Actually, I was back at work on MLK day, but this last weekend the family were all up in Montreal at the annual Vermont Bar Association meeting that is held there. A good time was had by all. Pictures above tell some of the story.
The meeting is known as the "January Thaw" but the weather actually got cold for what seemed like the first time in weeks while we were there. After the Friday afternoon seminar the kids and I went book shopping downtown. Kids scored books at Indigo, which is my current favorite downtown bookstore.
On Saturday night it was dinner with the family, including my Dad and Stepmom, at il Cortile, a fabulous little Italian restaurant on Sherbrooke Street next to the Museum of Fine Arts. We were celebrating the birthdays of Woolfoot Kid 1 (9) and the daughter of my friends Brenda and Vitali, who turned 6. Brenda's Mom set the dinner up and we all had a great Olive-garden style time with much-better-than Olive Garden food and wine.
Sunday, breakfast at a patisserie across the street from St. Andrew and St. Paul (see picture and my post on this, my favorite church ever, from February '05 http://www.standrewstpaul.com/). The bells were ringing as we stepped into the patisserie and I felt a pang. Sorry You Know Who. Another failure.
Husband returned to Montreal apt and kids and I went for a ride in Chinatown that turned into a three hour visit to the Montreal Science Center. It's good - not as good as the Montshire Museum in Hanover, NH, but worth the visit. Kids had fun and so did I. It has that certain odd Quebec aesthetic that is difficult to identify but noticeable to anyone who stops to ponder it. If you remember Youppi, the Montreal Expos very odd mascot, that will give you something of the flavor of what I am talking about. The French sense of humor is just off...
Then, back to reality. Kids had no school MLK day and I had to drop $100 on a babysitter - an unemployed lawyer of my acquaintance. Yikes. (Unemployment, that is, and the $100).
