Homeward Bound

What is it about airports that I just love? I think it's the people watching! It was fun being in the Montreal airport because all of the souvenirs are all so French, and I love looking at stores that we don’t have in the States. The quick hop to Newark was easy..I think I heard “how YOU doin?” when we were walking around, so I knew we weren’t in Canada anymore. As much fun as I had on our trip, I couldn’t wait to get back home. Got on the plane to San Diego okay, we all settled in with a few new coloring books and a mini-DVD player ready to play Dora….when the pilot announced overhead….”well folks, looks like there’s some air traffic, so we are currently 33rd in line to fly out.” OMG. We sat on the runway for 2 hours before getting in the air. I’m typing as we’re flying, and the girls are sitting next to me, Sofia asking every 5 minutes “Are we there yet, Mommy?” Can’t wait to get home and put my head on my pillow! (Of course in the back of my mind, I’m thinking…what errands do I need to run tomorrow? I think we need to do a Costco run). Nope..doesn’t take too long for me to get adjusted! :)
Loved this ad!

Bienvenue a Montreal

I was sad to say bye to the Toronto Kids, as we affectionately called them. But it was time to head to the other side to see the other relatives including Sofia & Ava’s Great-Grandparents. 5 hour drive later we were in Montreal where everything is primarily in Canadian French. We got to the house where, you guessed it, homemade Filipino food was waiting for us when we arrived. We spent most of the time stretching our legs and visiting. We were just waiting for Jay’s cousins to arrive with their daughter Ella. Sofia and Ava were so excited to finally meet their (2nd) cousin! It was as if they were separated at birth. The three girls were instantly best friends. They spent a lot of time with each other during our visit and they were sad to leave her behind.


The first night in Montreal, Jay’s cousins Greg (Ella’s Dad) & Jenny and their spouses Irish (Ella’s Mom) & Jay took us out to downtown Montreal where we had a very lovely time at an Italian restaurant where we had desserts and drinks outside on the terrace and people watched and enjoyed catching up with them. It was Monday night and you would have thought it was Saturday of a 4 day weekend, it was so happening. It’s so nice because they are all our age so we all had so much to talk about and again, more laughing all night long. Montreal summers are famous for all of their festivals and last time I came, the Grand Prix festival was going on. I was so bummed to find out that our visit to Montreal was IN BETWEEN the famous Jazz Festival and the Just for Laughs Festival…I need to plan better next time! Since I had been here before, the cousins asked what I wanted to do. Last time we took an all day tour of the city, so I really got to do a lot of things. So the only thing that I wanted to do again was visit Old-Montreal.

I just love the cobblestone streets and how European it felt, so we took the girls down there where we walked around, took photos, bought souvenirs and ate at an amazing outdoor restaurant called Jardin Nelson. It was scrumptious! Several pitchers of Melon Sangrias later coupled with the heat made us lazy and happy! We had to get back to the house to freshen up because guess what? More eating! This time it was going to be all of the Montreal relatives (16 of us total) out to dinner at the Baton Rouge restaurant. Part of the reason we don’t take the kids out to fancy dinners back home was all exemplified and amplified at this dinner. Both of the girls…wait…all three of the girls were throwing tantrums in the restaurant. I spent most of my time outside with Ava running her up and down the street to get out all of her pent up energy. Sofia fell asleep in the restaurant. Jay & I and Greg & Irish all looked so deflated. It was very hard to enjoy the wonderful rib dinner. That night Greg & Irish told us that we would be spending the night at their house so that we could enjoy some of the creature comforts that we were missing from home - including a huge play room with toys that the girls could go crazy with. It was like going to a spa, their home was so beautiful, had that new home smell, and we were all so totally relaxed.






We decided from that point on that the rest of the trip was going to be focused on the kids. We discussed going to a mini water park the next day, so we shopped for bathing suits for the girls. We were all so excited then morning came and oops….rain city! Luckily Montreal has ‘weather’…so they have indoor play grounds, so we went to Fundomundo and let the girls play while the adults drank cappuccinos and cookies. Afterwards we went to a mall and walked around for awhile and ate at the food court (felt like I was at home), aside from the fact that I got to eat Poutine again! After a few more stop offs like Second Cup, we were back at the beautiful house. What was waiting for us? All of the relatives, home cooked meals brought to Greg & Irish’s house, so we were on food overload and conversation overload as we visited with all of the relatives again. After everyone left and the girls were asleep, the four of us just talked all night long; it was wonderful. We talked about them coming out to San Diego next year and maybe leaving the kids with grandparents and sneaking out to Vegas for a weekend. Good times.

Niagara Falls

"Is this it?"
"Yep"
"Wow"

Quay to the City.

Much like the last time I came to Canada, the relatives wanted to spend time with the kids so they dropped off Jay and me downtown so that we could explore. Their big mall is called Eaton Center and it is 6 stories high. We ate at a cute breakfast place called Eggspectations. We wandered for awhile, and then later wanted to wander the downtown streets. A true tourist, I had the big camera around my neck, my “Toronto” book in my hand as well as a full sized map that I kept referring to in order to get around. So we started walking, and walking and walking. We passed through Chinatown with that all too familiar smell of fish scenting the air (which I love). Made it to Kensington Market which was a very kitschy area with a lot of second hand vintage clothing stores, an eclectic mix of people, and a lot of cute shops with hand made goods. Toronto is like a Benetton ad; a huge mix of people and cultures. On our tour, we learned that there are over 90 nationalities represented in Toronto and over 120 languages spoken. And everyone was nice and polite. Later in the day, Mayleen and Charisse picked us up and took us to another site I wanted to see, the Distillery.

And it was only appropriate that we enjoyed a Canadian beer while we were there. It was a neat area that had more specialty shops, including a chocolate shop named Soma and a photography shop named Pikto.

After our day of sightseeing, we came back home to yet another home cooked meal. I kept asking the cousins to take us to some of their local eateries. Since we already ate dinner, we decided to go grab dessert at a place called Demetri’s. Crepes were their speciality. Speaking of food, in my Toronto book, I kept reading the page that had the top 10 snacks of Toronto, some of which I had, but others I had never even heard of. So one day the girls took us to try Jamaican Roti, which looked like a burrito with spicy (spicy!) curry meat inside. Another night they said that we HAD to try authentic Greek food in Danbury because there was nothing like it anywhere. I thought Daphne’s WAS authentic Greek food….okay, I’m still thinking about the food at Messini’s. For the low low price of $12 (for two people) we got the most amazing meal including fries baked with feta cheese…they were EXTRA generous with the feta cheese! The true Greek salad is not supposed to have any lettuce, it was chalk full of cucumbers and tomatoes, oh man it was good. Then came the Gyros, and it was chicken, and it had fries IN the Gyro. Again, for the low low price of $12…I can’t believe it. What’s funny is that we got there (a big group of us) 15 minutes before it closed, but that was apparently very typical. The girls were saying that most people don’t eat dinner until very late. Afterwards we went and got Bubble Tea, and laughed and laughed and laughed. All of their friends are only 24 and they were so funny talking about all of their challenges (as if they were so old). Best part of the night was when one of them said, well aren’t you guys “older”…like 28 years old? :)

Happy Hippos!

Mayleen and Charisse took us to downtown so that we could tour the city. What better way to tour the city? Of course, a Hippo Tour. We learned some very interesting trivia about Toronto. Did you know that Toronto is considered Hollywood North because so many movies are filmed here? There are more statues of Queen Victoria then there are in England.
A reflection of the Hippo Bus
This is our tour guide.
Doggie enjoying the Hippo Tour.

This is Inukshuk. It will be the symbol for the upcoming Winter Olympic Games.

Another monument to Queen Victoria

Oh Canada...

Finally felt the affects of the time change and trying to sleep on an airplane. It is so nice having Jay's Mom with us because we outnumber the kids. Uncle Ruby (Jay's uncle) picked us up from the airport which is about an hour away from their house. I can't wait to start exploring the city. We arrived at their home, which they bought new and have lived in for nearly four years now. Jay and I thought the homes looked like some of the ones we were thinking of buying in Texas. What a special treat when we got to the house...home cooked Filipino lunch of rice, adobo, scrambled eggs for the girls and mangoes for dessert. As soon as we settled in, we all fell asleep for about three hours. When we awoke, Jay's cousin Mayleen took us out to pick up his other cousin Charisse from school. It's so cute because they both work at Starbucks (yeah!), so our first stop before heading downtown was to Starbucks to get a drink and snacks. This is one of Jay's cousins, Mayleen.

Flight of the Lomahans

We couldn't have asked for an easier flight. We arrived super early at the airport, so we let the girls run around, color, watch their DVD and eat while waiting for our flight. The goal was to tucker them out so that they would fall asleep on the plane. It worked. Being Ava's first time on an airplane, we were a bit nervous that the cabin pressure would affect her. But she was great. We arrived safely in Toronto at 9:00am local time.

We have arrived.

Bon Voyage!

What a great way to begin my trip...I left work a little early to run some errands and found this in my purse....