Our First Visitors in Toronto!

A few weekends ago, John's mom and aunt came out and visited us - well, and John's uncle who works in Toronto regularly. We had a great time showing them the few places we know and exploring many others. Enjoy the pics!

A beautiful fall morning in High Park

At the University of Toronto

That's Niagara Falls from the Canadian side!

To get to the American side, we had to go through this door.
(Notice John's attire. That night the University of Wisconsin beat Ohio State!)

And the view from the United States.

You've been asking for belly shots - so here's another one!

Uncle Mutz treated all of us to a delicious dinner at the restaurant
located 2/3 of the way up the CN Tower,
formerly the tallest freestanding structure in the world.

He was glad to discover that the rest of the dishes
were quite a bit larger than this one :)

The View

All the food was delicious, but we preferred to eat our desserts
without the adorning peppercorns.

Thanks for coming! We hope you come again!

Daily Life in Toronto

We've been living in the big city for a month and a half now, so I guess our daily life has found a bit of a schedule. Here's what our days look like:

John - Just about every day I go to school. Depending on the day, I either sit on my butt in the library all day, sit on my butt in classes all day, or a combination of both. I'm taking four classes: German, Syntax, Isaiah, and Wisdom Literature. The German class is for graduate students, and it focuses entirely on being able to read German; so Nien, ich spreche nicht deutsch, aber ich lese kleine deutsch. (I'm sure I got that wrong... forgive me.) The Syntax class is in the linguistics department; I've never had a formal class in linguistics, so it is very interesting. Isaiah and Wisdom Lit are more along the lines of classes I usually have. Both are very good. I'm learning a lot. Some days after school I meet Charlotte at the downtown library and we go home together. Other days I go home to find her waiting for me, usually with a fresh batch of cookies or a pie cooling on the table. (That's not true!) Then I spend a few hours playing with my baby. I know, the baby isn't born yet... but you can still play with him/her! We talk to the baby, give him/her zerbetses, etc. Just the other morning we were working on his/her left jab. Charlotte has already taught him/her how to do a flip turn. Brush teethe, sleep, repeat.

Charlotte - Through a friend of a friend I have been hooked up with a tutoring job three evenings a week. It's wonderful! I tutor four Saudi Arabian women in order to prepare them for the IELTS test (the test non-native English speakers must take in order to go to university in Canada - similar to the TOEFL in the U.S.). Besides enjoying the tutoring, I like the excuse to take the subway and to spend time downtown. The other regular activity I have started is attending a Mom's Group one morning a week. It's nice to meet with other believing women. During all the other hours of the week I make my own schedule, and it often includes going to the library, brushing the leaves off our car so they don't stain it, cooking - and occasionally baking, researching baby paraphernalia, reading, watching Regis and Kelly or The View, etc.

That's our life in Toronto so far!

No Question Now

I have popped!

A Day Out on the Town

After deciding we were moving to Toronto, John immediately looked up ticket prices for the Toronto Orchestra. Only $14 for anyone between the ages of 18 and 35! So, this past weekend we got tickets and had a day out on the town.

One of the major stops was Dundas Square, the main square in Toronto which happens to be similar to Times Square in New York City. Unbeknownst to us, they were having an NBA Jam at the square, so basketball was the theme of everything...except the video games that were being played. If you look closely at the picture, you'll see that the video games were not basketball but hockey! You know you're in Canada when...

A few shots to show you the size of basketball stars:

(John wears a size 11.)

The official NBA trophy!

Next stop - Chinatown. To be honest, after seeing and experiencing Chinatown in San Francisco, every other Chinatown has been a disappointment.

It was time for the concert. On our way there, we walked along Canada's Walk of Fame. This actor actually had TWO stars!

The Roy Thompson Hall is really a beautiful building inside and out.

(It's the big glass one on the right.)

We enjoyed the Americana music that was played that night - Adagio for Strings, Rhapsody in Blue, Candide, and something else...it'll probably never come to me.

The Bump

Here it is at 24 weeks (the beginning of the sixth month)!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We decided last night at about 9 o'clock to celebrate Thanksgiving with the rest of Canada today. So, the turkey bathed in a sink of cold water over night, waking us every few hours for new water (we figure that was practice for parenting), and I spent today cooking, washing dishes, cooking, and washing dishes. Check out our first ever turkey:

It was delicious and John is an amazing turkey carver.
Here's the spread:

Cranberry sauce, turkey, gravy, stuffing, mixed vegetables, and mashed potatoes

We wish you could have been here
to share it with us!

Monthly Menus are Back!

Feedback has reported that people enjoy knowing what's being cooked and eaten in our kitchen each month. So, the monthly menus are back...they actually never left but were not exciting enough for blog posts.

We finished summer off with Just Use It July and All-Gone August. Whenever it's moving time I am always amazed at how much food we have in our cupboards and freezer. So our focus was put into using it all up! We left BC with only one cloth bag full of food & condiments being sent over to a friend's house...pretty good if you ask me.

Our September was spent in a friend's friend's apartment while the friend was away. Really, an amazing gift to be able to live there for almost a month (rent free!) while we searched and searched for an apartment in Toronto. The month was spent eating simple meals, ones that didn't require many ingredients or a recipe; thus titled Simple September.

The best meal of the month - Roasted Vegetable Quesadillas. SO GOOD. Here's what you do:

1) Roast whatever vegetables you want (recommending cauliflower, broccoli, bell peppers of any color, onion).
2) On a baking sheet, put flour tortilla, grated cheddar cheese, roasted veggies, more cheese, and then another tortilla. Bake at around 400 degrees until the tortilla is crisp and cheese is melted.
3) Eat with salsa.

Simple, huh?

And now for the present - it's One-Dish October! Anything that can be a meal unto itself - even if we prefer to have fruit or veg or bread on the side - counts. Crock-pot recipes are great but the month is not constrained to that appliance. So far we've had Lentil Taco Salad, Mexican Minestrone, and Waffles. I would LOVE any recipes that you enjoy, especially slow cooker ones!

Book Recommendation

Three weeks in Toronto were survived without a library book and without much to read (The Case for Christ was really good though), so I was ecstatic when I got to finally check out this book. Amazingly the excitement just grew as the pages turned. This book, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, is centered around a woman who starts to learn about Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands of Britain, and then continues to get more and more involved with the people there. As I read it, I found myself falling in love with the Guernsey community as well!

If you like letters, if you like history, if you like thinking about the joy found in reading, or if you simply like reading, you should read this book!