Hey Sibs, remember this day?

Remember how we met at the new D.C.  Shake Shack for lunch on a Saturday?  Then how we carpooled over to the National Mall to visit the Jefferson and the FDR monuments?   

Remember how Ruby wanted us to paused along the banks of the Potomac to take a quick picture that would include the Washington Monument?

Remember how I thought it was a National scandal that we don't have a monument to John Adams our second US president?  And how that prompted a bit of googling and explaining and analysis?  

Remember how hot it was?  Will the children ever remember the monuments or just the heat?

Remember how CZ wanted to take the picture below, and how we waited in line to have our turn to take it?

Oh yeah, did you remember how hot it was?  Did I already mention that?  Shade was like manna from heaven.  

Anyway, I love living close to you all.  I'm so glad we can gather impromptu like for lunch and sightseeing.  I love that it's D.C. that we're learning and exploring together.  I feel like the luckiest girl alive that we have landed so close to so many.  It's a gift.

The funny thing is, the olden-day mom, right before her family was leaving on a trip was probably making sandwiches to eat in the car, or making all of her important phone calls, since she was about to be away from her phone for a few days.  Or generally cleaning the house or ironing something maybe?  But the now-a-day mom is hurrying to update the blog about the last trip, because she's about to go on another trip, and who wants to come home to an out-of-date blog?

Funny how olden-days compare to now-a-days.  Know what I mean?!  See you in a few!  But unlike my olden-day counter part, you can still reach me by phone should there be a communication emergency that a text wouldn't suffice for (wink!).

We went to Niagara Falls. Two weeks and five days ago, to be precise.

After a two and a half-week blog break I'm ready to wrap up our Trip North.  Since getting back, the girls and I have packed up and left and come back again from another trip!  This time we set out for Indiana to visit my cousin Lisa.  It was an adventure.  I love the freedom of summer that allows for a spontaneous decision like, "I'm going to drive to Indiana today".  I'm also glad that Darin did  most of the driving to and from New York, so that I wasn't burnt out of that task!  And after our five days in Indiana, we came home for a few days, and then Darin and I went off on a little two day trip to Charlotte, sans kids!

Anyway, back to the pictorial evidence of our trip to Niagara:

This is the view from the top of the falls.  But from my memory of being there 24 years ago, I knew that there was a much more exotic view to be had, if we'd sign up for the Cave of the Winds tour.

We kind of had to walk a long way to get to the Cave of the Winds tour, and it was another hot summer day.  Spirits were getting low, and people were skeptical that it would really be worth it.

We found a little spot along the trail where I said, "look children, you can say you got into Niagara Falls!".  And so they all took their shoes off to cool off.  But I did get slightly nervous picturing one of my little ladies slipping on the rocks, and being swept off and over the falls.  So everyone was forced out of the cool water!  

People started reviving a bit when ponchos were handed out, and special issue sandals became mandatory footwear!  Suddenly they believe me that maybe something was about to happen at Niagara Falls!

We descended in a huge elevator, and suddenly we walked out at the bottom of The Falls.  Suddenly smiles started to appear again.  Also because maybe the temperature dropped about fifteen degrees down there at water level.

Henry gets sprayed by Niagara Falls with Canada in the background!

Look at how close they are!!  

We kept climbing up to the next higher level which was called "The Hurricane Deck".  It was so loud you had to scream to be heard.  And I didn't dare take the camera out because it would have been drenched.  The boys took off their poncho hoods and simply stood on the hurricane deck getting soaked to the bone.   It was wild and crazy.

Soaked to the bone.

Here I am telling George he can kiss me for taking him so close to Niagara Falls.  I had to show him what a kiss was.  

We forgot our passports, so we couldn't venture over to the Canadian side.  The New York side feels a little bit like a strange mixture of shanty town and some International airport.  Weird.  We ate at the Hard Rock cafe.  But after that, there wasn't really anything left to do.  We looked at our watches and it was 5pm.  A quick google map search revealed that we could be back at Steve's house in 8 hours.  Darin felt the urge to get us back home.  To be done hotel hopping.  A quick text to Steve said,  "See you around 2am!  Don't wait up, but if you don't mind leaving the door unlocked, we'd be ever so grateful!"  I think we actually made it around 12:30am, and they were still up.  They had even arranged all the bed, pillows and blankets, so that we could literally fall into bed.  It was possibly the best night of sleep we had had all week long!

And just like that, our trip North became our return trip to the South.  Every great vacation has to come to an eventual close.  We had a grand time.  It was all that I had hoped it would be, and even a few surprise bonuses along the way.  I think the kids loved it.  Now to start dreaming of where to drive to next summer...

P.S.  "The Sisters" are over at Christine's this week, in case you are looking for a more current account of our happenings.  Hurry, click!

Thursday was for PLAYing

We woke up Thursday morning at 10am.  The entire family, in one hotel room, slept until 10am!  We must have been tired.  When we finally rolled out of our beds, we settled on powdered sugar donuts and hot chocolate made using the hotel room coffee maker!  Did you know you could do that?  We didn't either.  Once everyone was full, we let the kids go for one last swim, and I did my second of two vacation, hotel-treadmill-runs.  That was the goal, and it was accomplished.  We let Darin stay back in the room and figure out what the plan for Thursday should be.

When we got back, he had everything packed up so we checked-out.  We vaguely thought we were going to head north already towards Niagara Falls, since that was the last place on our vacation to-do list.  But when we unexpectedly decided to drive around the block of our downtown Rochester, NY hotel (so we could say we "saw" Rochester), we happened upon the National Museum of Play.  Darin and I looked at each other, did a quick google search to see what it was all about, and when we saw that it was featuring an exhibit called "The history of video games", we were sure that the NMoP would have something for everyone.  And just like that, our plan for the day changed.  Oh how I love vacation!

In beautiful Downtown Rochester, NY 

The kids were thrilled with our last minute change of plans.

The highlight ended up being this wacky room that is designed on a tilt, and has so many patterns on the walls and the floors that instantly your equilibrium is out-of-whack, and you go crashing into the walls.  The kids couldn't get enough of it.

Sometimes playing is super serious business.  See below. 

Do you recognize where Ruby is standing?

She's on Sesame Street!

And we all got a kick out of sitting in front of the green screen and making it appear as if we were sitting and talking to muppets.  

And a huge part of our time was spent in the best mini-grocery store we have ever seen.  This one was seriously at the top of it's class.  Complete with the final receipt printing out and everything.  The girls were in heaven.

It's was a charming and relaxing day.  We shut the museum down.  When it closed, we left.  We were just a couple hours away from Niagara Falls, so we started driving north so that we could wake up Friday morning at The Falls.

Come back for Friday's update when I finally get to take my family to Niagara Falls.  Something I've been dreaming of, ever since I had a family ;)

Wednesday was awesome.

Late on Monday, I got an email from best friend Kim Newton saying that their family had just landed in Buffalo, NY, and that it seemed like somehow we could meet up somewhere along the way.  We zeroed in on Wednesday as the ideal day for both of our families to be in Palmyra.

What a treat!  We've spent a portion of our summer vacations with the Newtons for past three years in a row.  It only seemed right that we'd find a way to insect this summer too.  We met up at the Hill Cumorah visitor center.  After watching a movie inside, we all walked up to the top of the super steep hill.

Then back down to stake out the perfect seats to watch the pageant, later that night.  

There was lots of walking and talking...

Followed by lunch at "Brad and Dad's".  Followed by the tour of the printing house, where the first 5000 copies of the Book of Mormon were published.  Somehow we didn't end up with a single picture there?!

And finally we walked into the Sacred Grove.  

After a full day together, we had to send the Newtons off.  They were on their way to their grandma's 60th birthday celebration.  

After our good-bye, and "see you next summer", we went and checked into a hotel in Rochester.  We let the kids swim and relax a bit.  Then we drove back to Palmyra to watch the long anticipated Palmyra Pageant!

We were not disappointed.  That is a great show!

The pageant ended around 10:45pm.  Another hour to get out of the parking lot and back to the hotel, I'm pretty sure it was Wednesday night when George announced to the family, as we all laid down to try to fall asleep, "Hey look everyone, the clock says 12:34am!  Get it, 1-2-3-4!"

It was maybe the longest day of our vacation, but it was also one of the greatest!  So many fun things all piled into one epic day, as George would say.

Baseball Hall of Fame Tuesday.

We helped make one of Darin's dreams come true today.  I'm not sure having his whole family with him as he toured the BBHoF was part of his dream, but he was a good sport about it.  No doubt he should be writing this update, but he's snoring in the hotel bed right now.

Suffice it to say, I have a bit more insight into why he was voting for the names "Henry" and "George" all those many years ago...

The internet is going way too slow for me to want to upload anymore photos.  But so far, Cooperstown wins the prize for being the most charming New England town we've seen on this trip.  It's to die for!  I have more pictures.  Hopefully I'll add them...I wish I were snoring in the hotel bed right now too.

The trip begins.

Monday morning we woke up at our cousins house in VA.  We wanted to start from a more northern position for our grand trek northward, so we drove to their house Sunday evening.  Waking up with cousins is always a good time:

By lunchtime we were in Gettysburg, PA.  This trip to Gettysburg felt so different to me.  I know I went several times as a kid, and I studied it for a year in 8th grade.  But I'm not sure I really felt much about it until this trip.  We might need to frame the Gettysburg address...

I am quite certain this trip to Gettysburg didn't have the same affect on my children.  But I will not give up on them.  Besides, I can hardly blame them, they knew that Gettysburg was the stop right before Hershey!

Where Henry and George got selected to be official kid taste testers...

And we all went on the "create your own candy bar" tour.  

Umm...it was all very delicious.

  

The day ended at a Cracker Barrel outside of Scranton, PA.  Which set us up nicely to be at the Baseball Hall of Fame first thing Tuesday morning.