Day one....Niagra Falls

Well, it was 4th of July weekend, and a long weekend, so ideally it is the "perfect" weekend to go and see some sights near to our home. We decided that we would like to see Niagra Falls and then head to Palmyra, NY (home to many church history sights), the following day. Lets just say that traveling with kids you are always up for a surprise and this trip was no different. We headed out around 4 pm on Thursday and drove to Buffalo, New York where we had our hotel reservations. Not long into our 5 hour trip was Briggs asking if we are going to be there yet...."it's going to be a Loooonnnnnngggg trip and the sooner you go to sleep the sooner we will be there!" That was uttered many times by myself and Cory but you know what, those two boys sharing the back seat stayed up for 4 1/2 hours only to fall asleep 20 minutes before our final destination. Little stinkers!!


So we got the little rascals into bed (which was a pretty smooth transition) and finally got to sleep by midnight. The next morning began around 6 am with the little Brooklyn girl who woke up and was not feeling well, Ethan had a bad cough and wasn't feeling all that great either but none-the-less, we ate breakfast and headed out around 8 that morning en-route to Niagra. It was a good thing we carried some cash because there are a TON of toll booths in New York--my goodness!!!



Anyway, the falls were beautiful. Before heading to the Maid of Mist we all used the restrooms (Cory thinks this part is TMI but I think it is funny). As I came out of the restroom we headed to go stand in line and Cory, who was walking behind me, is laughing hysterically at me. I kept asking "WHAT???? WHAT???" finally he stopped laughing enough to tell me that I had toilet paper dragging on the ground behind my jacket--oh boy!! That was a first for me and I couldn't believe it!! I must have picked that up from that toilet paper I line on the toilet (apparently that's TMI to Cory but all of the women out there know you do it :-) and my long jacket must have caught it.  Anyhow, it was pretty funny and we got a good laugh out of it.









So we headed to the Maid of Mist, which should have more properly been named the Hurricane Horseshoe, as we literally were completely drenched with water and winds from the falls. I'm not sure if the highlight of the boat ride was Brooklyn, who cried the entire time to which Cory describes holding her as if he was holding a slippery banana peel as she fought wearing that blue poncho and the rain. I guess we shouldn't have rode on top of the boat. Cory got some great video but during the huge downpour and the tantrum-throwing Brooklyn (who could blame her) our video camera fell and broke. (Cory was NOT happy to say the least; but I guess now is a good time to get that new digital video camera I have been asking about for the past year--ie. the silver lining to the cloud) Briggs didn't enjoy it all that much as he had to use the bathroom and every minute I kept hearing "I need to go peee!!!!!" (I'm not exaggerating when I say that that little boy needed to pee every half-hour...oh boy!!) Finally we went down below to the deck to get some reprieve from the storm and in search of the bathroom that I knew did not exist on this particular boat. Cory decided that since there were no bathrooms we would stand around Briggs and he can pee through the little space on the boat between the side and floor; and it did the trick (though, I realize, is not ideal!) After we departed the Maid of Mist we headed up to take some pictures of the falls and Cory tried to fix our video camera (that's a whole other story--love you hun).






We decided we needed a break and we were all hungry and grumpy and it was only 10:45. Lunch time I guess. We headed to the car and ate some sandwiches. We decided that since we had bought tickets for the aquarium (which I thought would probably be quite amazing) we had better go and let the boys enjoy that. We take the trolly over there and it is just this little building (definitely not sea world). We walk in to the stench of penguins and literally we could go through the entire aquarium in 15 minutes. Cory highly recommends it and says it was Buffalo's finest ;-). Anyway...they did have a little seal and magic show that the boys enjoyed. After that we decided it was time to head back to the hotel. We got some dinner and took the kids swimming which they all enjoyed. What a day!! Cory fell asleep with the boys at 7 and he slept all night long. I reluctantly turned out the light at 8:45 with the comment under my breath that I've not gone to bed this early in years. It was a good thing....