Ah, Fall just got lovelier and lovelier in Quebec City! Even just the view from our balcony was breathtaking. Those distant mountains looked so colorful when the air was clear! I took enough pictures for a lifetime but still don't feel like I got enough. How sad to be talking about Fall in past tense now…though I have to admit we've had a very nice November, I certainly can't complain…but I do wish October and the beautiful trees could last forever!
In late September and October we had a ridiculous amount of picnics (why not? the baguette sandwiches we make are so good, who would want to eat anything else?) trying to enjoy every single day of the nice weather. We hiked and walked and went to parks. I'll put most of those pictures of "going to see Fall" things in a separate post, but we did plenty of ordinary things too, things that just happened to have Fall around the edges. And here are some of them. First, some updates on the little people:
More Halloween drawings (and a glimpse of Sam)
Another sign helpfully put up by Ziggy on our front door 😬 (It's not telling people not to exist, it's just informing them that coffee [or cofe, in helpful French translation], "pip," and "sigret" are not tolerated in our house.)
A bunch of drawings Gus made—he drew one for each person and left them at our places at the table. My favorite is Sam's there on the left middle, in blue—what appears to be a sun over a boat is in fact an octopus (!) and a shark (!).
More little Gus-notes
Gus sleepy and sad about something—even he didn't really know what he was sad about so I just kept taking pictures of him hugging Caw
Clementine, Gus, and Zig making a candy store in one of the little lofts
Box Cars
Not sure why I took this picture of our church chapel, but here it is. It probably looks just like your chapel. It looks just like ours at home except it is a little shorter—fewer rows. But when I walk up on the stand or sit down at the organ I have the strangest sense of familiar-yet-unfamiliar. An alternate universe where everyone speaks French!
Quebec flag Gus drew—I love his fleur de lys
Hugs
Clementine has taken to carrying Evie like this—
—ever since she saw this picture of me carrying her when she was a baby! It's so cute! She loves this pciture and says "That's baby me!" Oh how I miss that little bundled baby!
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Domaine des Maizerets, one of the big parks we love here. We brought a picnic and played in the maze on a slightly chilly day. The kids had some sort of Minotaur game going on in the maze, which I myself wisely steered clear of, but they got Sam pulled into it and then there was a great amount of laughing and shrieking! He is the scariest Minotaur.
A tiny person running toward me (I'm standing on the tower)
The same tiny person climbing up the tower
Very windy
Hi Goldie!
Triumphant Gus
"Nobody ever says 'strike a pose' to me," complained Daisy.
"Fine, strike a pose then," I said.
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This beautiful stormy sunset sky appeared while the missionaries were eating dinner with us, and the kids kept taking my phone and running in and out of the house to look at it, but I was talking and didn't ever get to see it, so I'm glad they took a bunch of pictures!
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It has been interesting to see the clear movement of the sun (or the earth, but you know what I mean) from Summer to Fall. In August it was setting here where you could look straight out and see it from the balcony.
Then it started to move over toward the tree.
And as you can see, by October it had moved way over to set fully behind the tree!
I loved the ripple of gold it left on the chimney right at this time every night.
The colored trees made the whole city look rosy and warm at sunset!
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On the way out to l'île d'Orléans—a pretty hillside
We went to Chez Mag and Malachi got this amazing pile of poutine. And somehow they accidentally gave us three lobster poutines instead of one—the kids were very pleased when we brought them home!
More pretty scenes from the island
On the island again with Junie for a Book Lunch. There were chickens roaming around for some reason! To eat our dropped fries, probably. Now Chez Mag is closed for the season and we will never go there again. *weep*
Junie and I stopped at a farm on the island to buy pumpkins and they had so many different kinds! We loved looking at them all, and even brought a few home to decorate with.
Almost home
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We were interested to see how Canadian Thanksgiving would go. My friend Rachael who lives in Edmonton said everyone there celebrates just like in the U.S.—big turkey dinner, family coming over, all the stores closed. But I had heard from people here that the Quebecois really do not celebrate Thanksgiving at all. It's a "Canadian" holiday but not a Quebec one. The missionaries told us this, but then my friend who actually grew up here confirmed it too. She said she didn't even know till she was in college that there was a Canadian Thanksgiving!
Our experience bore all this out. A few stores like Walmart were closed, but most of the small shops were still open. There were no turkeys or Thanksgiving Sales in the stores. Everyone seemed to be going about their business just as usual. Since we still planned to celebrate American Thanksgiving later in November, we decided that the right thing to do to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving was to go out and get poutine for dinner. So that's what we did! (At Poutineville, which is a place with a bunch of interesting poutines…like Greek-inspired, Chinese-inspired, etc.) It was great!
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And as a bonus for sticking around to the end…you get a picture of the "Cat Café" on the other side of our block. I have never actually been in there to…do what? drink coffee and fraternize with the cats?…but I am intrigued by the concept and always look in the windows when I can. The cats certainly seem to make themselves at home!
