May Zone Conference & Fireside

No sooner had Lindsay, Cameron & family left than we had to help with Zone Conferences. The Senior couples always help with the luncheon (since none of the wards here are financially set enough to furnish the luncheons). This was the last luncheon the Nobles were in charge of. We will miss them so much! Today's menu: Sloppy Joes, potato salad, green salad, & fruit. The triangular Ciabatta rolls they sell in Costco here are very good.

This is the Mont-Royal Zone. There are 5 zones in our mission. This is the mission where we serve.

Back: Nobles, S.Limburg, S.Gutierrez, E.Teuira, Williams, Prawitt, Mieville, Brown, LeVitres, Us
Middle: E. Hayden, Bagnall, Green, Nzojibwami, Tam, Bernier, Dalton, Holm, Babin, Jaquier
Front:  E.McMurrin, Glenn, McRoberts, Neitz, Kastendieck, Pres.Cannon, E&S. Christensen - Area
                                          mental health Missionaries.

Then on Sunday night we were so thrilled to have a Senior Couple fireside at the Mission Home led by our temple president Pres.David Galbraith & his wife (center). He got his doctorate at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, then stayed for the next 20 years working for the church to procure the land and build the BYU Jerusalem Center and be it's director for several years. He came home to teach at
BYU - then was called on a 3-year mission to be the temple president here. They go home the end of Oct. 2012. He is so knowledgeable about the middle east. The fireside was on the Arabic-Israeli conflict!  It was fascinating.
Back: LeVitres, Pres.&Sister Cannon, Nobles-(she is taking the picture).
Front: Allens, Galbraiths, Mahaffeys

Last big push for all the sites

Today is our last day with The Sanders family and so we're shoving in a huge day of sightseeing!
Our apartment is on the 16th floor and so everyday when we look out our patio window, we see the sight of the Olympic Stadium and Tower:

It was built for the 1976 Montreal Olympics. First stop was the Tower. There is an observation room on top.

It wasn't finished in time for the Olympics... only the stadium was... and it was finished 11 years later.
It is supposedly the tallest inclined tower in the world at 574 ft. high. We took a funicular to the top. It takes less than 2 minutes. The funicular car stays level as it goes up the incline. At the top is a panoramic view of all of Montreal.
Next stop was the stadium itself. The Stadium is called the BIG O - both as a reference to its shape, and the BIG OWE because of the huge cost to build it & keep replacing the roof. At one end is the swimming venue. At one end are the diving towers, both platform and springboard. The pool with the lanes is in the middle.  At the top left you can see a smaller pool where we watched the Canada's synchronized swim team practice.

At the other end is a play area for the young kids. You can buy a membership to use these pools.

The balcony above the kids pool (in the above picture)  is where we are standing in the photo below.

The indoor stadium is at the other end. It was originally used for the Montreal Expos baseball team.(now they have moved to Washington DC)  Now it is used fo soccer, indoor Arena football, and special events like concerts and trade shows.

The roof has been a big source of contention. Originally it had a retractable roof, but the snow caved it in.  Since then they have tried several roof designs, all with some kind of flaw & needing to be replaced. Currently it is made of some thick polymer material held in place by steel cords attached to the observation tower.

Next we drove by Habitat 67:

It was built by an Israeli-Canadian architect. It was originally conceived as his Master's thesis in Architecture at Montreal's McGill University. Then it was built as a pavilion for the Expo 67 World's Fair. Now it is an apartment complex.

12 Stories, 158 apartments and each apt. has its own private terrace.  The idea was to show how people could live in increasingly crowded cities and still have gardens, fresh air, and privacy in a multi-level environment.  But because it was so expensive to build - it never revolutionized the "affordable" housing market like they hoped it would.  It is also the site which ALMOST saw Lindsay and I arrested!!  It was kind of a drizzly-day, so we parked nearby & Dad & Cameron stayed in the car with the kids & Lindsay & I went to take pictures.  After getting a few shots over the loud speaker comes a blaring voice shouting... ARRET, ARRET  (stop! in french) NO PHOTOS !!!  It just about scared us to death and so we did what any normal tourist would do... We turned tail and RAN!  We made it back to the car laughing so hard we were crying! Sheesh!
   We decided to finish our tour with Montreal's most iconic landmark - St. Joseph's cathedral. It was founded by Father Andre Bessette who was beatified  (made a saint by the Catholic Church) in 2010.

There is a beautiful view up as you walk in. It is the 3rd largest dome in the world - modeled after St.Peter's basilica in Rome.

Father Andre was known for all the healings he supposedly did for people who couldn't walk. Here are all the canes and crutches left by the people healed.

Or you can light a candle .. there are a million available in displays like this one:

 

Of course, there is the EVER-POPULAR site of Father's Andre's  ACTUAL HEART - encased in glass, which he requested be kept here as a protection to the Basilica.

The view of the upper balcony:

and us on that balcony...

What a great time we had.... THANK YOU SANDERS for coming to visit us. We love you!
Hope you had as much fun as we did!!

Lunch at Schwartz's

Today we took Cameron & Lindsay & family out to lunch at one of Montreal's famous landmarks:  It has been here since 1928... Schwartz's.

If you ever talk about coming to Montreal & people say you should have a smoked meat sandwich,
...this is the place they mean!  The chain was sold in Jan of this year for $10 million to a group that includes Celine Dion.

It's a tiny place inside - so mostly people line up outside to wait to get in.

'
You can see Cameron (sunglasses on head) at the back and Lindsay behind the young man taking a picture...she's in grey pants and a teal sweatshirt. From here it took us about 35 minutes to get in.

We were all REALLY ready to eat by the time we got in.

Can you tell we just LOVE getting visits from our family?

They serve their smoked meat sandwiches ONE WAY - white rye bread, mustard only, and LOTS of meat!  The fries and the pickle were wonderful too!  And the Black Cherry soda is a MUST !
After lunch we had to go back to the office, and LJ & Cameron took the kids home for naps. I'll have to say it is always so much fun coming home to a house full of family. We had lots of time to hold and hug, and of course... teach Cambria to say "OH".

And Nana got some time in too!

We had a great time waking up with, playing with, and dressing up little Cambria.

 

 

 

Tomorrow is our last day together... it just seems to fly by!  We are able to take a day off from the office, so we have a full day planned!

Happy Birthday!

Today was my 60th birthday!  (ugh... I had a hard time typing that!) Since we had to work at the office, Cameron & Lindsay & family took off to see some of Montreal on their own.  Sister Levitre baked me some brownies. They also sang to me... and since Elder Levitre used to sing in the Tabernacle Choir, and she tried out for the choir at one time, it was a beautiful rendition!

It almost made turning 60 almost bearable! Later that night Lindsay & Cameron gave me some presents that included this cute tote bag that she had made herself!

We all went out for dinner at a great place we love here... called Scores. They have great ribs & chicken dishes & a wonderful salad bar - pretty reasonably priced for Montreal - 2 for $20.00 !

Then we drove over to show them the Montreal Temple. Of course... the first thing we noticed when we drove up was the gorgeous tulips they had in front.  Here we had gone to Ottawa to see the Tulip Festival and there were hardly any, but around the temple they are thriving!

While we were there, our temple President - Pres. David Galbraith - drove up to lock up something, and offered to take all of us on a tour of the temple, if we had our temple recommends. But, rats, Lindsay & Cameron had theirs back at the apartment in their suitcases, so we just had to settle for seeing the outside. The people here feel so lucky to have a temple in Montreal. Before that, it was drive 6 hours to Toronto and before that it was a several day trip down to Washington DC for them to attend the temple.

All in all, a pretty good birthday!

The Sanders come for a visit

We  LOVE having our children come for a visit - But this was really an adventure...since we're currently living in this tiny one-bedroom/ one-bath apartment on the 16th floor in downtown Montreal.  So, we gave Lindsay & Cameron our bedroom with Colby on an air mattress on the floor and Cambria in her pack-n-play crib all in the same bedroom.  We slept on air mattresses in the living room.  The fight for the bathroom was...every man for himself! ha! Even though it was fun, it was hard for us since we couldn't take time off of serving in the office to show them around much. The first day after they arrived they joined all the other Senior Couples on our already planned trip to Ottawa for the Tulip Festival:

Lft to Right:  The Allens, Sister Mahaffey, The Nobles &  The LeVitres.

First step was the Parliament Building (above).  We were so anxious to tour the building, having missed it when Misty was here... But, alas, there was a demonstration going on in front of the building so they closed all the tours! RATS!

The tulips planted out front were a vibrant red!

It was a beautifully bright day! Here's Lindsay holding Cambria (in the front-pack carrier) and Cameron holding Colby.

Colby was disappointed, though... He thought the tulips should SMELL !

According to the story - Canada sheltered Princess Juliana and her daughters in 1945 during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. In gratitude, they sent 100,000 tulip bulbs. Apparently they have sent 10,000 tulips bulbs every year since.  After having seen the gorgeous tulip festival at Thanksgiving Point last year, I was really excited to see these. Unfortunately - these red ones planted in front of the Parliament Bldg. were the MOST we saw!  We heard that the squirrels had eaten alot of the bulbs this year...who knew?  So walked around the Parliament Building to show everyone. Colby kept busy climbing on all the statues...




But, even tho we were stopping to let Colby climb onto &
jump off of everything in sight, we DID have to stop for
"OTHER" people sometimes while they goofed off.

We walked over to Major's Hill - where again, there were only a few patches of tulips:

But the tulips we DID find were so beautful...

                                                                    

Colby burned out on the flowers, but he just LOVED being with Papa! either sitting ON....

                 or.. of course, jumping ONTO....




 

After walking for 2 hours, not seeing many tulips, getting hotter, and more & more tired, we were ready to stop for lunch.

Colby started out at the restaurant like this:

But before the ordered food even arrived, he was like this:

It was while we were eating that we got a call from the Mission President telling us that Brooke had gone into labor. Brooke's water broke prematurely at 27 weeks (April) and they put her into the hospital until the baby came. Since this was MUCH too early for the baby to be born, we had been having MANY family fasts and prayers. She lasted until 32 weeks. Later that night - on Sat. May 5 at 8:51 pm little Ashlyn Elizabeth Monroe was born. She was 3 lbs 15 oz.

Later into the night the nurses in the NICU had problems with an IV and it caused no circulation in
her extremities. It turned her arms and legs purplish-black.  This began a whole new round of fasting and prayers. She went down to 3 lbs 7 oz. but she was a fighter. Through all the test yet to come and more IV problems, she did wonderfully and is our healthy, MIRACLE baby!

Here she is next to her dad- Chad's hand to show how tiny she was! We have so much to be thankful for and have been blessed indeed by her presence!   WHAT A DAY!!!