Festival de Magie, Conference, Cruise Ships, and other things

In September, the "Festival de Magie de Québec" came to Quebec City. For several days, there were free magic shows all afternoon in Place d'Youville up the street, and there were magic classes and bigger magic shows in the evening in a couple different venues. It was also our neighborhood's annual street fair, so there was lots to go see and do! Rue Saint-Jean was closed to cars, and the stores moved their merchandise outside onto tables or under tents. Very festive. As we walked along the street, we also saw lots of little crowds gathering around various wandering magicians (from the festival, no doubt) out demonstrating their tricks. I told Malachi he should come out and do card tricks (you wouldn't believe the amazing things he can do, I am in awe) but I don't think he ever did.

(We don't like to walk on Rue St-Jean without a stop at the library)

Daisy and Goldie tried on some cute hats at one of the sidewalk sales

We brought the whole family along to a couple of the free magic shows, and they were so much fun! Daisy bravely got up to be a volunteer even though the magician was speaking French. Luckily he switched to English for her sake when he saw she didn't understand everything! The girls and Teddy and Ziggy went back to several other magic shows without us later in the week. There were a couple magicians that they said were much less good than the others, but most were good, and it was so fun just to have something so interesting to go and do!

We got tickets for one of the bigger evening magic shows just for Sam and me and Malachi and Teddy. Everyone else was quite sad not to get to come, but we took everyone to get fish and chips at the place we like on Rue St-Jean first, which eased their pain somewhat. We hadn't ever been there with everyone before and it took the owner a bit by surprise, but he found us a place in a little secret balcony behind the main store.

The magic show was really cool—the magician (Topas was his stage name) was German and didn't speak much French, but did speak good English, so he did a lot of the show in English. It's funny how easily most people switch back and forth here. Often in the same conversation. Or one person will speak in French and the other in English all the way through, no one seeming to mind or even notice the difference! Half of the magic show was devoted to ombromanie, which turned out to be—shadow puppets! The guy (Philippe Beau) was really good at it and I'd never imagined it could be such an art! It was fun to be inside this theater, Le Diamant, for once. We are always walking by outside looking up at this shattered-lens-looking thing (which I suppose is supposed to be the diamant of its name) and wondering what it's like inside.

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One morning I woke up to such unusual pink light in my bedroom. I went outside to see the sky all pink like this! It was so beautiful!

It only lasted for about two minutes, maybe less—after that it faded and you'd never know anything had happened at all! But when Malachi got home from his run he showed me his pictures, and he'd seen it too. These are the pictures he took:

So beautiful!! And here are a few other pretty skies from the balcony:

Clouds and steam

Sunrise

Sunset

Fall City glowing gold

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Clementine has three little dresses (or should I say, six little dresses) that are matching pairs with her doll, Evie. It is rare for her to wear anything else! Sometimes she puts on her black velvet dress (the one Junie used to so love, calling it her "Velvet Bunny dress") and puts Evie in a little pink furry suit that is close enough to "matching" to satisfy her. The two of them are so cute! She reminds me so much of Daisy and Rosie, but also of Marigold and Fernie. Little sweeties, all of them.

This bunny (Milky) was lucky enough to get a turn in Evie's dress

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I found a window box sitting on our back balcony (you can see it by Clementine in the pictures above) and decided to try to put it up on the hooks in front. I got some Fall-ish things to fill it with and Sam reached it with his long arms out the front window (which we had to remove for the purpose). It was an enterprise fraught with peril, but he did it without mishap and I am unaccountably pleased with it! I feel a little jolt of happiness every time I walk home and see it perched cheerfully below the window.

(I don't know what these silly girls are doing)

We also got some pumpkins at the market, and ghost candles at IKEA

And we (mostly Marigold) made a bunch of construction-paper bats for the wall.

It makes the house look so fun and Halloweeny!

And of course the little boys have been drawing zillions of pictures and putting them all over the walls.

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Girls doing ballet class

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We got a little rug and some pillows for this room and it made such a difference!

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Out to lunch with Daisy on a rainy day—we were unprepared with coats, so Daisy ended up wrapping herself in the car blanket when she got too cold!

This was one of the brightest red trees we have ever seen!

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Junie saved up to buy a "Quebec" shirt to match Daisy's. (ooh, more bats in the background)

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Another full moon! It's so strange to be staying in a different place long enough to see multiple full moons come and go!

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On General Conference weekend Sam and I always each take one of the kids (age eight and above) out to lunch between sessions. But since all the older kids wanted to have it be their turn in Quebec, we each took someone Friday and Saturday! I went with Junie on Friday. She chose a crêperie on Rue St-Jean.

And she talked me into ice cream after. It was such a beautiful Fall day!

We sat and watched the skateboarders in Place d'Youville while we ate our ice cream, as is our custom. We gave them all names…I can't remember who this guy was. Gavin, maybe.

Goldie and I went to a pizza place next to the St. Matthew church. I have been eying the place for a long time and was happy to finally have an excuse to go in. 

It was a rainy day and we were so snug and cozy in the front window looking out at the rain while we ate our lunch! We loved it.

Conference itself was wonderful, as it always is. It was so different being here in Quebec to watch it, but also felt so much the same, hearing the music and feeling the spirit that Conference always brings. We don't have a TV here so we watched it on Sam's little computer screen. It was fine that way! And I usually print out tons of coloring and activity pages for the kids, but we don't have a printer here, so we couldn't do that. So somebody had the idea of drawing our own coloring pages, and that was maybe even more fun!

We were quite proud of our creations. It really isn't that hard to draw complicated patterns like this…you jut fold the paper and make your design symmetrical in all the segments. They turn out looking fancier than they really are.

I don't know if it was more fun drawing a picture, or coloring someone else's. Both were so fun!

Ziggy colored this one so nicely!

And then…this is the cutest thing ever. I looked over and saw Gus drawing something with great concentration. He was so focused on his task, and then I saw what he was making. It was his own careful geometric coloring page! It was so good!

After he drew it all carefully out, he colored it himself. I love it so much!

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For Daisy's birthday back in August, we gave her a coupon to go out and get hot chocolate somewhere with us. She has been saving it to do in cooler weather and the time finally arrived! We went to a place we'd heard was good called Le Cochon Dingue (the crazy pig??). 

There were two kinds of hot chocolate—both were really good. The crystallized sugar around the mug of one of them was interesting and good. And we liked the tiny silver pitcher they brought it in so we could pour it out into our own mugs.

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Daisy made spun sugar to go on top of this beautiful dessert (honey panna cotta) we made for dinner when the sister missionaries came one night. Isn't it pretty?

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Teddy and Ziggy cut up an old cardboard box and made this excavator/backhoe. It was amazing. They used a skewer to connect it together so it could spin to all sides, and they made it jointed so the backhoe arm could pivot up and down. It didn't last long but it was so fun while it lasted!

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Through the summer and all through September, we've periodically been able to see cruise ships docked on the river under the Château. Sam's mom and dad actually came through here on a cruise many years ago (but they didn't get off in Quebec City because it was Conference weekend and they wanted to listen to Conference! So they haven't actually seen anything here, except the Château Frontenac from the boat!). In September, especially, we had a few visitors at church from the cruise ships almost every week. They are usually docked here on the Saturday or Sunday and leave on the Monday or Tuesday.

Some of the ships are impressively big and others are quite astoundingly big! The little boys have been fascinated with them, and I must say I understand—it's quite boggling that something that big can float! Floating hotels! Not to mention that it's fun to look at all those rooms on all those floors (and sometimes waterslides and other fun-looking things on top) and imagine what it would be like to be in one. 

One day Ziggy came in from the balcony outside and said, "I can see a huge cruise ship." I didn't believe him because while the river is close, we can't usually make it out very well, and the Château is kind of around a corner and just out of sight. But I went out to look and sure enough he was right! We could see a cruise ship! It blended right in with the buildings, but was where a building doesn't usually go!

Once we knew where to look, we started seeing them all the time. (Can you spot them in these pictures?)

Gus's drawing of a cruise ship

The boys, of course, have started playing Cruise Ship all the time (the ship is always the stairs for some reason…I guess to make it taller?). Sometimes they play a Ferry Boat variation, but Cruise Ship is more popular.

Now that the weather is getting cooler, we haven't seen one of the cruise ships for a while and we quite miss them!

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More about the little boys…Gus got some Canadian money from my mom (Abe and Seb brought it when they came, a few coins for each of the little ones—I think my mom got it from my nephew Jack who served his mission in Toronto). Here he is happily eating the Canadian Kit-Kat he bought with it. We were talking to someone from Quebec the other day who expressed astonishment that Canadian Kit-Kats are any different from American Kit-Kats. Ohhh yes. Indeed. For one thing, Kit-Kat is produced by Hershey in the U.S. and Nestle in Canada and Europe. So the recipes are completely different. And then there's the difference in what can be classified as chocolate in the U.S. versus Canada (we've learned about it in our homeschool units…chocolate has to have something like 10% cocoa solids in the U.S., and 30 or 35% in Europe. So it really tastes different). In the U.S. I could take a Kit-Kat or leave it (I would eat one if it was given to me, but otherwise would never waste the stomach space) but whenever we come to Canada we eat them like fiends. Kit-Kat fiends. We especially like the big size, "Kit-Kat Chunky," which sounds kind of disgusting but is so, so good—even better than the little ones.

We will be very, very sad to leave these Kit-Kats behind when we come back home.

Gus's darling Quebec flag, with fleurs de lys

Gus's picture of the Delta Building (a tall building a few blocks away…it dominates the skyline and is an object of great fascination for the little boys)

I LOVE this picture Ziggy drew of Quebec City. The Delta Building. The other building, the even taller one, called Édifice Marie-Guyart. Saint-Matthew church. And below it, our house with its long stairway up to the balcony. And our van driving along the road. It's all so good!

See—just like the real thing!

This is also so good. Ziggy made a Happy Halloween sign to tape up outside, and then above it he taped a  helpful (and bossy) "Do not smoc at this haws" sign. And then a catalog of every single kind of pipe, cigarette, or cigar he could imagine. I don't even know how half of these would physically work…they look like fancy hobbit pipes or something! How do you like the ones which twist round to emit their smoke right into your face? Zig is quite fascinated with all the people smoking here. He hates the smell, but has also told me "I'm so interested in smoking. I would never do it…but I'm really interested in it." He is! Ha. I hope his sign doesn't offend any passers-by…but I suppose he's quite right, we don't actually want anyone smoking "at this haws."

Boys drawing at the counter…a common daily sight (markers where they belong in the mug…not a common sight).

Gus drawing with Pillowphant

Gus's fleet of "Spirit Airlines" planes. Almost as many designs as Zig's pipes!

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The back of Saint-Jean-Baptiste

Picnic and Family Home Evening at the playground

It was such a warm and beautiful night, we stayed and played till after it got dark!

I tried to get a picture of everyone hanging at the same time!

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A day on the island with Daisy (lobster poutine!)

Goat milk ice cream (eaten in the yard next to the goats in question)

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The cutest stuffed bat I bought on a whim as I walked through the toy store one day

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The kids love to play "Missionary"

I love these carefully-written nametags Gus made: CAIO. How else would one spell "missionary"?

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A whole shelf full of mustards at the store!

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Malachi wanted to do his long run somewhere different (he runs 12-13 miles on Saturdays, generally) so I drove him out near Deschambault, dropped him off 13 miles out, and then he ran and met me in the village. I took my time driving along the Chemin du Roy (the old King's highway along the river) and enjoying all the little towns, each with their little church.

I liked this little spot with a school playground right next to the old church graveyard. An interesting juxtaposition.

In Deschambault I was very pleased to find the church open (it's been closed when I've been there before) so I could go inside! I met a nice man in there, talked to him a while, and he took me outside to show me something. This church also has a graveyard opposite it, and there were two wooden angels that used to sit on the gateposts outside the graveyard. The angels were gradually getting ruined in the weather, so the village brought them inside the church and put some new modern iron sculptures on the graveyard gateposts instead.

The sculptures are a little strange. But if you stand in a certain spot…

…marked by this marker on the ground…

…you can see that they are still the angels after all! One is holding a trumpet (like Moroni!) and the other is holding scales (of justice, one assumes). Cool, right?

And afterwards I took Malachi to Casse-Croûte Vieux Moulin to get smoked meat poutine, of course! He had just run 13 miles, after all…how could I refuse him?

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An evening walk with Sam to St-Roch. Such a beautiful cathedral down the hill. I don't walk there often alone because there are always a bunch of homeless people camped out in the courtyard and asleep on the steps, often yelling or acting weird on drugs. But the building is so pretty, especially in the evening light!

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The hydrangeas (if hydrangeas they are) in the park off Rue de la Couronne have turned a dark pink. I don't know if it's the season, the sunlight, the cold weather, or what? I always thought hydrangea color was determined by soil acidity (I learnewd that somewhere?). But remember, they were a bright white, almost green, in August on Clementine's birthday:

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Sunset and a green-covered parking garage

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We saw a bright pink light in the sky one evening and were so puzzled by it! We thought it was some strange artifact of the sunset and the way the light hit the clouds. Only a few nights later, we noticed it again and realized it was coming from something on the gorund…something big and pink! I assumed it was something Halloween-related…a haunted house or something. You can kind of see it here, a long pink strip of light behind the trees. All month I meant to walk over and see if I could figure out what it was. But I didn't, and now it is probably gone and I'll never know!

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Our van parked by Saint-Jean-Baptiste…a sight I never tire of seeing! :)

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And one last look at "Daisy's tree" by Saint-Matthew church, the sight she sees when she wakes up and looks out the window every morning. We know these orange leaves won't last forever so we are definitely enjoying them while we can! (And why are they just up on that part of the tree? I don't know!)