Swings, Stars, Snow

One of my most favourite things to do here in Quebec is to go on random adventures. I live in the middle of nowhere, yet the number of tiny towns and beautiful discoveries that surround us are innumerable. Generally I pull out of our driveway and go a certain direction. Every fork in the road, we decide what way to go. In a way, it's like getting intentionally lost, but we always find our way back home. The goal is to find new fun towns, to discover fun spots and to stop and take pictures along the way.  So the other evening, when Jamie asked if I wanted to hang out, I decided it was time for an adventure.

Since Jamie love playgrounds, we decided to stop at one nearby. We had a heat wave last week where it was 25 degrees for about 5 days. It was glorious. And most of the snow melted. Except for the piles of dirty snow. Unfortunately you have to go through a pile of dirty snow to get to the playground and my entire leg may have fallen in a couple times. Thankfully I escaped and went to play.

This playground has the best rope/web thing. Not sure what to call it and I feel like it would be dangerous for actual children, since I even have a hard time stepping to the next level of rope. But climb we did and what fun was had.

The little town we were in has some fun old buildings as well as some beautiful churches, so it's a lovely view from the top as well.

If you look closely in the photo below, you will see Jamie on the swings, although from the blur you wouldn't be able to tell it was her.

Quebec used to be really Catholic. Then during the 70's, the Quiet Revolution took place and the church fell apart from within and the pendulum swung the other way to secularism. So now only .05% of the population is evangelical Christian, and although many people would still say they are Catholic, church attendance has severely declined. But as a result, there are a lot of beautiful churches in every single town. Usually each town has a church and if you look for the steeple in the skyline you will find it.  So we decided to stop at churches and take some photos.

So here are some pictures of churches to enjoy.

We spotted a Tim Horton's and although I'm not usually a fan, it is roll up the rim time right now, so we decided to get hot beverages for the next leg of our journey. In a span of three days, we won four coffees in a row, all from the previous free coffee.. it was quite exciting.

We took our warm drinks and drove down some random road until we came across Lac Noel (Christmas Lake). We found a dead end road where it was pitch black and opened the sun roof and enjoyed stargazing from the comfort of our seats, and later from the comfort of the roof. I especially love all the shooting stars!

After our adventures in Lac Noel, we decided to follow the signs to a town called "Mille Iles" (thousand Islands) and after driving through some hilly country, through the misty fog we came across the cutest little church. Across the road there was another church. I really want to go back in the day to take some pictures.. and then it won't seem so creepy being on the top of some hill surrounded by fog with random vehicles with people in them in the parking lot...

We found a few other towns that we would love to go to sometime during the day, and found some more lovely churches as well.

Later when we mapped out our journey, we went in a giant circle, around where we live. But now we know a little bit more about the area we live in and a few of the fun places to go.

Thought I would take you along on one of our random adventures. Hope you enjoyed the trip!

Cabane, Celebration, Cutie

Every year we take the students to a cabane a sucre in March. Translated, it is called a 'sugar shack'. It's at a maple syrup farm and we get to see how they make maple syrup and then enjoy a traditional meal. The meal usually involves pea soup, ham, bacon, scrambled eggs, potatoes, sausages and much more. And then you put maple syrup on everything. 

Part of the trip to the cabane is to celebrate the end of the semester with the students. 

It was a wonderful evening of fellowship and good food. It's been a great semester. At the beginning of the year, we had nine new students join us and it's been great to see how well they've fit in and how they have all been growing and changing individually and corporately. 

This is a picture of Jenn and I. Jenn's from Nebraska and she was only here for winter semester but we had a lot of fun together. I'm thankful we can be pen pals now! :)

This is the vat where they boil the sap into maple syrup. It takes 16 litres of maple sap to become maple syrup, so it's quite the process. 

Mean I love this kid. She's turning two in a couple days. 

One my favourite parts of this cabane a sucre is the DJ. There's an older Quebec gentleman who gets so excited when people decide to dance. He turns on his disco lights and is actually a fairly decent dj. Anyway, we had a lot of fun line dancing and just being silly!  

A great end to a great semester! Right now it's spring break and the students are all gone, which means we have numerous groups in during the holidays. There are six students that stayed on spring break staff, so it's been fun to hang out with them as well and go on some fun adventures. One more week until the students are back and then it will be a very fast spring term. More photos from our adventures soon!

Cake, Couple, Cooks

One of my favourite things about working at a Bible School is being able to connect with the students. I don't really like hanging out in groups (although I do from time to time), so I'm not always around a ton when group stuff is happening, but I love having students over or going out with them.  

Jenn is a student who came for winter term from Nebraska. Her and I connected immediately and have enjoyed some good hang outs and great chats.  Anyway, she is an excellent cook and we were talking about baking and she was talking about how much she enjoys making her chocolate amaretto ganache cake. So I invited her over one night and we baked the cake and then feasted with my roommates. So tasty! 

Something new with living in consistent winter is having to start your vehicle ahead of time before you leave. Or else you have to sit in the vehicle and wait. So the other day I was trying out new art forms through the frozen chunks on my windshield. Not sure why I was taking pictures instead of scraping ice off the windshield, but they weren't quite as successful and visionary as I would have expected. 

I have also loved being able to do some fun photoshoots for people. I don't really edit my photos but I have fun taking different creative ones. And I enjoy telling people how to pose. Anyway, after taking some save the date photos for Matthias and Steph, I had them pose by the gigantic snowman just for fun.. haha.

 Right now the students are on spring break, so it's a bit of a change of pace here. The weather has gotten nice and sunny and it looks like the snow will be rapidly melting!  Have been sick for a while with a lung infection and then the flu, so hopefully now I will be able to do a bit more out and about. Three cheers for better weather! I feel like I haven't taken many photos in the last few months, but I hope to remedy that soon, so stay tuned (and I'm working on becoming a better blogger).

Broadway, Bess, Business

A couple weeks ago, my mom and I went on a last minute trip to New York!  It was so wonderful to see her, hang out in New York, eat at some really tasty restaurants and see a few musicals!  The trip would have been more full, but I came down with some weird lung infection that caused me to not be able to breathe very well and hack a lot, so it limited our walking, but we still had fun!

My mom looked up some of her favourite celebrity chef restaurants and we went to check them out. The first was Bobby Flay's 'Mesa Grill'. SO tasty!  Service was excellent, food was amazing and the decor was fun as well. 

Went to see Sister Act which was fantastic. So much energy! I loved how a few people in the musical looked so similar to those in the movie!  

Then there was the heartwrenching Porgy & Bess. So well done. The cast was incredible and the story is really moving. Some fun songs but good slow ones as well. Lots of emotion mixed in. 

Went for a dinner at The Lambs Club which is Geoffrey Zakarian's restaurants. First off, loved the decor inside. I love red (as was the colour of my kitchen before) and it was a great blend of funky and classy.  Had a three course meal which was pretty good. The meat wasn't cooked the best, but the flavours were exceptional. And the ambience was delightful as well. 

Times Square!

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, starring Nick Jonas (how can you go wrong? haha). It was a musical I had heard a lot about before so it was great to see it. It was probably my favourite of all them (although they were all great). I later watched the movie and love it as well. The writer is the same guy who did music & lyrics of Guys & Dolls, so I figured I would love it because that's one of my favourite musicals.  

And our fourth musical was Spider-Man. Music by Bono. Exceptional. Loved all the music and also all the special effects. The amount of flying around the audience that was done was pretty spectacular. They even had battles over the audience.

My mom and I laughed because the shows we saw would probably not be the first pick for a lot of people going to New York, but because I have seen a lot of them, I wanted to see new ones. And they did not disappoint!  They were all incredibly different in music and style, but each one was so well done in its own way.

We're hoping to return to New York when it's a bit warmer and at a time when I can walk around more thanks to clear lungs. :)  The 'Shake Shack' was right around the corner from our hotel so we went there a couple times. Excellent shakes, fries and burgers! Always a line outside the door no matter what time of day! 

And thus concludes some adventures in New York. More frequent updates will hopefully follow :)

Shoes, Snowman, Sushi

Greetings from the land of snow that probably won't melt anytime soon!

I keep glancing at the piles of snow and am kind of in shock at the prospect that the snow will at least be here for another month.  But it hasn't been as bad as I originally thought it would be. This has been helped by some night-time snowshoeing, evening games of broomball, random adventures with my roommates and fun photoshoots.  

I love the people I work with and have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know them through living and working together. Recently all the students went on a trip to Quebec City for the day, so the remainder of us decided we would go on our own little adventure.  We called it code:green and each put on an article of green clothing and set out on our merry way. 

Whenever we approach a stop sign or intersection, whoever yelled out a direction first, that is the direction we would drive. The result of this is often getting lost and exploring a lot of little town where you've never been.  In the small towns of Quebec, there's always a really beautiful church in each town as well as a lot of other fun random things along the way, such as the giant snowman pictured above. 

And to my pure joy and elation, we found a gigantic guitar with a cowboy beside it. One thing I especially love in life is giant sized items that seem to serve no other purpose but to bring me joy (well maybe it is there for a few other reasons but I like to focus on that reason). 

The other day I had the privilege of taking some photos of some friends who recently got engaged.  We had a lot of fun tromping through the snow and I was reminded again of the beauty of God's creation, especially when everything is covered with snow.  And at one point I thought it would be a brilliant idea to step off the path to get a better photo angle. My brilliant idea was proved wrong when my entire leg disappeared into the snow. And instead of helping me out of the snow, there was a picture taken of me instead. So I thought I would include it to give you an idea of how the deep the snow is. 

I remember taking pictures of these in the fall and I thought the backdrop was beautiful again-I was thankful to enjoy their beauty in a different context. 

Normally the snow here is really dry, but the other day we had fairly wet snow, so the students decided to build a giant snowman after workday. 

A few weeks ago, I had the best birthday cake made for me ever! One of the downfalls of having a birthday on Christmas Eve is that you aren't around a lot of people for your birthday and it often gets forgotten about. Upon returning after the holidays, I was blessed with having a sushi birthday cake made for me! I felt so special and honored to have such a beautiful cake made specifically for me as someone I really love. 

Another honor that was recently bestowed upon me was being the staff of the week. I decided to start the staff of the week by posting horrible or funny photos of staff members and keeping them up in the office for the week. It has now been dubbed the "wall of shame". However, it slightly backfired on me when my photos suddenly appeared on the board.  And they are lovely photos indeed-I thoroughly enjoyed staring at them throughout the week.

Just a few highlights from the last few weeks. Hopefully I will get out soon during the day to take some more good snow pictures!