Day #6

A funny little story about the night we spent in Rochester...My 2 year old nephew lost his binky that night, we thought he left it at T.G.I.F, needless to say it was a rough night for my sister's family. At some point she said "just let Noah do what ever he wants, let him sleep wherever he wants." He took his pillow and went over to the closest, opened it up and put his pillow inside and said he wanted to sleep in there. So she let him. Her husband laid down beside him and fell asleep too. So here is my sister in this big King size bed while her husband and 2 year old slept in the closest...too funny!

Also...Austin forgot his belt...so he made one out of his handcuffs! What a smart kid :) p.s. He started to feel better by day #3. His hips and joints just stopped hurting and was symptom free the rest of the trip!!!

The next morning we drove to The Hill Cumorah. The pageant was the week after we were there. They have a great visitors center, we watched a short movie about families. Then we climbed the hill.

This is the monument they have at the top.

The kids had a great time rolling down the hill.

Walking down the hill, it was so steep we had to walk sideways.

This is the stage being set up for the pageant.

The visitors center.

Just a quick picture in the parking lot of Paige, Cora, and Kambree.

Next we drove over to Palmyra, New York. We saw the historical homes there and then went to the Sacred Grove.

Then we drove over to the Palmyra temple.

This is the only temple that has glass in the windows that you can see out of. The view out of them is to the Sacred Grove. It is amazing!

It was a long day of walking, so we drove back to my brothers house and just hung out, played games and ate lots of good food.

Day #5...vacation is half way over :(

Time sure does fly...today was the half way point, how sad is that! 

Today we woke up and drove to Niagara Falls, New York. It wasn't too bad of a drive. But once again the toll bridges were EVERYWHERE! 

We went to this place called "Whirlpool National Park", I think. Anyways, it is a little ways down from the famous water falls. The kids loved it. But it kind of scared me a little to see how high up we were and how fast the water was going.

 Across the way is Canada! Pretty cool huh :)

 If you look really hard you can see a tram that goes from one side of the cliffs to the other. We didn't ride on it, it was on the Canadian side :) But it was fun to watch.

 This is the famous whirlpool...they do jet boat tour rides right next to it.

 And now some family pics...

We ate a picnic lunch here too, this is what the boys did when they were done...

 Everett wasn't into getting his picture taken.

Then we went to see the falls. Apparently it was the busiest weekend they have all year long. It was worth the long wait though.

We took a ride on the "Maid of the Mist" boat. It was the only real way to see the falls without going to the Canadian side. It was pretty pricey...but totally worth it!

 They gave us these very fashionable blue baggies to wear.

 You can kind of see the big boat behind Paige in this picture.

And these are the pictures from the boat...so glad we had the rain ponchos on!

After the boat tour we had to walk back up the cliffs...we got just as wet on this trail as we did on the boat.

(look really hard, you can see a little trail of blue ponchos)

After this big adventure we drove to Buffalo, New York and had dinner at T.G.I.Fridays. Our original plan was to stay the night in Niagara Falls, but some miscommunication happened and our hotel was on the Canadian side...not good. So we booked a room in Rochester, New York instead. It ended up working out for the better, we were half way to Palmyra, it was a lot nicer hotel and a little cheaper, yeah! The kids will forever remember the waiter we had that night. We were the only people in the restaurant, and he would give us funny trivia  questions to answer, parents verse kids. After dinner was over he gave us all ice cream sundaes. After dinner we drove to Rochester and had enough time to let the kids swim a little. It was a busy day.

Day #4

We made it to my brothers house and actually slept in :) until 9:00  am that is haha. 

It was so good to see him and his family. We haven't seen them in almost 18 months.

We started the day off going to an amusement park called "Waldameer". It has a water park along with the regular rides. The kids loved the water park, we played there for 2 hours then had a picnic lunch. Then off to the rides. The highlight was the "Ravine Flyer", it is a HUGE wooden roller coaster with a 90 degree turn. It was crazy fast!

 After a fun day at the amusement park we went and changed clothes and drove to Findley, New York. At Findley Lake we ate dinner, let off Chinese lanterns, watched as people lit flares all around the lake, watched fireworks, and just enjoyed family time. It was a perfect 4th of July!!!!

 We even caught some fire flies.

Can you see the flares they light up around all the docks?

And the lanterns were a huge hit among everyone.

 

Such a perfect day! A picture of all the cousins :)