Bucket trucks, Francophones, "No ascen"

 

We were a little afraid that we would miss the last beautiful days of fall in Quebec City while we were in Montreal, but luckily when we got home it was still pretty! Lots of leaves still on the trees even at the end of October! Everything seemed extra nice to us because we were so happy to be back. :) Here is a collection of a few views around the city, and a bunch of assorted things we did at the lingering end of Fall after Halloween!

Our Quebec bedroom had a little skylight that I loved, and one morning I woke up in the wee hours, opened my eyes, and saw the full moon perfectly framed in the skylight and shining down on my face. In my sleepy state it felt like some kind of important moment, so I picked up my phone and tried to take a picture. It turned out terribly blurry, but I still feel happy when I look at it. I don't know quite why.

Cuties

More Cuties (Zig in an army shirt from the nearby thrift store)

It's hard to even make sense of this picture because there are so many leaves. It is our leaf-covered backyard.

A surprisingly warm day, perfect for ice cream. Note that girl in the background who worked at this shop. She was always there when we came in (and we came in a lot) and she was so long-suffering. She'd listen to our orders (mine and Daisy and Teddy's always in French, the other kids' always in English) and patiently reply in either language, and then laboriously fill and dip each ice cream cone and hand them to us. I detected a sort of hollow look in her eyes when she'd see us come in, but she remained pleasant to the end! I wonder if she ever thinks about us now or wonders where we've gone?

Eating the ice cream by the Saint-Jean gate—no coats needed!

Maison-Mere-Mallet—this pretty steeple was a landmark always visible down our street. It used to be a convent but is now a social services place with a thrift store and soup kitchen. We brought clothes to the thrift store a couple times (you wouldn't think kids would grow out of things in the short time we were in Quebec, but they did!) and even found ice skates for most of the kids there! $2 a pair!

For a week or two Quebec had some sort of literature campaign going on—there were banners hanging on walls and above streets with quotes from poems and books (by Quebecois authors, maybe?) on them. And there was this funny vending machine the Place d'Youville which dispensed…poems! For free. Malachi and I got some and they were interesting!

Sam and I got asked to give talks in church and I managed to get up the courage to give mine in French! We didn't have a printer, so I had to mark it up digitally with all my pronunciation helps and read it from the iPad. Even though I am much better at reading and writing than I am speaking spontaneously in conversation, I was afraid it would be unintelligible to the hearers! So I listened to the words on Google Translate (when I did this, my computer somehow knew where I was and gave it all with the Quebecois pronunciation, wasn't that nice of it?) and marked it so I could read like a normal person and not a robot.

Teddy and Goldie both gave scriptures in Primary and memorized them in French. Here is Teddy's, written out in his own hand to help him learn it. (2 Nephi 4:15)

Interesting view from below the 440. You can still see both of the church steeples on Rue St. Jean from here.

Messy hair

Turtle that Seb sent to Clementine

Turtle in a baby suit

Elephant in a dress

Animal rugs from Costco

Seb watching men repair a telephone pole from our balcony (the men even waved at him).

Scissor lift that Gus liked

Another crane working on a roof

Playing in the wooded area by the church, between District Conference and a baptism

Junie's curled hair (she went out in a little rain and it was straight again that very night! 😩)

A parade of gnomes speaking in Gnome language (plus turtles, below)--by Ziggy

Matching sisters

Tiny witch hat

Abe (still in Utah, working for the MTC—he does mentoring for new missionaries in the field) told us that he had a new missionary from the Montreal Quebec Mission. It turned out it was "our" Elder Allred, who served in our branch and came to dinner at our house every week! We were all so excited! The elders took this picture during one of their sessions and sent it to me.

More pretty streets

Ziggy took it upon himself to make and post this sign after the 4th person in a row asked me what was for dinner and received my (admittedly unfair) wrath in return. It really is good advice. 

He was pleased enough with his first attempt that he did it again the next night.

And here it is again, this time written in Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. Zig became fascinated, not to say obsessed, with languages while we were in Quebec! He says he wants to get the world record for knowing the most languages, and his favorites are all the ones that look nothing like English. He demands that we show him words written in Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, Chinese, Egyptian, and so on, and often when he's pretending to be some "man" or other, he'll come up to me and begin with, "I don't speak much English…" One day he sat and copied an entire paragraph of Japanese characters from the back of a rice box! Anyway, I don't know if Ancient Egyptian mothers snapped at their inquisitive children for asking what was for dinner multiple times but, if they did—they too could use this helpful sign!

Thinking about trebuchets?

Furry coat on…

…and off to the store with Daddy!

Daisy reading her Kindle, Clementine reading her Kindle case!

Saint-Jean-Baptiste on a wet night

This police car was not, in fact, "geten glood"—this was Zig's way of asking Sam to glue it

Looking down off the hill

Zig asleep at the table

Volcano kit Sebastian sent to Ziggy for his birthday

Parliament building

Celebratory breakfast at the Château after Malachi won second place in a Writer's of the Future contest!

As the weather got cooler, these shelters started springing up everywhere—sometimes over front doors like this one, sometimes over driveways to cover cars. Even places like Walmart and Dollarama started putting them up over their entryways. To me it felt vaguely ominous, like winter was going to be really brutal. Seems like they wouldn't go to all that work if there may or may not be a little snow!

Much less ominous and more fun were all the Christmas preparations that started happening in mid-November! In Place d'Youville, they were putting up what would be the ice skating rink.

Gus was excited to see the crane putting up a huge wreath on Le Capitole Hôtel!

Up at the Hôtel de Ville, they were putting up booths for the German Christmas Market! It looked like it was going to be so fun  and cute! We felt excited about it every time we walked over there.

Dinner with our sister missionaries.  

Playing in one of the lofts

Waving

A pink November sunset

Ziggy with friends from church (Richard and Jeremy)

Malachi and Sam stopped to get pain au fromage after Ky's long run, and Malachi just bit into the loaf and then ate the whole thing! Horrifying! He wasn't even sorry. Luckily they had gotten another loaf to bring home!

Weird mural down on Rue Dorcester, on the way to Chez Gaston (a poutine place we like). We always notice and comment on it. Malachi has been particularly affected by it, and wrote an email home challenging his readers to create art inspired by it. I believe he got a few submissions.

Pretty church out by the airport—this picture was taken after dropping off Ky's friend Evan (Oven) at 3:30 for his 5 a.m. flight.

Braids

The only daughter not currently threatening to grow taller than me

Breakfast with Daisy at a famous and cute little restaurant (Buffet de l'Antiquaire)

We like the tiny little loft space

Pretty "castle" building Daisy and I saw while driving somewhere—we never found out what it was!

Bunny manhole-cover Malachi found on one of his runs somewhere! He couldn't remember exactly where, so I never got to see it myself, but it seems lucky anyway!