Day #8

We drove a lot this day.

 And I can't seem to rotate this picture...but Austin was bored...so he put silly putty all over his face!

We drove from Erie, PA to Kirkland, Ohio to visit my Aunt and Uncle on their mission.

 So of course we took a family picture.
We took a tour of the Newel K Whitney store and a few of the other church sites. The kids thought this checker board game was pretty cool because they used corn cobs to create the pieces on the board.

 We toured the temple also while we were there. It was different than what I thought it would be like. It was a testimony builder in so many ways. 

Then we went to lunch and had to say good bye to my brother and his amazing family! It was a sad, hard day. Many tears were shed :(

Then we drove and drove and drove...heading to Chicago.

  I took this picture just outside of Chicago. It was just a beautiful sunset.

Day #7...time is slipping away!

Today we went to church with my brother and his family.

Afterwards he took us on a little tour of Erie, PA. We were able to see the hospital where he works and the pier. Then we went to the peninsula that goes out into Lake Erie. It is 13.2 miles around it.

The kids loved every second of it!

They thought it was like the ocean, because you couldn't see land on the other side. Plus the waves can get up to 7 feet high and it has it's own tide.

The sunset was gorgeous!!!

And of course it just so happened that Saturday was my "long" run day...I was still in training for the Morgan Valley Half marathon. But because of time spent driving I ended up needing to do 10 miles this day. So I ran along the peninsula...it was amazing! They are a lot closer to sea level then we are in Utah, that alone helped shave 2 minutes off of my time. I'd move there just to run faster haha.

So of course I missed out on most of the water fun :(

But truly, who can go to Lake Erie and not get in it? I didn't have my swimsuit so I just dove in with my running clothes on. It was so refreshing after that long run. It was definitely one of the highlights of our trip.

After a fabulous day we went back to Dustin's house and ate more food :) played games and just relaxed. It was a good day!

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.