Two countries, two celebrations

We decided this year we wanted to really celebrate Canada Day this year. Our original plan was to go to Ottawa until we realized there was a royal couple there stealing the thunder. We opted instead to stay in our local town and watch the fireworks and listen to some music. The tunes were good, but the fireworks? They were....shall we say....we're quite certain the sidewalks they just put along our road must have used up much of the budget. It was still fun to be out and enjoy with our local Canadians.

Since we live so close to the US, we decided to drive to Burlington, Vermont for the night to enjoy a 4th of July celebration on the 3rd of July. We know Canada has health care, great work benefits and social program, but WOW....the US has it nailed in terms of the fireworks displays. It's safe to say the budget for the 4th was not ever cut and we were happy to enjoy that in Vermont. Seriously, one of the best displays we have ever seen. It was nice to not think about deficits, debt ceilings and all that drama and enjoy the celebration.

We took the ferry home across Lake Champlain

Cake bosses

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Duke says Happy Mardi Gras y'all.

Family Day in Canada

It's technically a holiday in much of Canada...except Quebec. The provinces of Alberta, Ontario and Saskatchewan celebrate Family Day on the third Monday in February. It's supposed to celebrate the importance of family life to people and their communities. Kind of nice.

It was just an ordinary day in Quebec. We've been spending a good bit of time at a small rental place near our ski hill. What better way to learn more about Canada than with Canadian Monopoly?

Although, when Danielle and Louis play this game together, it's not always that friendly. I suppose, that's normal...and very family-like. Even for Family Day...most everywhere but Quebec.

Bonne Année

Happy New Year! A few days late. We've spent the last week or so at a rental cottage near our ski hill enjoying a wood stove, being somewhat unplugged, watching movies, playing games (the kids actually played Monopoly!) and skiing of course. Danielle and Paul spent four days in a class to become certified ski instructors. They spent the four days, seven hours a day, in ski boots. After the four days of instruction, skiing and testing, they are both Certified Canadian Ski Instructors! It's a huge accomplishment. Both will use their new skills this winter in the Special Olympics ski program and they can both earn some extra cash if they want teaching lessons down the road. Always good to have a back-up plan, eh?

Paul's new word of the year is "Peeee-vot" as in pivot which is what his French instructor kept saying about his skiing..."Peeee-vot."

In the middle of all that, we celebrated our 20th anniversary...it's been a wild ride.

Merry Christmas from the Pisani Family!

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Christmas morning...it doesn't get any better than this for a dog.

Sending Canadian Christmas to Illinois...

We couldn't be with the Pisani's in Chicago this year so we thought we would send come Canadian spirit their way. Merry Christmas!

Finally...school is out for 2010

December 23rd seems late for getting out of school...but then again, the kids don't go back until January 10. I love that school is finished for 2010...no more racing to the train at 6:40 am, no more packing lunches, no more homework, no more notes, no more "hurry up!" (ask us on January 4th if we're still thinking this way.)

I really love Danielle's spirit. On the last day of the semester her school has Winter Games...a sort of competition between the three houses...Edgar, Cramp and something else which I can't remember. Girls got together to paint these overalls to show their house spirit. Thankfully, as mentioned several times before, Danielle is one of the house officials of Edgar with a house color of green. The girls in "Cramp" have a house color of red. What the? Seriously? Who would assign the House of Cramp the color RED. We got lucky there. Otherwise, Danielle could be walking down the streets of Montreal with the word Cramp painted in red going down her ass. YIKES. (This is probably a good time to remind you that the school mascot is a Beaver).

As we all know, this is the time of year to bring teachers gifts. We don't do it so much for Danielle's school any longer. We still do for Louis' teachers though....for many, many reasons. Call it hazard pay. However, Danielle mentioned that on her last day it was not uncommon for the girls to bring in wine for teachers and head of school! Can you imagine this happening in our old town of Naperville? Things are mighty different here in Montreal. Not that there's anything wrong with it!

American Thanksgiving with Canadians, the NFL and CFL

We celebrated American Thanksgiving a few days late by inviting our Canadian friends the Murphy's over to watch the Bears play the Eagles in American football followed by dinner and then the Grey Cup, which is the Canadian football version of the Superbowl. It was a great day with the Bears winning, Packers and Vikings losing and the Montreal Alouettes winning the Grey Cup. 

We had an entertaining time with our friends who always make us laugh. It was a great way to wrap up American Thanksgiving weekend. Now to get ready for Christmas. Not.

We have to remind our friend Dean that this is not Quebec Chainsaw Massacre

Duke assumes his usual position in the kitchen

Table setting by Kish and Louis, photo by Danielle

We introduced our Canadian friends to the Pisani way of choosing American wine....we select by the label. This wine also reminds us of our sister-in-law Margie who always served it for holidays...

Two boys hungry for turkey after playing hockey in the basement

Watching the Grey Cup after dinner...one of those gatherings where it was okay to unbutton pants and get comfortable

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Dogs can get turkey hangovers too.

Thankful

It's an ordinary day in Canada. Just another Thursday. Danielle is at school, but Louis is home since it's a teacher work day in his district. Paul assumed we were having Thanksgiving dinner and at 7 am pulled a 23 pound bird out of the freezer, this morning. That bird is now back in the freezer and exchanged for a smaller, easy to defrost in a few hours, turkey breast that we will have tonight. Louis is more excited about the New Orleans/Cowboys match up this afternoon and Duke is happy to have most of us home.

A few things we are thankful for today....

• Everyone is healthy
• Google translate
• The ice maker Paul got for father's day
• We live in a great city, great country
• Teachers who are doing the best they can for a boy with an extenstive I.E.P.
• Acceptable healthcare
• The Bears are having a decent season
• Our needy, but loyal dog Duke
• Finding Special Olympics in Quebec
• Our new friends in Canada and our old friends too
• The firewood delivery that arrived as our last log was burning this afternoon
• The boy who helped unload the firewood while his sister went to school on American Thanksgiving

Sort of thinking about Thanksgiving

We know there's lots of hoopla in the U.S. getting ready for Thanksgiving...airport security, snow storms, fresh or frozen, the typical holiday conversations. It's not a holiday (or holiday week) here in Canada. Our Thanksgiving was in October. Danielle has school on Thursday and Louis happens to have a teacher's ped day that day so he will be home. Everything is open and it's business as usual. It will be our third American Thanksgiving in Canada. How time flies.

Tonight we went into the city to a bookstore near McGill University to hear the hilarious author David Sedaris do a reading and book signing. The store was packed and it was hard to even see Sedaris. Fortunately, we did hear him as he read from his journal. Most of it went over Louis' head, thankfully. I waited to try and get my books signed when Paul and the kids went down the street to a diner. It was a great chance to chat with some of the people in line, most of them students at McGill. Two of them were American "girls" from the Boston area who chose to come to McGill over U.S. schools. As we've written in this blog before, McGill is a bargain, even for Americans. These girls are paying 26K a year for tuition and room and board, helping make their decision easy. They love Montreal and are happy with their decision. And they love David Sedaris.

One of my favorite essays is "Jesus Shaves" (google it and you can read it or listen on This American Life). I read it long before we moved to French-speaking Quebec and reading it again brings it to a whole new level. It's a very entertaining narrative about his French class while he was in Paris. It's a funny essay detailing the way things can get lost in translation, especially when it comes to religion and holidays. So funny! Check it out.

During the question and answer period one person asked Sedaris what he was doing for Thanksgiving. He's American,  from a very entertaining household, but now lives most of the time in Paris when he's not on the road. He paused for a moment after the question was asked, trying to remember what day it was since he had no idea where he was going to be on Thursday. He admitted that he hasn't really celebrated that holiday in years. I can see how that could happen. It is easy to get into the routine of whatever country you live in, even if it is only an hour or so from the border. Of course Sedaris had to elaborate about how he hates to travel during the holidays anyway because of all the airport issues and and amateur travelers. He did recall though how he has to go to Utah this weekend and of course everyone there has "like 8 kids" so travel will be a real pain in the ass.

So, for this week anyway, we're thankful not to be in any airports.

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It's Thanksgiving Day in Canada. Duke has assumed is usual turkey-themed holiday meal position in front of the oven. He'll be doing the same thing in November...although it's not a day off for the Pisani family in Canada.