Sorry about how long it’s taken to do this! Wrapping up this school year has kept me busy, and I still am not feeling 100% well. Anyway, without further ado:

Forgot to post this picture–we passed this building in Chinatown on our way back to the Metro on Saturday afternoon:

Not your usual graffiti!

The next day we visited Pointe-a-Calliere, which is the Montreal Museum of Archaeology and History. It’s a fascinating place located near the river, where the city was founded, and the museum buildings are actually built over the top of in situ archaeological digs. You can go down to the dig levels and see the remains of civilization from pre-history through the mid-1800s. Our pictures didn’t turn out well as it was dim and we couldn’t use a flash, but if you go to the website you can get the general idea.

After lunch we headed to the Redpath Museum, which is a natural history/anthropology museum on the campus of McGill University. It’s in a really cool Victorian building, and the neat thing is that Derek and I went there while on our honeymoon–it was fun to take the girls there all these years later. On our first visit Derek had taken a picture of me in front of a slice of a petrified tree, so of course he had to take another:

The girls had to stand there too.

Almost nineteen years later

All the little papers you see are telling what was happening in history when the tree ring was forming–it’s an interesting thing to see.  The museum is small (and free, bless them!) but has an incredibly diverse and fascinating collection:

From huge scary crabs...

to rocks and shells...

(I love the old identification card.)

to fossils and skeletons...

to stuffed animals...

to fragments of cunieform and ancient coins

to mummies...

to antique Japanese armor...

to old African instruments.

Truly an interesting place to visit! There was a Darwin exhibition going on also, who of course they believe was a demi-god at the very least, but it was small and not too annoying.

We had a not so fun adventure on the way back to the hotel, as there was a gas leak or something in one of the Metro stations  and we had to flee to the surface. And then we had to walk, and walk, and walk, and walk, and…you get the idea. We must have walked three or four miles by the time we found another Metro station that would take us where we needed to get to. It was really cold that day too–a lot colder than the day before. However, we made it back to the hotel safely and thawed out in the hot tub, so it all was fine in the end.

Monday was our last day in Montreal. After our Metro misadventure the day before, we decided to forgo public transport and drove to the other side of the city to visit the Biodome. This was the place that Lizzy most wanted to go–it has the flora and fauna of four different ecosystems: tropical forest,  Laurentian forest (apparently it’s a forest somewhere in Quebec province), St. Lawrence marine, and Arctic/Antarctic. In the tropical forest there were some of the cutest monkeys we’ve ever seen:

Look at the tiny little faces!

In the Laurentian forest and St. Lawrence marine environment there were more familiar creatures, like alligators, birds, ducks, and beavers. One neat thing was that you could see the beavers and their dam from above, but as you walked around and down, you could see them through an aquarium-type window swimming into the dam from below. There also were crazy little birds that would dive way down in the water:

Diving bird

Another crazy bird

I assume they were getting food, but I’m not sure what it was! The penguins were very funny to watch waddling, sliding, and swimming:

After they came out of the water they would walk around with their flippers/arms stretched out like that, I suppose so their arms didn’t freeze to their bodies.

The Biodome is in Olympic Parc, so before we left town we decided to go up the funicular to the Montreal Tower Observatory. Derek and I had also done this on our honeymoon, so we knew there was quite a view:

The Biodome from above as we were ascending.

Looking towards the city center.

Other Olympic Parc buildings in the foreground and the St. Lawrence river in the distance

We headed home after that–all in all it was a fun vacation!

~Amy

I promise I didn’t forget about part 2 of our Montreal trip! We’re preparing for a yard sale on Saturday, so this week has been a bit crazy–will get the next part up Sunday or Monday.

Hope you are all having a great week!

~Amy~

We arrived in Montreal late Friday night, at which point some people were a little too happy to be out of the car. There were lengths of fabric picturesquely draped across the foot of the beds which really served no purpose except to be picturesque…at least until we came along:

How do I get out of this thing?!

I was laughing so hard at this point I'm surprised I took a decent picture.

The next day was Victoria’s birthday, so at her request the first place we went was the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art.

Museum of Contemporary Art

It was okay–Victoria liked it better than the rest of us, of course, but even she was a little disappointed. We saw a lot of Tousignant’s work and not much else–they were heavy on the temporary exhibit and light on the permanent.

When we were done there we got a snack lunch and then walked several blocks to Old City (which is not really that different from the more modern parts) to visit the Notre Dame Basilica, which was gorgeous.

You can see the Basilica at the end of the street.

Looking toward the altar

It was built in the 1820s and so was not nearly as old as the cathedrals we saw in Europe, and it had no dead people buried beneath its floors (the girls had a kind of disgusted fascination with that when they were little), but it still was beautiful. And it has a pipe organ!

Yay for pipe organs!

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to hear it played, but I imagine it sounds wonderful–the acoustics must be great in there. There also was a  pulpit with the most convoluted staircase that I have ever seen:

Pulpit with crazy winding staircase

We wandered around a little after that–it was a little chilly, but not too bad, and we were having fun:

Made you look

Part two coming soon…

~Amy~

Wow, time is flying by! I can’t believe that spring is almost over. Of course, all the chilly, rainy weather we’ve been having lately isn’t really conducive to summery thoughts. I’m glad it’s supposed to warm up some by the weekend!

We’ve been doing well, though we’ve been very busy. Spring is always a hectic time for me as I wrap up one school year and prepare for the next. Less than three weeks left of this school year–I can’t wait! (I know the girls share, if not exceed,  my eagerness for the last day of school.) Derek has been busy at work,  and has been spending almost every spare hour at home detailing the van–after five years of nothing but washes it is a time-intensive task, but he’s getting it looking great.

We’re looking forward to Derek’s leave in July, when hopefully we will see some of you, and to August when we should be moving to Fort Lee, VA. Normally I wouldn’t be pleased to be moving after only two years, but I will happily make an exception in this case. I cannot wait to see Fort Drum in my rearview mirror for the last time–ha ha!

I’ve finally gotten our Montreal pictures off the camera, and will try to make a post about our trip this week. Imagine that–two posts in the same week! I hope you all survive the shock.

~Amy~

Ok, it’s been a LONG time since we’ve posted, and we’ve committed to keeping this up better.  I had to share this with all of you- V got her permit on Thursday!  Clear the roads!  Just kidding.  I actually took her to the PX parking lot last Saturday night and taught her how to drive stick as well!  She did pretty good- stalled the car a few times like we all do when we’re figuring that beast out, but she’ll be a good driver.  She has a good sense of space and where she is with the vehicle.  Of course, listening to us bad-mouth other drivers over the last 16 years is a form of education, too, isn’t it?!?  ;^D

In other news, we may be moving to Virginia later this summer.  Pray that it all goes according to plan.

Two more of my Army colleagues came home yesterday- welcome home Scotty and Curtis!  Just a couple more and then we can ‘put the band back together’ (a la the Blues Brothers).

I just read an interesting article (the entirety of which can be found at:  http://www.mlive.com/opinion/flint/index.ssf/2009/01/its_time_to_pray_for_global_wa.htm It’s a short and easy read–take a look.).

At December’s U.N. Global Warming conference in Poznan, Poland, 650 of the world’s top climatologists stood up and said man-made global warming is a media generated myth without basis. Said climatologist Dr. David Gee, Chairman of the International Geological Congress, “For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming?”

Apparently, the earth’s temperature peaked in 1998 and has been falling ever since. As many of you know, I’ve never bought into the whole Global Warming thing, in part because I distrust anything that is marketed emotionally instead of logically, but mainly because I have read enough history to know that the earth has climatic cycles. A few years back I read an article in which a climatologist said we had to find a way to “get rid” of the Medieval Warm Period because people who knew about it were using it when arguing against Global Warming. What? How do you get rid of a historic event? As convenient as I am sure it would be for propagandists, you can’t just hit the delete button to get rid of troublesome facts. (How’s that for an inconvenient truth? )

So, now that more and more climatologists are standing up and refuting Global Warming are we finally going to be done with this climate change nonsense? Unfortunately not. Now we’re all supposed to live in terror of an Ice Age. An Ice Age that could last 10,000 years! WE’RE STILL ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!!!! *rolls eyes* Idiots. Can I keep my normal light bulbs now?

~Amy~

Sorry it’s been so long without posting–things have been very busy. We finally have a decent day weatherwise and are hoping to take some pics of the snow today–it is totally, completely, and in every other way insane. Today is the first day we haven’t had heaps of snow fall upon us in over a week. And it’s gearing up to get started again…oh, joy.

I can’t stand to watch the salivating, nearly hysterical nonsense that passes for news coverage lately, but the little I have seen has included a lot of comparisons between Obama and Martin Luther King, Jr. So today, on the day when we are suppose to remember Dr. King, I’ve been thinking about what is probably his most well-known speech, his “I Have a Dream” speech. In which he said, of course, “I have a dream, that one day a man will be elected president not for his ideas but because of the color of his skin.”

What? That’s not what he said?

I fear that Obama’s inauguration tomorrow makes a mockery of Dr. King’s dream–the dream of a color-blind society, a nation where people are judged “not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”.  Or more to the point, where a President is elected not because of the color of his skin, not because he is glib and a good speaker, but because of the content of his speeches.  How many of those who are weeping on the mall tonight are there because they believe in his fiscal policies, or his foreign policies, or in any of his stated policies or plans?  (Not that it is an easy task to find out what they are since he is very good at talking a lot and saying very little.)

Is it historic that a black man was elected president? Given our nation’s history, certainly it is. But is it good if the color of his skin (and the glibness of his tongue)  are the main reasons he will be inaugurated tomorrow? In my opinion, definitely not.

I’ll be honest, I hope he doesn’t do well as president. Not because of the color of his skin, because I don’t care about that. I hope he fails because I am opposed to every stated policy and plan that he has named. I think he will push this country further into an economic mess, he will make government larger, his foreign policies will hurt us, and he will drive us farther down the path towards socialism. (Which, incidentally, has failed abysmally in every nation it has been tried in–why anyone thinks it would work here I don’t know.) I am opposed to him not because of the color of his skin, but because of how he says he will run the country.

Now that is what Dr. King was talking about.

~Amy~

YAY!!!!!!!

I cannot say anything more at this time.

~Amy~