I pronounce it 'ant' not 'aunt'

June has just rushed by me! It was full of concerts, end-of-year stuff (concert, graduation, report cards, water balloon fight, etc.) and BABIES!

One of my very best friends gave birth on June 18th to a beautiful baby girl. I got to see her when she was just three days old! This is my friend's second child and her delivery was super fast and easy, she said she wished it on any mother.

My sister-in-law just gave birth to my nephew two days ago in Florida. I'll have to wait a month until I meet him for real, but from what I can see in the pictures, he is just perfect!

I love being an auntie!!! I'm sure the fact that I love kids in general helps with this. Oh and a colleague of mine also had a baby a few days ago.

In other news, my husband and I are temporarily living in Laval (one of the suburbs of Montreal) and I keep singing Arcade Fire songs in my head. It is very different from anywhere else I've lived, which is weird because I have lived in many different cities. I'll definitely need to adjust and get used to having about ten malls and a bazillion stores everywhere I turn.

Other than that, I've been enjoying summer. Watching a lot (too much?) of TV... especially HGTV. I think I'm addicted. It's bad. And then husband and I went to Ikea and bought a bed. The summer sale was on (you know that commercial 'Start the car, start the caaaaar!'?) and it was a steal.

We're off to finish up cleaning my friend's apartment and walk around the Jazz Festival. I LOVE the Jazz Festival!!! I hope your summer is treating you just as well!

A very busy week!

Oh my goodness, you're in for a long post! This is like three-posts-in-one (I didn't know if I should put hyphens there, but I did anyway, I think it looks better this way). OK so first major event: I went to Quebec City with 26 students and everyone came back alive and kicking! Yay! My favourite moments were definitely the re-enactment of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, swimming at Université Laval's Olympic-sized pool and visiting the Parliament building. It was a very educational two-days, and there was never a dull moment. We walked A LOT (I had one little girl in grade four swear to me that her legs would fall off if she took another step, but that fortunately did not happen). There were no injuries, and no major incidents. Two minor incidents occurred. One grade six girl lost her camera on day one, but found it on day two, so that doesn't really count. And on the bus ride back, a student had a major nightmare - sleepwalking thing where he screamed at the top of his lungs and scared everyone, but really, he was OK, so that doesn't really count either. Here are a few pictures for your enjoyment:

English vs. French little soldiers with hilarious strategies!

Parliament of Quebec

National Assembly of Quebec

Next super important event, which I'm not sure if I had mentioned previously, is that we officially bought our condo! If anyone out there is a property virgin (I'm copying the term used by HGTV's show), oh my goodness, here are a few things you need to expect: 

1. Falling in love with almost every condo you see.

2. Going back and forth between deciding on one or continuing to look.

3. Continuing to look and seeing horrible condos. 

4. Being super stressed about the possibility that someone might buy your dream condo. 

5. Someone buying your dream condo.

6. Going back to the drawing-board, looking some more, not being sure, feeling like giving up, thinking 'this is such a huge investment I don't know what to do', thinking about all of the pros and cons of every decent place you visited, thinking about location, cost, etc...

7. Finally deciding on a place and reserving it (ours is a new development so we didn't have to do the make an offer and wait thing - I don't think I could have handled that - I was stressed enough about this huge decision as it was)

8. Waiting to get the mortgage loan approved at the bank.

9. Finally putting the down-payment on the place and looking forward to having your own place!

That red dot means it's OURS!

So that's where we're at now. But now we are in another overwhelming part of the process because as I mentioned, we are buying a new development so we have to choose EVERYTHING! I'm great at decision-making in my classroom, in a crisis situation, or at a restaurant, but not when it comes to LONG-TERM, you-have-to-see-it-every-day, very high-commitment-type decisions (and yes, I do realize I am married, haha). I already have asked for advice from a few friends, and we have started shopping online, but we are a long way from being finished this 'choosing the options' part of the deal. 

Finally, I'd like to end this post with a few concert pictures and stories. Monday night, my cousin's fiancee calls me up and says:

Her - How'd you like to go to the NKOTBSB concert tomorrow night? 

Me - Um I'd LOVE to! How much are the tickets?

Her - Oh don't worry about it, I've got box seats! 

Um ya, so I unexpectedly went to an AWESOME show in a super posh and swanky way. I felt so important! And the concert was amazing! I'm more of a Backstreet Boys fan, but I recognized and sang along with almost all of the New Kids on the Block songs as well! Their singing and dancing was awesome, and it was great to feel like I was 15 again! It brought back great memories! 

I took these with my phone, so the quality isn't great, but you can tell the Bell Center was packed!

The festival season has arrived here in Montreal and right now the Grand Prix weekend, the Francofolies and the Beer Festival are all going on at the same time! Last night we went to see Marie-Mai at a free outdoor concert and boy can she sing! It was a great show! 

So there you have it! Quite an update! As the summer progresses, I'm sure I will have more interesting posts about life (we're moving soon) and various festival events!