a road trip to montreal!

Oh how I love Montreal. While it may be only 2 hrs away from Ottawa, it is so entirely different from anywhere else, especially Ottawa. Beautiful fashion, distinct foods, narrow streets, lovely architecture, French spoken everywhere...Montreal will always have a special place in my heart.

On Friday afternoon Noah and I drove to Montreal for a visit with one of my dearest friends Eugenia and her sweet family. Eugenia and I go way back to our first year of art school. We became best of friends back then and still are best of friends now. I always make the effort to see her when I am in the area, or she does the same for me.

So yes, on Friday Noah and I hit the open road for Montreal. It was a nice drive for the most part, but I could have been a bit more "road trip" ready by having more handy snacks, toys and a better selection of music available for Noah. Lesson learnt- prepare better next time.

I arrived in Montreal and of course got lost once I was in the city. I pulled over to the side of the road and asked a kind woman in broken French for directions. I guess she understood me enough because she gave me directions and I understood them. Yay for broken French.

Once I arrived at Eugenia's it was smooth sailing from there. A quick delicious dinner of spinach ravioli and pesto, a glass (or 2) of riesling, some catching up and good laughs...my difficult drive in and lost in translation experience was all forgotten.

Saturday included a lovely visit with my cousin Julia and her husband Corey. They made us a fantastic brunch of heuvos rancheros with handmade corn tortillas...yum! It was especially nice to go to their place as I had never been there before. It was just as I had imagined it would be. Full of beautiful touches and a to die for little sewing nook.

The rest of our day included tea, vegan chocolate brownies, visits with Eugenia's mom and dad, sister and bf...my extended family really, more wine, homemade pizza and lots of laughs while we watched our two little boys (who are only 2 months apart) play together all night long.

The next morning we woke up to a ton of beautiful snow outside. We had an easy morning of hanging around in our jammies, reading magazines, sipping coffee, internet surfing together and watching tv. Simple and easy, just the way it should be for two friends who have known each other as long as we have.

Sadly as soon as it all began, it had to end. Noah and I were needed back home and Eugenia had work to do in her studio (she's extremely talented my friend Eugenia is). And so we got ourselves packed up, gave and got lots of kisses from the little ones and settled for the long drive home...which I will tell you about in another post.

As always, it was so nice to see Eugee and her family. They are such a fun bunch of people and it's always a blast to be with them.

So yay for visits with dear old friends. Yay for cute little buddies hanging out together. Yay for brunches with cousins. And yay for a mini adventure.

Hope your weekend was a fun one dear friends.

xox