Today's the due date...

... and still no baby!

This is hard, guys. I'm impatient and uncomfortable and I want to see and hold my baby already! So I'm going to try focusing on the positive. Since the last time I wrote, I've had many wonderful lunch dates with friends I barely get to see during the school year because most are teachers. I've got to spend lots of great quality time with my husband and go to the movies and do things that will most likely be more difficult once baby is here with us. And in terms of pregnancy symptoms, I'm really blessed. I don't have any swelling in my feet, just my hands a little. I am sleeping pretty well and don't have much heartburn. I can still walk the dog and to the metro and do many things on my own. Hopefully next time I write, this baby will be outside of me!

Summer in Montreal

This Passe-Partout song keeps playing in my head "L'été c'est fait pour jouer". If you're from around here, you'll know what I mean.

Just this past week I was fortunate to participate in many summer activities in and around Montreal.

Hansel and Gretel

On Tuesday, there was an outdoor theatre show at the park just in front of our house, so of course I went to check it out!

Food truck! 

On Wednesday I spend the day at my friend's cottage near St. Jérôme. It was so calm and peaceful (such a great idea to go on a weekday!) and we really enjoyed watching our dogs play together! I was proud of Taco for coming back to me each time I called him and not running off wildly!

On Thursday after a doctor's appointment where I was told everything was looking great for baby's arrival (just a month to go!) I went to the Botanical Gardens with another friend. They have an exhibit right now called Mosaïcultures, which are basically plant sculptures from around the world. It is extremely beautiful and powerful and I highly recommend you go! Here are a few pictures:

We were able to plant a small plant and be a part of the solar system exhibit!

Solar system coming together slowly but surely.

Friday was our 3rd wedding anniversary. My husband surprised me with flowers and chocolates and we went out for a great dinner at a restaurant called 'Les Enfants Terribles'. It is on Nun's Island overlooking the Saint Laurence river and the food is really good!

My good friend Melanie did my makeup!

On Saturday, we headed to the Jazz Festival. Despite the terrible heat and my slower-than-slow walking abilities, we enjoyed a few bands and watching the kids play in the fountains. Next year we'll have our own kid to watch so we won't seem so creepy!

An amazing high school jazz band

The Just for Laughs Festival is coming up next, so maybe that's where we'll be next weekend!

Visiting New Jersey

We've been to New Jersey twice in two months now because we just can't resist our adorable nephews. The older one (M) turned two on Friday, so we celebrated his birthday. The younger one (L) is just 6 weeks old and is helping us (hopefully) practice baby stuff. This weekend was quite eventful! Here is what we did.

First of all, our drive down. The GPS says it takes 5 hours, but that is a lie, it takes 7 hours including stops, and no we didn't stop for two hours. We were driving along one of my favourite parts of the drive where there are lots of trees and hills and lakes and the scenery is just lovely when all of a sudden a wild turkey (or "turkey wild" if you prefer) ran across the road! The poor thing did not survive to tell of how it flew for a few seconds over our car, and I do hope some animal ate it so that it didn't die in vain. Later we stopped for a bathroom break and ice cream and my husband tells me to "Look at the nuns". I turned to look in that general direction and there was a van full of nuns! It was hilarious just because it was so out of the ordinary and made me think of Sister Act.

Saturday morning we had a lovely breakfast of French Toast with fruit and bacon and maple syrup. I played with M with his new train set aka 'choo choo' and just relaxed and enjoyed family time. The men (my husband and brother-in-law) got carried away while buying groceries and then we had another feast of bread and cheese and different cold cuts for lunch. We decided to go to the zoo in the afternoon to celebrate M's birthday. We had fun riding the carousel, going on a train ride and watching the sea lions, which became the new word of the day. It was scorching hot and humid though, so after an hour or so we were ready to head home where we had our third amazing meal of the day! Salmon on the BBQ with potatoes and asparagus, followed by birthday cake of course. Everything was delicious!

We got up and ready for church on Sunday, which went smoothly. We relaxed in the afternoon and then went to a really good Greek restaurant for dinner. My sister-in-law and I went for a swim after dinner that was so nice and relaxing for my pregnant body.

We woke up to a torrential downpour on Monday (Happy Canada Day!) so our departure was a bit delayed, but we were OK on the drive back and nothing eventful happened.

Here are a few pictures of the damage done by the wild turkey:

Nursery!

Here are the finished pics! The nursery is ready for Baby (and so are we!).

100th post!

It's either 100 or 101, but it's exciting either way. That's not very many in three years, perhaps I should be more punctual about my posting. I have a feeling I'll be posting even less when baby comes... oh well.

Today, you get to see pictures of the nursery in progress. You should know I am not one for overly cutsie things, so there isn't that much decoration going on, I'm more about things being practical. You should also know the nursery is currently set up in a corner of our bedroom, because there's room and that is also practical. We'll move baby after a few months or when we feel like it. So here are the pictures:

It began as a large heap of stuff on the floor.

All of the clothing was carefully sorted by size and type. 

More sorting of the clothes.

Since the baby's sex is a surprise, I have a pile of boy's clothes and girl's clothes that I am keeping until his/her birthday (oh and these are mostly hand-me-downs, I didn't go out and buy boy's and girl's clothes - that would be funny!)

The clothes is finally organized and in the dresser!

The rest of the stuff is separated into car stuff, feeding stuff, toys, etc.

Not finished, but it gives you an idea of what the nursery 'corner' looks like.

The baby's crib, I know it's not technically a crib, but those things are way too massive for our small apartment!

Get ready for the final nursery photos - they should be coming some time in the next few weeks (right now the dresser is heaped with piles of 'I must bring this to the hospital' stuff). Once I pack the hospital bag I'll take a few final pictures before the baby arrives!

The Great Gatsby review

After our mole poblano adventure, we went to the movies to see The Great Gatsby. R & I are both Leonardo DiCaprio fans, so we were excited to see it! This review may be slightly (very) biased because of that fact. We went to the theatre at 9:15pm and my bedtime is normally 9pm, so my eyes did close a few times during the movie, which may also affect the accuracy of this review. Nonetheless, I can tell you a few things:

• Leonardo DiCaprio is as awesomely talented and beautiful as ever
• Actually, all of the actors were amazing and rendered their character's personalities beautifully
• The soundtrack is superb
• Baz Lhurman gets carried away with party scenes (very reminiscent of Romeo & Juliet's costume ball)
• 2 and a half hours go by very quickly
• You do NOT need to see this movie in 3D, actually I wouldn't if I were to see it again
• The actual story of The Great Gatsby and all of its characters are just as intriguing and mysterious as always, I think that's what I like about the story, I can never quite pin-point how I feel about neither the characters nor the events, so it definitely keeps me thinking!

Mole Poblano

My husband, P,  bragged that mole poblano (a delicious mexican dish you can read about here) was the most difficult thing to make to one of his colleagues, which began this whole adventure. The colleague, A, replied: "What are your plans on Saturday?" Upon checking our joint Google calendar and double-checking with me, P discovered we had nothing to do that day. "We are making mole poblano on Saturday then." It was decided. We wives were a bit more reticent to the idea because I had always heard mole took three whole days to make, but we decided to join in.

We met at Sabor Latino, a latin-food store on Bélanger in Montreal, at 10:30am to pick up the various ingredients we'd need. We had found a recipe on Epicurious and decided to stick with it (you can find the recipe here). It was my first time in this particular store and I was just SO HAPPY to see Mexican style snack foods and candy that at first I wasn't much help in picking out the different kinds of chiles and other things that were essential to the recipe.

Snack foods - I bought spicy Cheetos, salt and lime flavoured Fritos, and Rancheritos 

We then headed over to Marché Jean-Talon to buy a few more ingredients (like the chicken and tortillas). We probably spend about an hour at the market because it is just so nice to walk around and try samples! We even got a free baguette! 

We got home at around 1pm and set out all of the ingredients. About half-way through the recipe we realized we never picked up the pumpkin seeds so P set out to the local grocery store to find some.

(most of) The ingredients!

 The first step consisted of removing the seeds and veins from the chiles. Three types of chiles are used: mulato, ancho and pasilla.
After frying the chiles, we had to keep them in a bowl of hot water for 30 minutes.

Keeping the chiles warm

R&A preparing the chiles

While we waited, we cooked the tomatillos and blended them. We also toasted a lot of seeds (anise, coriander, sesame and some from the chiles).

Adding the toasted seeds to the tomatillo sauce

In the meantime, the chicken was boiling.

The boiled chicken

We then had to fry tortillas and stale bread, along with raisins, pumpkin seeds and almonds and add that to our tomatillo-seed blend.

Final mixing

After that, we just had to incorporate the tomatillo blend to the chile blend and cook that for about another 20 minutes.

Final result!

So many pots to clean! (Thankfully we have a dishwasher)

Leftover food (plus conchas and an empty bag of Fritos)

Presentation

The table all set!

We sat down to eat at about 4pm, at which time the kitchen was pretty much clean! So from start to finish it took us three hours to make between four adults! And it was absolutely DELICIOUS!!! I'm so glad we had this adventure together!