La Gaspésie – Gaspé coast

If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile you must have read or picked-up on the fact the I am from Québec. People outside of Canada call us French Canadian. People from Canada call us Quebeckers. We call ourselves Québécois.

Emily was also born in Québec.

It’s really cute when she says “I’m French you know”… She says it in English… 😊

Almost 10 years ago, my mom sold the house where I grew up and moved closer to her family.

When Emily was younger, we would go home (my home) once or twice a year.

Over the last 10 years, Emily made it to the Gaspé coast maybe twice…

I miss it and I know my mom misses it too. It’s difficult to go back home when there is no longer a home there. We only go home for funerals and last November, after the latest funeral, I told mom we had to make a trip just for fun.

So this past August, we did it!

I packed suitcases for Emily and I and left home super early one morning. Mom hopped on the bus around the same time and we all met 5 hours later in Carleton.

We ate breakfast and went up the Mont St-Joseph (altitude of 555m). We drove up and I will forever be in aw of the people walking, running and biking up there!

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After that we continued the drive to my hometown of Paspébiac.

We spent the week driving around the south part of the Gaspé coast, walking through towns & hiking trails and speaking French.

For the first time in Emily’s life, she went to bed willingly at night. Exhausted physically from the walking around and exhausted mentally from the French speaking.

I knew she understood French. I knew she could kinda speak it but I had no idea how good she was. She speaks mostly English at home and knows we understand English but in Paspébiac or Percé… I made her speak French! She was awesome.

Here are some pictures of our week!

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It was awesome to play tourists at home!

I ate fresh crab every single time I could.

If you are ever considering traveling that way, let me know, I know all the best spots!

Carlena Britch – Have you heard of her?

This might look like a strange title but I am going somewhere with this.

So, if you don’t know who Carlena Britch is, check it out. She’s on twitter, facebook and instagram.

I also found this post about her:

http://www.christinadun.com/2012/07/dancer-in-spotlight-carlena-britch.html

She was on So You Think You Can Dance Canada a couple of years ago. This was one of our favorite performance.

Why am I telling you all that?

Is she a friend I am trying to promote? No, she’s not. She doesn’t know me, Emily or Jonathan. She has most likely never heard of the Cri Du Chat Syndrome either…

Emily and I discovered her when she was on SYTYCDC.

I was trying to get Emily interested in dancing. Not to do it, just for her to see the beauty in different styles and recognize the art of dancing as something beautiful…

Emily and I watched the tv show and picked Carlena as our favorite. She didn’t win the competition but for us, she was the best.

We liked her so much that Emily named one of her American girl doll after her.

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Our Carlena doesn’t look like the real one but both of them are dancers! 🙂

Although Emily’s doll is named Carlena, we kinda forgot about the real Carlena until…

During the holidays, we saw the latest Justin Bieber movie. I know, you all have an opinion on Justin Bieber and this is not a post to argue or discuss my daughter’s love for him… This is a post about Emily and Carlena.

While watching the movie, we realized Carlena was a dancer on Justin’s last Tour. We were both quite happy to see her there and Emily couldn’t wait to tell her doll all about it!

Than, it happened.

I believed we discovered her on So You Think You Can Dance the US show and Emily believed it was on the Canadian show.

We left it at that! Or so I thought!

Earlier this week, I was reading in bed, Jonathan was napping and Emily was quiet in her room.

Suddenly, Emily walked in and asked me to come in her room. Here is how the conversation went.

Emily: Mom can you come to my room?

Me: Why?

Emily: I want to show you something?

Me: What?

Emily: Carlena, she was on So You Think You Can Dance Canada

Me: You found her on you tube?

Emily: Yes! I was right! …So… You were wrong!!!

She turned around and walked out of the room.

Jonathan and I laughed than I confirmed that this part of her personality was coming from him! 🙂

And this is why I am talking to you about Carlena Britch.

Months after we discovered her, Emily not only remembered her, she remembered the exact name of the tv show she was on, she managed to find her on You Tube and proved me wrong in my statement that she was on the US tv show.

If thats not a big achievement I am not sure what is!