Toronto Trip: Part Two

Alright! On to the Toronto portion of our trip (the last portion was in Belleville, Ontario)!
    On our drive into Toronto, we made two stops: one at the "Big Apple" in Colborne, Ontario and another in Ajax, Ontario where we saw the beautiful Agard Sisters. For those who are unfamiliar with Southern Ontario (which would probably be the majority of you), the "Big Apple" is a quirky little theme...area ("theme park" isn't quite accurate) that has a gigantic red sphere that's meant to be an apple, a huge gift shop, a restaurant that mostly just sells apple pies, and a random collection of rabbits and llamas.

   And apparently, the rabbits are wild and shouldn't be touched. It was hard for me to envision anything but that terrifying killer rabbit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail when I saw that. So since we stopped at the "Big Apple" during this trip, it won't be necessary to stop on subsequent trips, having pretty much experienced it all this time around.


   Our next stop was Ajax, Ontario where the Agard sisters, Alicia and Tiffany, live. During the first 3 weeks of my mission, my companion and I knocked on the Agards' door in the few spare minutes we had before our next schedule appointment started. They let us in, we taught the message of the Restoration, and even though Alicia and Tiffany's mom wasn't interested, she let us come back and teach her daughters. We taught them for a few months, they got baptized, and after a little while moved from Toronto's West End out to Ajax. On our last visit, we didn't get to spend very much time with them, so it was nice to hang out with them and have some fun this time. After they fed us a delicious (and huge!) meal, we went 5-pin bowling, which was an exciting new experience for us. The pins are spread pretty far apart, so getting a strike takes strategy and skill and is almost impossible for me! It was also cool to have a much smaller ball and to get three attempts instead of two. The scoring system was also super interesting and foreign so I was really grateful that between Alicia, Tiffany, and their cute little sister Kelly, it was all taken care of.

Aren't these two so gorgeous?!

This method proved to be really effective for most of us.

I stinkin' love these girls!

Beautiful Tiffany, you are so adorable!

And of course, Jeff has to be creepy.

And creepier....

This gives you a pretty good idea of how far apart the pins are and how small the balls are.

Once I finally got the hang of things, I had a lot of fun.

All three Agard girls. They're so great.

    After we went bowling, we hit up the Dairy Queen to get a delicious blizzard. As we were walking in, I heard this man say, with the thickest Canadian accent I've ever heard, "Oh ya, that's really somethin', eh?" and I tried to stifle my laughter. I would've expected something like that further east of Toronto, but certainly not in Ajax. The blizzards were delicious, though, and the company was fantastic!

    It was so wonderful to see these gorgeous girls again. And did I mention that they're both super smart? They're both excelling in school, Alicia in her pre-med classes and Tiffany in her law classes. They're both interested in coming down to BYU sometime in the next couple of years and I think they'd have a blast. 


    Once we got back to Toronto, there were new friends and an adventure waiting for us! We were staying with our friends Jeanna and Warren Wilson and their awesome kids, one of whom celebrated a birthday during our trip! We decided to do a barbecue on Saturday night and just spend some good time together. Before the barbecue started, though, Jeanna and her fantastic friend Beth were making chocolate figs to sell at the Art Gallery of Ontario's Picasso exhibit.

     So as far as I understand it (and I asked LOTS of questions), the figs are filled from the bottom with a lavender ganache until they're full and round, then dipped in dark chocolate to cover the hole and add another layer of chocolate-y goodness. Amazing, right? We got to sample one after dinner and it was delicious! I even got to bring home one of the defective figs and enjoy it all over again!


     While the chocolates were being packaged, some one had the idea to turn on "Madagascar 2", which is literally one of my favorite movies (Chris Traeger, anyone?), and one that Beth hadn't ever seen before. She ended up liking it a lot, so when Jeff and I ran to the grocery store to pick up my favorite kind of juice that I can only seem to get in Canada, we also picked up some Gummy Madagascar Penguins for Beth. :)


     Before I skip ahead too much, I have to talk about dinner! There was a misunderstanding involving Shawarma-which wasn't as funny in the moment, but is really funny in retrospect. Either way, we got some delicious shawarmas (I actually got falafel, but whatev) from one of my favorite places to eat in the world.

     COLLEGE FALAFEL!!!!!!

   When I was serving in this area we ate a college falafel a few times, one of which was during a world cup game Portugal was playing in. They scored this huge, game-winning goal, and within a matter of minutes the street was filled with Portugal fans. They even had to take the street cars off the the street! Good times.


   So we ate our delicious shawarma and hung out in the Wilsons' backyard til it got to be too dark.

My poor feet were super swollen, so Jeff was kind enough to rub them for me.

Isn't she so gorgeous?

That Warren is a lucky guy.

It was really great that Darilynn was able to make it.

     Jeff and I had such a blast hanging out with everyone and were pretty exhausted by the end of the night. It was a little hard to wake up in time for church on Sunday morning, since I'm used to church happening at 1pm, but Toronto ward meets at 9am. Ouch. I managed, though, and it was nice to attend Toronto ward again, but as a member this time instead of a missionary. It was also the very first time that a complete stranger touched my belly! It was kind of like a hit and run-she just came up to me, touched my belly, said "awww" and walked off! I didn't even have time to stop her or react to her before she took off. So weird.

    After church we went to one of my favorite members' house for lunch and she made us some delicious Chinese dumplings. As a missionary, I was always excited to get an invitation to Chen Jie's house for lunch because it was always delicious. She not only makes delicious Chinese food, but she also made the most amazing hamburger I'd ever eaten in my life. I actually call them "Bugers O'Life" and have been recreating and enjoying them for myself ever since. Food aside, though, our lunch with Chen Jie was really great. We caught up, talked about her family and some of the other missionaries that served with me, and just had a really nice time overall.


    For dinner, we had plans to go out to Scarborough and eat with the Burns family. The Burns were about to send their oldest on a mission and were having a farewell party at their house. So we got to see them as well as several other people that I knew while serving in Scarborough.

Beautiful Sister Burns!

President Burns cracks me up.

I love these people!

     I was completely exhausted and just about fell asleep on the couch while at the Burns' home. We decided to take off so I could rest, and headed back to the Wilson's. When we were just about there, I decided that I really wanted to do our "Pilgrim"-age that I had been planning for a while but we didn't get to do on Thursday because of the misplaced bag situation. One of our new favorite movies is called "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" and it was set and filmed entirely in Toronto. I had researched some of the locations from the movie that were in my first area in Toronto. After choosing 5 locations (all of which were pretty close together), I made a map with stars indicating each location, and a little box in the corner explaining what happened there. I got some bad info on where Scott and Wallace's apartment was, but the rest of the locations were good. We didn't have time to get to all of them, since I was still really tired and needed to rest.

   So here's the Pizza Pizza and Honest Ed's at the corner of Bathurst and Bloor:

 

And the shot from the movie:

      This is Lee's Palace (obviously), where Scott had to fight the first evil ex, Matthew Patel.

      Here's "Insomnia" the coffee shop also at Bathurst and Bloor.

 

And the shot from the movie. The phone booth wasn't there anymore.

     And here's the school that Knives Chau attends in the movie. It's actually an all-boys school named St. Mike's at Bathurst and St. Clair

  And here's the shot from the movie:

    Pretty cool, eh? We certainly thought so. :)


    So once we had completed our "Pilgrim"-age, we went back to the Wilsons' house and rested while we waited for them to come back from their Mother's Day visit. Once they did, we had a really great time talking, telling stories, and...

...impersonating Asians. I love this family.


    The next day was our last in Toronto and also Jeff's birthday! I packed his gift in our suitcase and made him wait until his birthday to open it.

    I got Jeff a watch! He lost his at some point during the Harry Potter premier last July and hasn't had one since. But that wasn't the only birthday surprise for Jeff Beatty!

   Jeanna made Waffles!

That's Jeff's b-day waffle stack. Also, that's REAL maple syrup I'm handing to him. SO DELICIOUS!

The waffles were so hot that they melted Jeff's b-day candle.

  We got to sing happy birthday to Jeff and let him blow out his candle. Then we ate as many waffles as we could. They were amazing!

Aww! Look at those cute Beattys. They just woke up.

The kids even made a nice sign for Jeff!

   We had to leave shortly after breakfast so we could return our rental car and get to the airport on time. It was harder to say goodbye this time than I remember it being last time. Even though I was missing our friends, our house, and Provo, I felt really at home with the Wilsons and the O'Neills in Canada. I'm really looking forward to going back again soon with Baby Henry.

  On the way out we made one quick stop at my favorite Portuguese bakery.

   I couldn't leave Toronto without getting some orange bread to bring back to Utah with us. I also got some lemon poppy seed bread and banana chocolate chip bread. I absolutely love this bakery!


  At the airport while we were waiting for our flight we decided to grab something to eat. And what's more Canadian than Pizza Pizza?

    The rest of our trip was pretty smooth and uneventful. It was pretty great to be back in an airport in the states because they had a 5 Guys. The only downside was that there wasn't any fry sauce. I guess even though the 5 Guys in Orem has fry sauce, they don't all have fry sauce. Jeff was impressed with how "localized" the Orem 5 Guys was because they had assimilated that aspect of Utah culture. Anyway, we made it home safe and sound. I'm so grateful to my sweetheart for giving me this trip. It was really great to see everyone and to have that extra love and support before our Little Man is born.


   So for all of you readers who are my beloved Canadian peeps, thank you for letting me see you and for your friendship and kindness.
  For everyone else, thanks for reading! I hope our trip was at least half as interesting to you as it was to us!