will probably be helpful for all of us.
• The house is the oldest house I've ever lived in, and it is definitely beautiful and charming. I love the old doors and baseboards. However, unfortunately, we suspected there was some lead paint inside the window frames in our bedroom, bathroom, and living rooms, and the lead test we ordered came back positive in those locations. I lived in Michigan when the Flint water scandal occurred, and a few months later we moved to New Haven and got to have lots of conversations with a friend who was trying to get lead abatement to happen in her apartment (which was another giant scandal on its own). So I know a lot about lead and how bad it can be for health and IQ. Hence, I worry about lead dust from the bathroom window (which we have to leave open because there is no fan). And we have to make sure to keep Julia far away from windows. So that is a major downer that we're trying to figure out. (And looking up lead pipes has us also thinking we need a water filter.)
• There are two washers and dryers, which seemed extravagant til the first time I put laundry in the kitchen washing machine. It can fit about two towels! The other one can fit a little more, but overall I fit less laundry in two different washing machines as our one machine back home! So I do a lot of laundry.
• There isn't a whole lot of counter space, but the surprise there has been how I have still been able to cook. I have made chocolate chip cookies, peach cobbler, and applesauce muffins as well as some basic meals. I definitely clean up as I go, which is a good habit even in a larger kitchen.
• There is just one bathroom, and so far it's been okay. Actually, at home, sometimes the kids get upset with each other when one of them runs to the main level bathroom first even though there are a few others to choose from. So I guess we are already used to having one bathroom. It is making me more organized and time-conscious for bathtime, as well.
• Walmart has had some surprises for us. The first happened last Saturday. Kevin got to our new place in the early afternoon, unpacked, and planned to pick me up from the airport and then go to Walmart. However, he discovered that it closes at 5 on Saturdays, so he had to rush there, get there at 4:40, quickly pick a few staple items, and leave at 5. So, we had just enough food to get us through Saturday night and Sunday. The problem was, the stores were closed on Labor Day too, and we definitely didn't have enough food for that. So after church on Sunday, we went back to Walmart. One nice surprise there was just how beautifully dressed the women were. Women from India and Africa were wearing the most gorgeous saris and dresses, with bright colors and gold ornamentation. 
• Of course, Walmart in Canada is going to offer different products. The baguettes are fantastic. The Rave apples taste like apple cider. The strawberries last longer. There have been fewer options for the Great Value brand, so we've had to get more name-brand items than we're used to. And because we don't have any kind of food storage, I feel more aware of just how much food we eat. It's a lot!
• We've also been eating out a lot, partially because it's so easy to walk to get it. The kids really love a boulangerie about a 4 minute walk from our house. They probably like how willing I am to say yes to what they want.
• It's surprising how many places only accept cash. And we have none and no way to get any. Oh well.
• I'm surprised how itchy and red my wasp sting is a week later. I got it at church when we took a group picture outside, and somehow the wasp stung through my dress into my thigh. My kids have gotten a few wasp stings over the years (most memorably, this spring we were at a park during piano lessons and Jacob got stung, and then when I was in the bathroom changing a very dirty diaper, a hailstorm started and the kids ran to the car, abandoning Julia in her stroller to lick the hailstones as they fell on her face), but I've never seen them have this kind of reaction. So I guess I'm allergic now? Good to know I guess.
• There are so many 4 way stops here! I think it's about 3 per Utah block. Overall it seems like bikes and pedestrians matter as much as cars here, which I like and think Utah could use a bit more of. But it does mean it takes 5 minutes to drive one mile. (not that I've driven yet . . . it will probably happen this week.)
• Maybe the most surprising to me is how stoic I have felt about things. I remember moving to Michigan and Connecticut and having at least a few times when my heart sank into my stomach (things like discovering that we had to get our own lamps since there weren't light fixtures or dealing with a grumpy property manager). But maybe having older kids has helped me try to manage my reactions better so that we can all focus on the positives. And maybe managing a smaller house and a smaller life (i.e. no soccer games and practices for 4 different teams and piano lessons and ballet lessons and Irish dance lessons and recitals the same night he had to dress up as Isaac Newton at a school on the other side of town and viola lessons and chamber orchestra practices and concerts and organizing neighborhood kickball and preschool pickup and kindergarten pickup and middle school pickup . . . all of those happened in April and May and it's no wonder I stopped blogging) is a blessing too. As long as we find ways to fill the time with more than just Minecraft. (I do admit it was easier to tell our kids to run outside and play when we had a backyard even though we live close to a great park.)

Anyway, if we all come back to Utah without elevated blood levels, I will count this as a fantastic experience for our family! We're glad to be here!

Migration

One of the most satisfying parts of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" is when the Grinch cleans up the Christmas decorations.

I don't think I felt that way as a kid, but now I love the idea of tidying everything up, from fridges full of food to the tiniest of crumbs.

That was my goal from Wednesday to Friday -- to get the house as clean as the Grinch could. Three of the kids drove with Kevin to Montreal on Wednesday, and while they drove, I cleaned. The kids had daily chores all summer, but items would still migrate to the wrong place and never get put away quite where they belonged.

One of the main culprits of the migration is Julia. Ever since she learned to walk a month ago, she likes to carry objects in each hand from one room to the next. Lately, she likes to pull clothes out of a brother's laundry basket to a different room before lying down and snuggling it on her face. Dominoes, playing cards, balls, CDs, and dirty silverware are also commonly found places they didn't begin.

Of course, I can't blame her for the papers the rest of us get or the lone Legos waiting on random tables to be carefully sorted into the correct bin. The second law of thermodynamics happens with or without a 13-month-old in the house.

But now I felt like I could do something about it. With Joseph (13), Matthew (10), and Luke (3) in the car, Lydia (6) in 1st grade for a few days, and Jacob (8) not making new messes (or hanging out with Julia at my mom's house), I could finally give into my nesting instinct and clean everything! I even swept the garage!

finally got that piano music kind of organized

and finally took care of the books and cards that stack up

After I had cleaned up the great toy migration, it was time to pack for another migration. This packing was easy though -- we were just taking backpacks with stuff to entertain the 4 of us on our flight. The real packing happened at the beginning of the week when we loaded up the minivan with everything we needed for 2.5 months in Montreal. My parents lent us the car top carrier they had first used when they filled it with 5 apple boxes and headed to Southern California for a summer 30 years ago.

This book title was constantly going through my head

Autumn in Montreal requires more clothes than summer in Southern California, so after we stuffed coats and long sleeves into boxes, we couldn't quite fit the rest of our belongings in 5 apple boxes. Luckily, with 4 of us going on a plane, we could fold down several seats and fit it all.

Early Wednesday morning, Kevin, Joseph, Matthew, and Luke headed on their long trek east. Although they could have made it in 3 days, everyone was glad that they spent some time in Ann Arbor visiting Kevin's advisor and rediscovering Gallup Park. 

While they were there, since Ann Arbor was on my mind, I had a spur-of-the-moment idea to see if they could also stop by our old neighbors from Northwood who live east of Toronto, and before I knew it the Warners had generously offered them a place to spend the night and a gorgeous fruit basket. I am so grateful for the lifelong friends we made in student housing!

And then, Saturday morning, about 3.5 hours after I finally got to sleep, it was time to wake up for our flight to Montreal!

One reason I was up so late was that I was gathering things to entertain Julia on the flight. She is a fantastic traveler in the car for about 22.5 minutes, and then it all goes downhill. A few weeks ago, we visited Kevin's mom in Duchesne, which is about 3 hours away from Providence. When we got home from that drive, we looked at each other and began Googling flights in Montreal. I felt bad abandoning Kevin on the long drive himself, but I would have felt worse having the rest of us in the car making things loud and stressful.

Incidentally, Utah went about 130 days without measurable rain and conveniently when Kevin was on I-84 in Ogden Canyon it got 3 inches in like 3 minutes

Jacob and Lydia are old enough that I felt like they would be pretty good travelers on the airplane and good helpers with Julia. So I decided to take those 3 while Kevin took the other 3.

Anyway, back to packing for Julia. I looked up activities that would entertain a 13-month-old. The key seemed to be to have a quantity of activities, just like when you teach a Sunbeam class. So I packed lots of different snacks in different containers, books, things to color, painters tape, and a little trash can we got at a Touch-a-Truck event. It reminded me a little bit of the hospital bag I packed when I had an unmedicated birth a decade ago -- I didn't know what would actually help, so I just brought it all. (No surprise that the bubble wand and solution were totally unnecessary.)

My mom very kindly drove us to the airport at the ungodly hour of 7:20 am Eastern Time (my body resided in Mountain Time but my spirit was on Alaskan Time). Then, after a hug and some cookies from Leslie and Tim who had come to the airport to see us off, it was time for our next great adventure!

When I was about 16, my mom once sent me into the nearby Copy Center to make some copies for her. I stared at the machine. I just stared at it. I could not figure it out for the life of me. About 10 minutes later, I went back to my mom and asked which button I was supposed to press. (Given how mechanically minded I was, I'm as surprised as the rest of you that I went into engineering.)

Anyway, I had that same copy center feeling when I got into the airport. I had only been on a plane twice in the last 7 years, and this international flight was just different enough that I wasn't sure what to do when the kiosks weren't printing boarding passes. But one phone call to my mom later, I had figured out what I needed to do, which was stand in lots of lines. And show 4 passports again and again and again.

Near the end of our wait in the security line

I never went to concourse B when it was .64 miles, but it was still a pretty long walk

Finally, we made it to the very last gate and waited to board. The next 4 hours were an adventure in keeping Julia happy. She really needed a nap. She was not in her normal bed. So she did not nap. 

Instead we read books over and over. We ate snacks. We played with every toy I brought. I said "ready, set" and waited for her to say "gaooo!" to nuzzle her or lift her up. She alternated between increasing crankiness and increasing giggliness. 

I never liked the fumes at the Touch a Truck event, but this garbage can we got there has made it all worth it

Meanwhile, Jacob and Lydia watched plenty of Phineas and Ferb, some of the Minecraft Movie, and some Zootopia, with maybe a Friend magazine or two mixed in. They used the bathroom without saying anything that would lead to a submission to the Reader's Digest (true story. I was 12 and flying without my parents and said something to the flight attendant about how loud the toilet was and 15 months later I read a brief story the flight attendant submitted there). And then, for 15 glorious minutes, this happened:

And then it got bumpy as we descended into Toronto and she woke up. That's okay. The plane landed with a jolt, but some people said it was a smooth landing and started clapping. "They're clapping because it was so much fun!" Lydia said with delight.

When the plane finished taxiing, I gathered up the last bit of trash, expecting to hand it to a flight attendant at the front of the plane. I begged my tired daughter to please hold the plastic cups with napkins and broken Biscoff cookies just for a minute so we could hand it to the nice flight attendant.

Unfortunately, there was no nice flight attendant with a trash bag, so then I asked my son to carry the cup while I set up the stroller and hurried to customs. Surely there would be a trash can somewhere nearby.

Down and down and down more hallways we walked, always hoping for a trash can around the corner. But these corridors were scarce on both trash cans and signage, and I was never quite sure I was in the right place. Then, finally, there was a desk to show our passports again, and underneath it a recycling bin. "There's a trash can just behind it," I told my son, but I think he threw it away in the recycling bin anyway.

For customs, we just went to a kiosk and scanned our passports. I let them know I wasn't bringing anything interesting into the country (not even a plastic cup full of napkins and biscoff crumbs), and after about a minute and a half I had a receipt and headed to the desk.

The man behind the desk counted us. "I see four of you on here," he said quizzically.

"Yes, there's four," I said, pointing to myself, a fussy child, a weeping child (her passport was scanned last), and then realizing there wasn't a fourth person.

"Jacob! It's this desk!" I said, laughing, motioning for him to come back over to be counted. He let us through, and just like that we were in Canada! Much easier for us than for Kevin.

On this side of customs, the amount of signs and trash cans were back to normal airport levels, and we maneuvered ourselves onto various elevators and down crowded hallways to our gate. We picked up some Tim Hortons food to get a proper Canadian welcome, and before long, we were set to board the second plane!

This time, the screens didn't have any movies, but the kids were content to look out the window and eat airplane snacks for the hour or so we were on this flight. Julia needed a little more entertainment than that, so I pulled out the next trick in my Mary Poppins bag.

I gave her the toy trash can to put the painters tape strands in, but she mostly liked dropping them in the aisle or sticking them in her mouth.

We landed, found the stroller, found the exit, and before too long, we found our minivan too! And then a little while later, we found our new house!

Our great migration was now complete, and it was great to be reunited with all of our baby birds.