Day 12 of our trip

We thought it would be fun to take the kids up to Canada, so they could say that they had been to a different country. What made it even more fun was that we went to Montreal where they speak French, so the kids really felt like they were in a different country.

I had looked up the border sites on the Internet to see what we needed to cross into Canada. We were told that all we needed were our drivers licenses. So I thought COOL, it will be an easy cross. Well... when we got to the border, they were OK with Max and I crossing- but I didn't have any identification for the kids. Max had his work badge on him which gave him a little power and they let us cross (after questioning the kids a little bit- making sure that we didn't steal them!). Well, it didn't hit me until we started to drive back to the US border that we were going to have to go through this again- which we did (and they were actually a little bit irritated with us...dumb Arizonans don't know what we're doing!) Thank goodness they let ALL OF US cross back over.
The kids in front of the LDS Montreal Temple. As you may be able to see in the next picture, this temple is very small. It had a church building next to it which was twice as big as the temple.

Garron's biggest request was to stop at Taco Bell in Montreal. He loves Taco Bell, especially their hot sauce. So he thought it would be so cool to get the hot sauce with French writing on it. So we planned our whole stay in Canada around us stopping at Taco Bell. The irony of it was that when we walked in, they just announced that they would not be serving any taco bell items, only PFK (KFC for all the Americans)- But Garron did get his Taco Bell Sauce in French!!!! Our Chicken lunch ended up costing us $70.00US dollars... for chicken WOW!!


Chop Sticks for your chicken!!! What is that all about?


The word 'shup' was carved into the table and also on the wall. We have no idea what the word is or means, but it became our new word for the day. We made fun of it throughout the rest of our trip. "Shup Garron" - Now that I think about it... it is probably not a nice word.

After we were finally able to cross back over to the US, we drove over to Alexandria Bay and Thousand Islands. It is very beautiful country there.

We took a ferry out to see the Boldt Castle, which was on a secluded island. Mr. Boldt (owner of the Waldorf hotel in ny) was building this beautiful castle for his wife around the 1920's, when she suddenly passed away. He never returned and just left it sitting there. It is an amazing 6 story castle with breathtaking views out of every window. The kids liked the children's quarters- it even had a bowling alley. Pretty amazing for the 1920's.

After we left Alexandria Bay, we began looking for a hotel. There was a huge lacrosse convention going on there, so we couldn't find a hotel anywhere. We drove 1 1/2 hours to find something and we ended up at the 'Bate's Motel'- that not what it was really called-BUT it is exactly what it looked like. So we were a little jumpy that night. But we all lived and even took showers the next morning. Max said it was the best shower he had on the trip. (Old shower head with great pressure!)