One Last Miracle

We planned at first to leave in the early morning on the Monday, but looking at the weather and other logistics, decided to leave on the Tuesday instead. It turned out well because that gave us one more non-Sunday day to do things—like get poutine one last time! We packed and cleaned like madmen so we'd be mostly done and free to have fun on Monday.

Sunday, after we went to church and said goodbye to everyone there, we were all very sad. We cheered ourselves up with my chicken soup. ("In June I saw a charming group/Of roses all begin to droop./I pepped them up with chicken soup!")

There was a snowy, blowy storm that night. We were happy to get to see it.

And then we spent Monday doing alllll the things we could do! Doner kebab.

Walks in the snow

Trying on dresses at Simon's

Ice cream

Ziggy really wanted a beret like Goldie's, so we went out and found him one

There are signs everywhere warning "Danger: Chute de glace" (falling ice) and this picture was taken right after some glace chute-ed right onto Teddy's and my head! It was really quite alarming! One second we were just walking along and the next minute we were both yelping "Ow! Ow! What's that?" I don't know what good the Chute de Glace signs do, honestly. It's not like you can see it coming fast enough to move out of the way. I guess you could avoid loitering in such spots, but we weren't loitering—just walking!

More ice cream

As it started to get dark, we noticed all the lights were blinking along the streets by home. This was very exciting because we'd been looking at these signs since summer—Stationnement interdit quand les feux clignotent—"No parking when the lights are blinking." It means everyone has to clear the streets because they are going to plow. Our parking spot up by Saint-Jean-Baptiste was fine because it's off the street, but we were eager to get to see the elaborate snow-removal operation the missionaries had told us about.

At dinnertime we all bundled up (it was only 11 or 12 degrees) to walk down Côte d'Abraham to Chez Gaston. We'd never actually eaten there all together because it's a tiny little place. We'd always gotten take out or eaten at the park nearby or left some people home. But we wanted to do something special all together for our last night, so we decided we'd just take our chances that we'd all fit inside the restaurant!

Rue Dorcester

Luckily it was a quiet night and we were able to take up every seat in the place!

Yum! The poutine was so good! It's funny because before we went to Quebec, I was practicing my French with a native Quebecois French speaker online, and during one of our sessions she told me to find a restaurant menu and we could practice ordering. The menu I found, totally randomly, was for Chez Gaston! So when we got to Quebec and happened upon the very restaurant (I didn't recognize the name or anything), when I saw the menu, I realized, "Hey…I know exactly how to read this menu." I felt very well- prepared! Ha!

Big snow-pile

Back up the hill

Would you like a closer look at whatever silliness is going on with those girls?

Oh my.

When we got back to our street, it was strange and almost spooky to see all the cars starting to clear out. These streets are always lined with parked cars (which gave us Much Trouble before we found our parking place) so it felt like we were in an alternate world or something. I think everyone was supposed to be off the street by 10 pm.

We took one last picture in front of our house. Clementine was cold and mad. Malachi was already home. But still, a cute little picture of the family, I think!

Ziggy and I walked through the house doing our last cleaning sweep and taking pictures of the clean rooms.

Goodbye, goodbye dear rooms (we left this room better than we found it, I must say, adding that rug and couch pillows).

Mixer and cooler ready to be packed in the morning

Goodbye pantry, I hope someone uses all those spices

Snow piling up on the balcony!

Goodbye, Sam's little office workspace (we left this better than we found it too—there were only folding chairs and no rug or footstool here when we arrived!)

Streets almost fully clear now! All along the road, you can see the blinking lights that say this street has to be vacated.

Around 2300h, we heard lots of things start to happen in the street. First the tow truck came by to get rid of any cars that weren't moved! Then the plows started coming. A little one to clear the walks and a big one to clear the street. The big plow blade was on tractor like a front-end loader.

These plows just pushed all the snow to the sides of the road, where the cars usually are.

Then came another special plow followed by an endless line of empty dump trucks. This plow (if it even is a plow) had a churning auger that spun and pulled up the snow. It drove along the side of the street, where the other plows had left their big piles, sucked up all the snow left there, and blew it out a big chute into the bed of the dump truck next to it! In the picture above, you can see the bright white spot in the circle—that is the stream of snow (lit by a light) being blown into the dump truck.

There were SO many dump trucks! They drove slowly along in a big parade, and when the front one got full of snow, it drove away and another empty one drove up to take its place. I wonder where they went to dump the snow when they were full?

After just a few minutes, all the equipment had passed by, leaving the streets completely clear! It was so cool to watch! We couldn't help but admire the efficiency of it all. (And we were so sad the little boys were already asleep! But I took a video for them.)

First pass

Second pass

Then, after midnight, I went around tucking the kids in as they slept for the last time in their little bedrooms.

Goodbye, Junie's loft

Hey! Goldie is not asleep.

Gus is, though. He's the lump behind Goldie.

What? Daisy's still awake also? Clementine is tucked in sweetly beside her, at least.

Daisy humors me by snuggling in

Goodnight, beautiful view that I love!

Early the next morning, all our stuff was waiting in the little entryway, ready to be loaded in the van.

And then there was one last miracle Heavenly Father arranged for us. We had worried, almost since the day we arrived, about how we would load the car with all our suitcases and other stuff. The day we arrived, there had somehow miraculously been a clear parking spot in front of the house. And then there had practically never been one again since. We had our nice parking spot by Saint-Jean-Baptiste, of course, but seven minutes away, up some steep hills, on icy streets was much too far to drag all our luggage! We thought maybe we'd have to just turn on our emergency lights and block the street while we loaded up (plenty of other people certainly had no problem doing that!) but I just hated the idea of having to deal with angry people piling up behind us, or endless trips around the block (which isn't really a block due to one-way streets, but a long 5-minute circuit) to make it work. But now none of that would be necessary. Because though the streets usually looked like this at all hours of the day and night:

Today they looked like this! The snow removal was supposed to take place anytime between 22h and 7h, but our street had been plowed early on and none of the usual cars were planning to come back and park until after 7! So our van was literally the only car on the street.

Sam was able to park directly in front of the house and load everything up with an absolute minimum of effort.

The kids woke up and sleepily gathered their pillows and stuffed animals. Clementine watched Sam load up, leaning out this window for the last time!

We moved the beds back apart.

Checked all the lofts and rooms.

Got the coffee maker back out of the high cupboard we'd stashed it in. Cleared all our stuff out of the kitchen. It looked empty and weird.

And then we were sadly driving away, leaving our bags of garbage behind us (you just leave your garbage out on the street in Quebec City, and they come by with the truck and pick it up twice a week). No little heads peeking out of the windows! No cigar- and cigarette-adorned "no smoking" drawings on the door! Windows closed and double-locked for the first time since we'd arrived! Goodbye, Quebec house!