April Date Night

We love music around here. So when we can combine music with an historical setting, we're hooked. We had that opportunity back in April (yep, I'm behind on blogging) when we caught one of the student showcases at McGill. It was fun. 

You could definitely tell that the students were fairly 'young' in their program with lots of voice development needed, but their teacher sang the closing piece and she was very talented. It reminded me of a talented friend of ours who sings classical very lovely. We also enjoyed getting to hear a couple new instruments.

Fun little break in the middle of the week! 

Yes, those are piles of snow behind Jason - in April

BYU Symphonietta

In the week leading up to easter we had a few things going on around here, one of those things was that we had a couple students from the BYU-I Symphonietta stay with us for a couple days. 

The kids anticipated their visit for several weeks before hand and were pretty excited that they were even going to get to go to the symphonietta. 

All that excitement didn't seem to stamp out their nervousness of having someone they didn't know stay with us, but they seemed to warm up to the girls pretty quickly. 

Both girls played viola and agreed to play some songs for us before the kids went off to bed. Pretty sure that sold both the kids on learning to play a string instrument (yes!!). 

And then the next day I had the sole task of ensuring the girls made it to their bus on time with a packed lunch for the day. I failed on both accounts. Thankfully, the bus was extremely late and the girls got there with enough time for me to get home, realize I forgot to give them their lunches and run back to give it to them. 

When we made it to the concert that night the kids were just buzzing with excitement. I wasn't sure how well they were going to do seeing that the concert didn't even start until well after bed time, but they were pros. They were definitely tired, both opting to sit and cuddle on our laps through the concert, but they sat and listened through the entire concert. 

I must admit that it was a little strange to hear the musicians play 'O Canada' as their opening song. I can't remember the last time that I have listened to that song. Pretty sure that disgraces me as a canadian (though, in my defence, we sing it as a family several times in the week leading up to Canada Day), but I stood up and explained to the kids the importance of the song and felt a little soothed about my disgrace. 

There was a lovely soloist that sang as well, and Milayla was completely hooked. The singer was very expressive though and every time she made a concerned face Milayla would ask what was wrong. It was very intense for Milayla to watch. And Atticus just couldn't get enough of learning the names of a few new instruments. 

All in all - it was a lovely evening and I am so glad that we took the kids. It was a great event to have in our Easter week.  And it was a great family date!

These are some of the little pictures that we had fun taking while we were waiting for the concert to start. 

my sneaky picture :)

sooo Excited!!

Family picture

Atticus was a little concerned that he couldn't find Kelsey (one of the girls that stayed with us) in the picture of the symphonietta that was in the program. She was there though. Thankfully :)

Milayla loved listening to the musicians practicing

Love this girl's smiles!

blurry..but here we are! Along with a photobomber...ha!

When the girls headed off on the third day, Atticus requested that he get a picture with his new friends before they headed off. 

We're so glad we had these girls stay with us. It was a pleasure!

Montreal LDS Temple

I especially enjoy when I get to go here:

Particularly when it's with this guy:

And his blaringly white smile.

So grateful to live so close to a temple.

November Date Night

I have got to hand it to Jason. He planned a date for us in November without me having any idea. It takes a lot for something to go under the radar. Unfortunately, the night he had planned on there was a big wind storm and we lost power for most of the night and had to postpone the date. But it still worked out in the end. We hiked up Mount Royal for a touristy picture, a view of downtown at night, and some tasty hot chocolate that Jason had lugged along. 

It was pretty cool. It was different to see downtown Montreal from up top. It didn't look as big as I expected it to, probably in part to having so much underground. Also, as pretty as all those lights were, I am really missing the stars. And the mountains. Still a lovely evening though. Thanks, Jason! 

September Date Night - Botanical Garden of Lights

Since our Mosaic Cultures International passes were good for two days, we brought the kids back on the second day in the morning to check out the Insectarium then Jason and I came back in the evening to check out the garden of lights in the chinese garden. It was nice to get out just the two of us especially since I don't foresee it happening all that often with how expensive babysitters are, how busy Jason is and how pricey things to do here are. But for now, I am still enjoying the pleasant memory of getting to go to the Garden of Lights together. It was lovely. We even got to check out the Japanese exhibit which was so cool. I love the Japanese culture. It's beautiful.

Chinese Garden of Lights:

The chinese Scholar rocks were really cool. I seem to think there was another name for them but I cannot seem to remember it. Basically, they are naturally occurring rocks that look like something and are gifted to scholars (or to a hostess...or something like that...I really should have read the information better in here but it was pretty packed).

moon cakes. Jason was pretty over-the-moon (hehe) about these.

Love, love, love the architectural lines.

After I took this photo I turned around and promptly walked smack dab into some man. We're talking a full head on collision. It was pretty dark in those gardens I tell ya. Good thing too, it helped to hide my embarrassment.

Thanks for the fun night, Jason!

June Date Night

We're not super creative people when it comes to date nights, add to that that June is already a pretty busy month for us we just did not seem able to come up with an idea of what to do. So when our proposed date night came up we still had no idea what to do. So we went for a walk. Yep, a walk. Funny how it ended up being one great date night. We talked, a lot. Discovered places in our own neighbourhood that we didn't know where there before and enjoyed a nice, long, warm, sunny, summer evening. Jason was even a great sport and went down a playground slide for Atticus because apparently when one goes walking they should always stop to play and he requested photo evidence (because he knows that Mommy takes photos of everything). It was a fun evening topped off with sorbet at our favorite gelateria.

love the old brick buildings around here. this one is a school

what a great sport

a bunker from the war turned into apartment living

monuments outside a nursing home. I'm sure there is something more to it than what we were understanding.

And just to further prove my point of what a good sport Jason is I would like to include this photo:

That's Jason smiling about the fact that this quirky wife of his picked Candyland as her game of choice for game night; complete with gummy bears as the playing pieces - winner ate the losing gummy bear (and the winning one). Jason won. Maybe that's why he is smiling.


Great times with this best friend of mine.

April Date Night

We picked our outing in April based solely on the venue for this very small, intimate concert. Luckily, the concert was incredible! I have never been that close (2nd row) to such amazing musicians. They were so truly talented, and Jason and I felt pretty blessed to be two of a very small audience sitting in the classic salon (that operates as a small art gallery) of an historical Bremer house. The details of the house were amazing!

The concert lasted 3 hours and I wish it had kept going. There was a violinist, a classical guitarist and a renaissance guitarist. It was unique and absolutely beautiful.

see that funky picture on the bottom left? That is a new feature in downtown Bremen that had us a little perplexed as to why it's there. Not sure if you can see it, but it is light up laundry strung between the buildings. Hmmm... interesting.

So happy Jason and I got to go to this little concert together. The building was beautiful, the concert was incredible and I got to enjoy it all with my best friend. Perfect.

Look at that handsome guy! ;)

The Nutcracker Ballet

Jason and I are reaaalllllly bad about getting out for date nights (something we are trying to remedy). Between prioritizing, scheduling and planning them we just fail miserably. So when we do get out, it's a pretty big deal and we take tacky, blurry, iPhone photos to commemorate the occasion to the highest extent. 

Like this picture of us during intermission at the Nutcracker Ballet that was showing earlier on in the New Year. See that guy behind us? I think he felt left out; he even smiled. Yeah, a little strange.

In any case, it was a nice night out (I love the theatre). We really need to make it happen more often. We even ran into Milayla's dietician in the lobby of the theatre. Experiences like that - running into people we know while we are out and about - really help this city feel like home and that is a nice feeling.

Well, time to get planning the next date night :)

February from the iPhone

I know, I know, February is looong over but I couldn't resist smiling about these photos on mine and Jason's phones and wanted to make sure they made their way to the blog.

Like this anonymous "heart attack" that we came home to one night.

There are some pretty stealthy people around here, I tell you; we really are curious how they got into our building. (Anyone willing to spill the stealthy secret?)

Or this photo of the kids and I conked out on the couch having a verrrrry sick day. We had a few too many of those in February. And while I certainly enjoy all those extra cuddles, I sure don't like seeing these kiddos feeling under the weather. They are so sweet, positive and thoughtful - even when sick. I really am one lucky Momma.

And then there is the incredible slide at the movie theatre. Jason and had been to this particular movie theatre on two occasions when a friend mentioned to me that there is a slide at the theatre that goes from the top floor to the bottom floor (that's 3 cinemas high). To be honest, I was kind of in disbelief that it existed - how could we have missed it!? Well, lucky for us we had a date night planned the next night to go see the premier of Les Miserables (it took a little bit longer for it to premier here than in North America) and we could not wait to hunt out this apparent slide.

Well, it was certainly there. And we had certainly missed it on the previous occassions that we had been there. How did we miss it? I have absolutely nooooo idea. Perhaps Jason and I were just too infatuated with staring into one another's eyes that we never thought to observe our surroundings ;). (perhaps not :) ). In any case, it does exist and we had lots of fun topping off our movie night with a run down the slide.

A tad scary (and fast!) going down that many levels. Looking forward to our next movie night.

And finally, there is Milayla and her Brotchen. There is certainly no mystery about which country this girl currently calls home because she loves her German bread. On this particular day she has picked out a brotchen (german bread bun) at the grocery store and when we got home she couldn't even wait to get to the table to start eating it. While I was taking off my shoes and coat, she dug right into the grocery bag and started enjoying her big chunk of bread.

I can't even begin to describe how happy I am to see Milayla progressing in her eating skills. It is pretty awesome.

And that concludes the photos from my phone vault for February. On a very different note: I am rather looking forward to spring :).

Date Night

So, remember my excitement about those dance lessons that we were beginning back here? Things have certainly not worked out the way that we had planned. Due to some really infrequent dance studio hours it was hard to match up a night the class was happening to a night that we had free (and so did a babysitter!). After a couple weeks of working to get the stars aligned we finally did it! We were running a little late for the dance lesson, but we were going to make it. It would have been great except that when we arrived we discovered that the dance studio we thought was open and running that day was in fact closed.

We scanned the files tucked away in our brain of things to do in downtown Bremen in the evening. Having already eaten, the only thing we could think of was a movie; which neither of us were in the mood for (we very clearly need a better reserve of date-night OUT ideas). After some thought we decided we would take advantage of the beautiful weather, grab some dessert and then just explore. The goal was to find any and every street that we had never walked down, go in new stores, find new restaurants to try, new buildings with interesting architecture and anything else that was new. 

For dessert we opted for something to take on the road - gelato, which we have had many times before but this time we got it from a new gelato place.  

First up, we were reminded how much we love walking around so many historical buildings. To be walking down the street and see this beautiful church firmly ahead. It's a magnificent feeling to be able to look around and see history. 

Then it was under the archways of the town hall (which is a UNESCO world heritage site).

Sometimes the mix of the old and new here is quite stunning. Like these two buildings joined by a walking bridge.

A short while into our walk we found ourselves in the Bible Garden. It is a pretty little nook tucked away behind the church. It is filled with plants that are part of stories in the Bible. It is also a nice little escape from the bustling tramline just outside the entrance gates.

Then we walked on to der Schnoor - a place that we had yet to explore in the entire year that we have lived here!

Before we got into the really touristy part of der Schnoor we admired the art school...

The unique homes...

and the eery looking santa standing inside the shop door at the year-round Christmas store.

And then it was on to the quaint, narrow, house-lined cobble stone streets of the touristic Schnoor. Being there mid-week allowed for nicely cleared streets for us to meander around. 

The homes in this area are centuries old and are said to have belonged primarily to fishermen as a tributary of the Weser River used to run to here.

A lot of the area has been gorgeously restored with intricate detailing...

with statues, restaurants and plenty of different shops.

Of course the Bremen Town Musicians made a few appearances.

We had a good laugh about this particular post card that was pasted to a restaurant window.

After exploring Der Schnoor it was down to the river side. With the sun setting in front of us, it made for a beautiful walk under the archways. And we were able to watch a nice variety of boats glide past us as we strolled along.

After the riverside we stumbled on one very funky looking playground. We're little kids at heart - seriously. Within seconds Jason was giddily running up to go down the slide and I started climbing the things around.

All that walking sure made us a tad hungry so we went and enjoyed some appetizers at Vapianos which we learned was started in Germany - never would have guessed!

Though, our walk would not have been complete without admiring some traditional German wear, just in time for the festivals.

It was a fun night and a reminder of how much there is that we love about this city. Not only are there incredible people here, but it is just a nice, clean, historical city that is fun to take an evening stroll in.