Sunday was a rainy day, so luckily we had big plans for Saturday instead. We were up at a decent hour (especially for a weekend) and we headed up to Saint-Sauveur, a charming area in the Laurentians outside of Montreal which is a tourist haven year-round, but especially in the Winter thanks to its numerous ski hills and chalets.

George is in more than one band, and one of the drummers was having a party at his house up there. He asked the band to come and play – no pay, but lots of food, the use of his (fabulous!) pool, and a good time. He also told George to be sure to bring his family, which was really nice since I had spoken to him on the phone a few times but had never actually met him in person.

We had a great day. It started off a bit rocky because Quebec is an idiotic province that figures it’s a good idea to do construction on every single possible route to a major destination. What should have been a one-hour drive North ended up taking us two and a half hours, complete with cursing and muttering. We grabbed a quick lunch just outside of Sauveur, then made our way to the party.

The upside was that we didn’t have to figure out how to entertain ourselves in town while waiting for the party to start – by the time we made it there, the band simply set up, the kids and I hopped into the pool, and the live music started.

They played several sets, with a few other people joining in on guitar, harmonica, and vocals – the guy playing harmonica found out that Breanna loves that instrument and gave her a spare that he had. She was in heaven. Meanwhile, we swam until our lips turned blue, ate tons of corn on the cob, grilled hot dogs & burgers, salads galore, and had a wonderful time.

At one point when the sun was hitting that magical “golden hour”, I took the girls for a walk and took a few shots along the way. After the sun set I expected to be attacked by mosquitoes, but for some reason they didn’t bother us at all, even without bug spray (chlorine maybe?), and when the band finally called it a night we had even more food when the hostess brought out platters of cheese, crackers, fruit, and pies.

We left a little past 11 and got home (after dropping George’s amp off at his parents’ house) around 12:30 a.m. Breanna had passed out within five minutes of driving. Hayley managed to hang in for about 20 minutes before she fell asleep too. Neither one was impressed to be woken up when we got home but we got them upstairs and into bed fairly easily.

It was a really great way to spend the day. Everyone was so nice, and I spent a lot of time talking to one woman in particular who also had a Canon dSLR camera (the 40D) – that was really nice because usually I’m the only one with a “big-ass camera (TM)” and people sometimes look strangely at me when I’m lying on the ground or climbing up on stuff to take pictures. It was great to spend a lot of time with someone who does the exact same thing.

I can definitely go for more weekends like that. You can see the full photo set over here if you’d like.