Bonjour Montreal!

Our final trip before I return to my last year of training in the neurology department was our 1st family vacation since Izzy was born.  After traveling with her by plane on several occasions, we decided to try a trip by car.  Our destination… Montreal.  It seemed like a fun place to visit for several days.  Abe grew up speaking French back in Syria so we thought that would help.  And we found many hotels had set-ups similar to small apartments letting us have a separate place for Izzy to sleep, a kitchen to cook, a living room to hang out in and a bathroom which wasn't right off the bedroom.  We definitely enjoyed where we stayed.

By the end of a few days, Abe and I started to make a list of things about Montreal.  We thought we'd share them with you.

1.  I counted a total of 5 pregnant women in Montreal, unlike Boston where around every corner there is pregnant woman or an infant.  Izzy seemed to be the only infant where ever we went.  If you put all this together it shouldn't surprise you that the city is not made for strollers.  Abe & I got very good and hauling Izzy & stroller up & down stairs (especially the subway).

2.  At the first sign of trouble, people in Montreal will graciously switch to English.  This made for an entertaining show when Abe would try to use his rusty French.  By the end, he did get better.  For those of you afraid to go to Quebec where French is spoken.. we learned that if you try most people will then speak in English to help you.

3.  Counterfeiting is alive and well!  Little did we know how much counterfeiting there was in Canada but we learned the hard way.  So take a good look at your $5 & $10 bills as they could be fake and you would just be out of money.

Our 1st stop was Parc Olympique (Olympic Park for those English speakers) where we planned on seeing the Biodome.  However, due to labor disputes this was closed indefinitely.  So we settled on riding the Tour Montreal (a 2 minute ride to the top of an observatory sitting on the world's highest leaning tower) for a wonderful view of the city.

Our 2nd stop that day was to the Jardin Botanique (Botanical Gardens).  This was by far the best botanical garden that I have ever been to and one of the largest.  It had many different areas such as the pines and roses.  Our favorite was the Chinese and Japanese gardens.

A great family picture that we captured.

Once we made it to the Japanese gardens, we saw a HUGE coy pond.  There was a portion that lead to a small river running right up to the trail.  The fish came to the people easily (I think they are feed too much).  Izzy was so excited that she couldn't stop smacking her lips together for the sound that fish make.  We did capture this on video which I will try to put up on my facebook site later.

Izzy loves water and couldn't get enough of the sunken garden area.

This was a feeble attempt at capturing the beauty of this place.

We took a trip to Vieux-Montreal (Old Montreal) and stopped to see Basilique Notre-Same de Montreal. Again too beautiful for a single photo to capture.

Vieux-Montreal

Because this is a French colony, they had the best pastry shops around.  We stopped at one near our hotel and got a chocolate & carmel cake drizzled in liquor as well as some marzipan.  Each one of us got a different one (see below).

We stopped at a toy store and had a French Caniche (poodle) made for Izzy.  We named her Loulou.  She loved it and slept with it every night including tonight.

The week we visited was also the Jazz Festival 2010.  It was a pretty amazing event and the city was well set-up for it.

On our final day, we took a trip to Parc du Mont-Royal.  This was designed by Olmstead… the same gentleman who designed Central Park in NYC and our Emerald Necklace with JP pond right by our place here in Boston.  Again, I've not seen a park as large as this one with so many trails to hike, run or bike.

Izzy enjoying a ride from daddy.

On our way up to Montreal, we decided to stop in Burlington, VT to stay the night as we didn't know how Izzy would do with a 5 hour drive.  But on the way home, we did it in on shot.  I drove while daddy spent his time entertaining her.  I bought this book when we visited Diane in San Antonio to keep Izzy engaged during our flights.  She spent most of the time this trip tearing out the parts you can flip.  The book didn't last long.  But it was worth buying as our drive home was fairly smooth.

Traveling Izzy

Vacation time this year is a bit different than all the other years I've had during my medical training.  Most of the time, you decide what weeks you would like off for the entire year and your schedule is built around these requests.  However, this year I was given the opportunity to choose when and how many days off in a row I wanted.  So I picked times that co-incided with days I already had off to make my vacation time stretch.  By the time March rolled around, I was told if I didn't use what time I had left then I would loose it.  So that is when Izzy became "Traveling Izzy".  We spent some time on the farm with Oma & Opa.  Then ~2 weeks later we hoped back on an airplane and fly to my sister in San Antonio.  These are some of the pictures we took when we were down there.  Some of you may have already seen these so sorry for the duplication.

This is the 1st picture we had taken with all the cousins together.  Audrey is now 6 months old and I just met her.  To the left is the picture we took when Izzy was only 2 weeks old.  It's fun to see how the cousins are growing and it's only been a year since they were last all together.

We were busy doing something everyday.  San Antonio has alot of nice parks… I'm sure partially because it is nice there the majority of the time.  Izzy enjoyed the swing.  And since she's now cruising she loved exploring the area for smaller tikes like her.

We left Audrey at home for her morning nap and went for a nice walk with the other three.

What would summer be without a trip to the pool.  This was a nice day and not too crowded.  While Avery enjoyed the HUGE slide and Amelia tip-toed around the pool, the moms and babes relaxed in the shallower end.

Left:  Amelia wanted to make sure all of us had beds in Di & Shane's bathroom.  She even gave me one of the largest towels.  I feel so lucky!

Right:  Avery insisted on pushing Izzy one day.  By the end the poor little guy's face was so red as it was a hot day.  But he enjoyed it.

A treat oh-so-good… Shipley doughnuts.  These were devils food filled.  I could have had 2!

So one night Di decided to grill shrimp & scallops.  The only thing was she bought uncooked, unpeeled shrimp.  A quick google search taught us how to devein these little boogers.  What an experience :-)

For all of those out there who think minivans are not fashionable…. this is the reason you need one.  We fit 3 adults, 2 children and 2 babies in this thing with 2 strollers in the back.  It was a nice way to travel.  I think Abe and I will be looking for one of these in the future.

Happy Father's Day

June is here and as such another Father's Day.  This would be Abe's 2nd official Father's Day.  We celebrated by Skypeing with him as Izzy & I are in San Antonio visiting the Dieckman's.  We had a special surprise hidden in the house, but Abe was at work by the time we spoke to him.  I guess he'll have to find the surprise tomorrow :-)  We celebrated today by having some pretty good doughnuts and heading to the pool.  I also wanted to wish my father a Happy Father's Day as well.  He has been an excellent role model for us and a great Opa.

Van Gogh Izzy

This past Friday it was Art in the Park at Izzy's daycare.  Her daycare is right across the street from a park.  As the weather is getting nicer, we come to find her there when picking her up.  This is the place where they have all their big celebrations like the Halloween party.  This time it was for the Preschool, Toddlers and Babies to display their artwork that they've been working on over the past several weeks.  Needless to say, the Preschoolers had some impressive stuff.  Now, in addition to our "Musical Izzy" we now have "Van Gogh Izzy".

Izzy's play skills have dramatically improved over the past month making it fun to see what we'll be doing at night before bed.  These are just a few fun pictures I captured this past week.

I think I'm ready for that carrot… this would be so much easier if I had my 2 front teeth.

What would this blog be without showing some of Abe's touches!  For those of you who know him well, this is the side that I love.  He's very creative unexpectantly.  When asked one day what I would like for lunch, I said eggs.  This is what I got.

And the Doctor said...

This past week while Izzy & I were in Nebraska, Abe had the distinct pleasure of taking Clay to the vet. Clay is now what you describe as a "geriatric cat" because he is 10 years old.  Because of this, in addition to the routine rabies vaccinations, he gets a more thorough evaluation including blood draws.  Abe let me know that things went "ok" at his visit.  But, because he knew it would bother me when I was home, he told me yesterday that they found a mass in Clay's back leg.  Apparently, as cats age, they can get cancerous masses of their muscles.  They did a needle biopsy which wasn't definitive.  So we are left with the tough decision of what to do.  Clay has been such a HUGE part of my, now our, life I can't even think of just letting it be.  So we may have a small post-op kitty in the near future.  We'll keep you posted.

As usual, Clay doesn't particularly like the vet.  Yet, he tolerates most of what they do so it can't be that bad.

Off to Oma & Opa's House!

This past week, Izzy & I traveled to Oma & Opa's house for a week of relaxation on the farm. Izzy did well with the flight from Boston to Nebraska... I couldn't have asked for a better baby. She was partially entertained on the long leg by a Harley-looking biker in his 60's. Just goes to show that looks can be deceiving! Since being back, we've been enjoying the country life. Izzy giggles when Lucy licks her toes and when she can grab a handful of fur from George the kitty. But George isn't like Clay... he has claws so we always had to keep watch. These are just a few pictures of what we did while we have been back.


Izzy's first tractor ride with Opa. As long as mommy was there we didn't do too bad.


Visiting Grandpa & Grandma one evening. They made us angle food cake with strawberries... a first for Izzy which she loved. No red beers for you habibi!


A couple of us high school classmates found time to catch-up while we were back. It's been almost 15 years since we've all been together. Time flies too fast.


Grabbing a picture with Oma, Opa and the newest member of the Bures family... Lucy!


We just happened to run into another high school friend... Brianne with her youngest, Sawyer.