Toronto

Toronto! We had such a great time. Just to refresh everyone's memory, Jayson served his mission in Toronto with the Chinese people from 1999-2001. He hadn't been back since to see his friends, and I was anxious to meet them. Jeremy Robertson, one of Jayson's good friends from the mission had coordinated a trip to Toronto, so we couldn't miss out. We were there from July 5-11. Here is our trip, in a nutshell...people, food, and places.

The People

Jayson spent his whole mission in just two wards (congregations). It is said that Toronto has the highest Chinese population in North America, so he met lots of wonderful people. Because I can't do it justice, he's going to tell you about the people we were reunited with.

...Actually I'm going to post this and he'll edit it when he can.

The Food...

It seems like most of our trip centered around food...and for good reason. Toronto is described as a stained-glass window, not a melting pot. It's pretty sweet, there are sections around town dedicated to each region of the world. There was even a little Portugal. So with all these people living in their own little communities, they have the best restaurants. Jeremy seemed to know where the best places were, so we just followed him around and ate, ate, ate.

Here was some fruit we picked up in China town. Mangostein, lychee fruit, and another one. So weird, but pretty delicious.

We had the most delicious greek food. Sooooooo good. We went to a restaurant named "Astoria" on Danforth Street. This was flaming cheese. They brought it to the table and lit it on fire. Opa!

We love love love greek salad. This salad was AWESOME.

Oh my goodness. OOOOOOOh my goodness. I LOVE these things. I ate these little delicious things (natas) when I was in Portugal. We found some in little Portugal and I think I ate the whole box.

Also my favorite from Portugal, pineapple fanta. I've been dreaming about this stuff for so long and I was so excited to find some in little Portugal. I brought home 4 bottles and it was gone in days.

This really was the best brownie I have ever had.

Mmmmmm, Chinese noodles (China town was crazy). My lunch was delicious and Mae thought her bottle was really delicious.

Korean barbecue. You cook it at your table and I was amazed at how I liked it. We think a restaurant like this would do well in Provo.

The Sights...

We're on our way! Mae was eating up every word of Harry Potter. She was a great little traveler.

O, Canada! We flew into Detroit, and then drove to Toronto. It made for a long travel day, but the drive was beautiful.

Here we are at Casa Loma. We went up here to check it out, but to actually go through it is super expensive. So we sat on the grass, closed our eyes, read from the guide book about it, and imagined how it looked. I think it probably looked better in our imagination then in real life. We had a ball on the grass playing with Mae. Here are some pictures of us.

Mae and her dad.


Mae and her cool smart mom.

When they pulled our rental car around, all we could say was "are you serious?" Here is Jayson, looking so much like a cop in front of our cop car.

Later that night, there was the poorest fireworks display we'd ever seen. We still aren't sure why they had fireworks; our best guess was because it was 07/07/07. We paid $12 to park and there wasn't a place to use the bathroom anywhere unless you paid another $12 to get into a scandalous looking party. I thought I might die. Jayson took a picture of my grove of trees, if you're interested in seeing it.

As lame as they were, we were still happy to see some fireworks since we'd missed them on the 4th of July.

Mae looked adorable at the fireworks.

We felt like Mae was the queen while we were out there. She just looked like one as she rode around in her stroller.

One place we really loved was cabbage town. It is a quaint little neighborhood with a bunch of queen anne homes. If we lived in Toronto, I would live here.

We also spent some time at a farmers market. I loved the sights and sounds of it all. I kept dreaming of all the things I could make, but I knew it wouldn't make it home. I hear they have a farmers market in Salt Lake, and I hope to make it before the season is done.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Mae. I love how big her head looks. Perspective is everything, huh?

This was our last picture in Toronto. The posters are for the band Interpol and their new album. We were super jazzed to see it, because our very talented brother-in-law shot the pictures for the album art. We felt like we had met a celebrity. Way to go, Seth.