Friday Favorites | Memorial Day Weekend & Recent Purchases

Happy Friday friends! Three posts in one short week - feels like I am completely caught up on the week and life, which doesn't happen that often! After sharing the travel diaries from Montreal and Quebec, I wanted to do a little Memorial Day Weekend recap and some recent buys!

Those two little teeth just kill me! 

 Nothing like auntie kisses!

On Sunday we went to my sister's house for a little BBQ and some pool time. It was actually close to 90 degrees so we didn't stay outside for too long! 

Before we left for Canada, I treated myself to this beauty that I had on my wish list for a few months!

 Tried the new chicken bites from Shake Shack - delicious, but still like Chik Fil A's more! 

Monday was a low key family day with a little lunch at Shake Shack, relaxing & shopping at Legacy Place.

I picked up this skirt from J.Crew that comes in 3 different colors and also this easy top & this cute shirt!

This headband from Etsy finally came yesterday and I love it! It's $15 and is great quality! Also, it came with an adorable clip as a gift!

If you're looking for your next bingeworthy show - What If on Netflix is a must watch! I flew through it this week!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

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Our Road Trip Adventure | Montreal & Things I Learned

Happy Wednesday friends! Picking right up with the Montreal portion of our trip. On Thursday we made the quick drive to Montreal from Quebec and got right to sightseeing in Old Port Montreal. Maybe it was the time of day or maybe we just got lucky, but around lunch time there were about 10 people total at the ferris wheel and that's including us. With a ticket you're able to enjoy the views for 20 minutes, which is plenty of time for photo ops!

We strolled around the Old Port for a couple of hours waiting for our Airbnb check in later that afternoon. So much history in such a small perimeter and once again I felt like we were in Europe. 

 Notre-Dame Basilica in Montreal is one of the most visited monuments in North America - we didn't go in, but it's almost as impressive as the one in Paris.

If you're looking for a great cup of coffee, I can't recommend Tommy Cafe enough! Probably one of the best lattes I've had!

The next morning we headed over to the Botanical Garden and were pleasantly surprised for two reasons. The first was that the garden and exhibits were all free that day because of a garden show and the second was that the tulips were still in bloom, it just looked like an endless garden full of tulips! That was probably my favorite part of the entire trip! Even though the weather was a bit raw, we did spend a few hours strolling while Sophia napped.
 My little carb lover!

After a quick stop for lunch back in Old Town, we headed to the underground mall or underground city Downtown. We asked the waiter to take a photo and this is the best we got - me mid bite!

The underground city is a series of interconnected shops, hotels, businesses and other things that is designed for visitors and people who live in Montreal to combat the harsh winters! Pretty genius if you ask me - you can live, work and shop underground and never have to go outside...a little like a perfect bunker!

On our way out of Montreal we stopped at Premiere Moisson to pick up some pastries! The one we went to was a larger market that had different sections for meat, grocery items, seafood and pastries. I got a fresh baguette to take home and devoured the chocolate croissant before we made it back to the car! If I had to pick a favorite stop - it's absolutely Montreal! I actually want to go back for a weekend trip and go to all the delicious restaurants that we couldn't experience this time around. 

Things I learned ||

• If you're travelling and want to order food to where you're staying, similar to Postmates or GrubHub, I downloaded Foodora for us and we had dinner delivered one of the nights we were in Montreal. 
• We stayed in Airbnb's because I wanted to have a separate space for Sophia to sleep while we watched TV or did other things. It ended up being way more cost effective than having suites in hotels. 
• If Sophia was a tad bit older, we probably would have gone out to dinner more, but I was pretty strict with having her stay on schedule, so that didn't leave a lot of time for dinner out. 
• Even though you have to show your passport to enter Canada - you don't get a stamp which really bummed me out since I wanted Sophia to have her first stamp!
• We figured out when we got to Montreal, that our phone plan actually allowed us to use our unlimited data with text and not have to worry about roaming. Prior to that we were using WiFi wherever we could - should have checked that before we left!
• Everything was planned out around Sophia's naps - mostly when we would do the longer parts of our drives. She's was a great on the go napper and this really helped us see all that we did. 
• Since this was our first trip with our car, we had no idea what to expect for chargers in Canada, but were pleasantly surprised that there were plenty of car parks with electric vehicle parking & charging. We found Tesla super chargers along the highway drives & Gary used an app called ChargePoint to find available ones in the city. Tesla also has a feature where you plan your route based on charging, so you're never left with little charge. Definitely something that took getting used to since we've never had an electric vehicle before. 
• This portable drying rack and musical toy were life savers during our trip. 
• I'm really into Parenthood right now on Netflix and it's not available in Canada, so I downloaded a few episodes onto my phone before we left so I could watch them. On the flip side, Netflix has other shows that aren't yet available in the US so I did take advantage of that as well.

As much as I love traveling, it's certainly a different type of vacation with a baby. Memories made, but I'm happy to be home! I think we'll have more day and weekend trips in our future since Sophia was such a rock star on the road!

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Our Road Trip Adventure | Vermont and Quebec City

Happy Tuesday friends! It's so great to back and dare I say I feel quite refreshed after our week long vacation! We got back on Saturday and had the rest of the long weekend to recuperate & get everything in order before getting back to work. While planning our road trip, I thought we'd have more time the day we arrived, which was clearly a rookie mistake traveling with a baby!  If I had to do it again, I think I would add an extra day in Quebec City & Montreal, but that's only because Vermont is closer to us and we've been before.  I decided to split the trip up with the first two stops and then Montreal with things I learned in a separate post. Fair warning...both will be very photo heavy posts.

 

We started our trip in Stowe, Vermont to break up our drive to Canada. Six hours just seemed like too much to go with Sophia on our first go around. We stayed at the Lodge at Spruce Peak which was just perfect! It's not peak season so there weren't many people around and we really enjoyed feeling like we were the only ones there. We didn't do much for our full day in Stowe, but that's because we knew we'd be non-stop in Canada so we wanted to take it easy. You can check out all we did in Stowe in the winter in this post! We had the best burger at the lodge, introduced Sophia to some horses, ordered room service with dessert & ate a pretty delicious pizza at Piecaso. 

On Tuesday we made our way to Quebec City. About a four hour drive from Stowe, this got us into the city late in the afternoon. Our AirBnB wasn't available until four, so we opted for an early dinner at Le Chic Shack , a photo op near the Farimont Le Chateau Frontenac and called it a day. 

 Picked up this cute crew neck top the day before we left!

We had one full day to explore and took full advantage of the gorgeous weather. I had no idea how hilly Quebec City is and let's just say that I absolutely got my workout in that day! The city is incredibly charming and makes you feel like you've traveled to Europe. We had a late breakfast at Le Omlette, spent some time exploring while Sophia napped and then made our way to Montmorency Falls.

It's a quick drive out of the city to see this natural wonder. The waterfalls themselves are actually taller than Niagara Falls and have a cable car that will take you all the way up. If we were on our own we probably would have gone to the top, but instead we opted to stay on the foot path and get closer to the falls without scaring her. 

I absolutely loved Quebec City and wish we could have experienced more of the restaurant scene, but the two places we picked were family friendly and easy to maneuver with a nine month old, which was my only criteria! 

We also had a picnic in the park for an early dinner when a car drove into the lobby of the Airbnb we were staying in! If you want to see what I'm talking about, here's a link to the new story! Hope you'll come back tomorrow for the Montreal recap!

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