Road Trip (Continued)

I just wanted to share a little more about our drive to Quebec City, hopefully we remember these details for the next time we visit.  Must remember to pack a lot of snacks.

For some reason when we went to Pennsylvania last fall we didn't think to bring snacks and the 5 hour drive seemed to drag.

As we crossed over into the province of Quebec we quickly remembered what their rest stops are like. They only have a few bathrooms and an outdoor picnic area.  There are no restaurants or gas stations.  If you need any of these services you have to get off the highway.  They also did not state how many km away the next rest stop is. We are honestly spoiled in Ontario with the Onroute service centers.

Our first stop once we passed threw Montreal was lunch  from St.  Hubert.

 

 I've been anxiously awaiting the day I could bite into one of their delicious club house sandwiches. It's been over three years! Once we went to order our lunch I was sadly disappointed when I noticed the club house sandwich was no longer on their menu board. We ordered wraps instead and figured they probably didn't have it at that location because it was an Express one ... Not to worry they should have it at other locations ... right?

The drive between Montreal and Quebec City is very boring.  Not much to look at as most of it is just greenery.  This stretch of the drive seems to always drag so much. This road trip we noticed a lot of camping trailers,  it was crazy.  We figure for every 10 vehicles we saw there was probably 1 camping trailer. You could tell we were definitely traveling during camping season.

As we neared the hotel we quickly located an SAQ and picked up some vinho (aka happy juice).

 

this location was opened 22hrs

I can not believe how nice it was not to have to worry about what was for dinner for a couple days.  I know for some I probably sound odd writing this, but it has gotten kind of difficult planning meals when you have a picky eater on your hands who refuses to try anything new and decides what he loves eating one week tastes yucky the following week and refuses to eat it.  Oh the joys of being a parent! Difficult and frustrating at times but so fulfilling and I would not trade it for the world.  As we approached our hotel Friday evening we could smell the smoky smell from the Archibald Microbrewery Restaurant. It smelled like yummy food was in the making.  It was another place on our to do list.  We decided ahead of time we wanted to try out this restaurant and Byron wanted to try their beer. I will leave this post for another day,  but I will say it is definitely worth a visit as it did not disappoint and the food was delicious and the service was good.

 

 

For this mini vacation we stayed here ...



Overall the hotel we stayed at was nice. It was clean,  the room was bright,  and it felt roomy which was really nice since I hung out there the majority of the day on Saturday while Byron was out taking in the sounds and sights of World Cup at MSA. I know it is sad but I even got some work done... the one problem of owning a laptop,  depending how you look at it. We were even able to get some discounts off some meals  with our "VIP CLUB" card from the hotel. The staff was friendly and changed over to English when we said we didn't speak French. Their bottled water was EXPENSIVE though ...

For this trip we decided to be practical and not spend a large fortune on our hotel room.  Initially when we started planning the trip we were planning on camping but quickly realized it would n0t work out as I was staying behind on the Saturday instead of going with Byron out to the mountain and if it was raining that would not be a very pleasant day. We talked about it and figured we could go with a room with a queen bed and a Jacuzzi tub was not worth the extra money. Lets just say we are spoiled at home with our King bed and quickly realized in future we MUST splurge the little bit of extra $$ for a King bed.

It was really nice to enjoy something as simple as a bubble bath while listening to music of my choice without any interruptions and a barking dog.  Bubble baths become a thing of the past once you have kids. At least that has been the case for me.

Breakfast was included each morning.

It was nothing fancy, but it kept our bellies full until lunch time. 

Once we arrived, we ordered in our usual Friday night dinner and enjoyed some wine with it (Portuguese style) ...

 

... and stayed in for the evening, which was really nice. We were exhausted. We usually ask at the front desk where to order pizza from, and usually it doesn't disappoint as the locals usually know best. This time, however,  it was a bit of a disappointment. They didn't cut our pizzas. Once we finally found cutlery and cut into it,  the pizza was difficult to eat as it was very flimsy and Byron's was really soggy {insert disappointed face}. Note to self ...  when we return to QC don't order from Normandin Pizza, very generous with toppings and tasted ok BUT not our style of pizza.

The next two weeks are extremely busy for us. I am not too sure how much time I will have to blog. But more posts will pop up sooner rather than later.
 

 

Road Trip

This past weekend we travelled just under 1000km on a weekend road trip to Quebec City so Hubby could attend the World Cup Mountain Bike races.  It's  been on his to do list for a few years now, so it was really nice to finally cross it off his list. I tagged along and had a great time.
 

We left bright and early (5 am) in hopes that we would miss rush hour in all the major cities we were traveling through as the estimated travel time was 9 hours. Kind of a long drive but a perfect opportunity to get caught up on blog posts.

 

The sunrise was beautiful...

 

 

As we were approximately 10km away from our destination our 9 hour drive quickly turned into a 12 hour drive.
 

We were held up by a minor accident and construction which resulted in us being stuck in major rush hour traffic and congestion  for 3 hours. I realized that this small town girl is not a fan of rush hour traffic delays. At least I was able to work on my tan.

While in QC I was able to visit Old Quebec City not once but twice ...

It's so beautiful.

Clearly we had to take a selfie in front of Chateau Frontinac.

 

That's it for now.  More blog posts to come once I get a chance to dump all the pictures we took.  Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Canada Day 2014

We spent our Canada day running through the sprinkler, playing with water balloons and enjoying some yummy homemade butter tarts.

 

 

I think we may have a new tradition for Canada Day - enjoying some homemade butter tarts. You can find the recipe Here if you are new to our Blog! Do you have any Canada Day traditions?

 



Happy Father's Day

To all the Dad's out there,  hope you all had a wonderful Father's Day.

 

 

Our day did not turn out quite like I had hoped as the Lil Man was sick (fever & throwing up). Poor guy even threw up in Dad's  car {insert sad face}. He has caught another bug.  I'm so happy I have my clothes line back as it came in handy yesterday.

Although he was not feeling the greatest he was happy to give dad his wonderful handmade gift he made himself. He even showed us what he did with the sparkles... it was so cute.

 

 

Hope everyone has a wonderful week!

What a Difference A Week Makes

A week has passed since we planted the veggie garden and everything is starting to grow.

Radishes

Zucchini

Beans

 

Cucumbers

 

 

Watching it Grow.

 

Things are still really busy around our place ... lots of big projects going on. This past weekend we finally got around to planting our veggie garden. We were about 2 weeks behind schedule this year.

 

I had some extra hands helping me out this year in the garden ...

 



 

I always forget how many bags of manure we use so I thought it would be a good idea to mention it in this post for future reference. Next year hubby feels we should use 8 instead of the 6 we used this year.

 

Our garden is small so we are very selective in what we plant. We don't want to waste valuable space planting veggies we don't eat. We also find some things we've planted in the past don't do the greatest. Its always an experiment to see how everything grows throughout the summer. We've tried planting celery,  brussel sprouts and  cauliflower in the past but they didn't do well. Last year we planted snow peas like we usually did in the past and they did really well, however, we found we didn't eat them. I even froze some and we kind of forgot about them so we decided not to plant them this year.  Last year I thought I would try jalapeños which also did really well,  but they weren't ready when I needed them in late August to put in my homemade salsa. We decided not to plant any this year.

 

This year we planted cucumbers,  tomatoes,  hot chili peppers, extra purple beans, and carrots like we have done for the last couple years.  We also decided to try a couple different veggies we haven't tried growing before.  Something new for us - beats,  radishes, and zucchini. Should be interesting to see how they do. We planted the zucchini in a pot so I don't know how they will do as I haven't had much luck with potted veggies in the past.

 

Now it's time to watch things grow.

 

 

Dad's Little Helper

Now that the weather has finally started to warm up and staying relatively warm,  it's hard not to think about all the work that needs to be done outside.  This year we have a couple projects we will be completing around our place.  It will be so nice when they are all done. 

We started by transplanting a maple tree that started growing under our deck last year.

 

The Lil Man loved helping dad.

 

 

 

We are keeping our fingers crossed this tree takes.