Last Day and a FIND!

Last day of our vacation and we have to drive 550 miles home.  We stopped off to try one more geocache before we left Niagara - success!!  Finally!  We dropped a geocoin off we had found and headed home.  What a great vacation! 

Niagara Falls - vacation day 7!

We actually slept in a little this morning, thank you Bristol!  Then it was off to Maid of the Mist.  The park was so crowded - people everywhere.  It took a while, but we finally made it on a boat.  The power of the falls is just crazy!  They are spectacular!

 It took a little bit of convincing to get Bristol in her baby rain jacket, but we finally got it on her.

 American Falls, Bridal Veil Falls and Tyler!

 Horseshoe Falls

 This baby got soaked!  She loved it!

After a quick stop at the observation deck it was off to Cave of the Winds and another long line!

 After Bristol realized we weren't trying to suffocate her with the rain jacket, she let us put this one on a little better.

 Of course Tyler got a bloody nose just as we were headed up!  He gets them all.the.time.

 I wasn't getting wet!

 The hurricane deck was crowded!!

 

 After going back up we enjoyed the view for a bit while this one slept in her stroller!  This never happened before!

 We took a quick lunch break back at the hotel and oh look, a selfie!  We haven't had one of these all vacation!

 And a new one for you - a foot selfie with her Cave of the Winds sandals. 

 Tj and the kids headed over to Canada while I stayed in the U.S.A. with Bristol (we never got her a passport).   She chased a lot of seagulls and wouldn't stay out of the lemonade.

I was thinking about going over after they came back, but I think the pictures were good enough.
It is a different view from over there.  Very cool.

 Two Countries at the same time!

We watched the Niagara movie and learned some cool facts about the falls.  We were pretty much exhausted at this point and there were still millions of people around, so we headed out to try another geocache - again it didn't go so well.  We were striking out this vacation!  It was a nice walk though.

Strong Museum of Play and Niagara - vacation day 6!

We decided at the last minute to take the kids to the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester.  We hadn't planned on it, but the drive to Niagara isn't too far and we had all day.  Wow - what a cool place that was!  The kids loved it, to say the least.  If we lived there, we'd be there every day!

 Bristol sure did love pushing that cart around!  She didn't want any help - if you dared to try and touch that cart - watch out!

 Check out time!

 I really liked how the museum is also a public library.  There were library books all over the museum.  This would have been heaven for me when I was a kid!!

Then it was off to Niagara.  It took longer than it should have just due to a ton of traffic.  But, we got there in pretty good time and were happy to see that our hotel was directly across the street from the entrance to Niagara.  We had a good walk around the tourist area there and had some dinner.  We heard that there would be fireworks over the falls at 10pm.  Bristol's schedule was so messed up at this point she didn't know when she was supposed to be sleeping.  It was gorgeous!!!

 Bristol could not stop looking at the water and pointing at saying "was dat?"  It was so funny!

 It was SO beautiful!!  I couldn't stop taking pictures.

 The fireworks show was awesome.  What a fun night!  Can't wait to tour the falls tomorrow!!

Peter Whitmer Farm - vacation day 5

Thankfully it wasn't raining today - I don't know if I could have handled another day of rain!  We drove out to the Peter Whitmer farm in Waterloo.  I really liked this tour, too.  I loved all the stories the missionary had for us here.  So neat to hear some stories I'd never heard before.  

 The kids had a good time at the visitor's center here.  I did too!

 Loved the paintings hanging here.

After we were done we had a nice picnic lunch out front (Brena couldn't help herself, she had to climb a tree - she is a tree climber!) then headed back to Palmyra.

 We got back to Palmyra and found a park to try and do some geocaching - we didn't have any luck with that cache so we headed to the Martin Harris farm.  This house isn't owned by the church, someone lives there, so you can't go in.  But, the signs say feel free to look all around.  So, we did.

Then it was off to finally use the $20 the nice man gave us for ice cream, and back to the hotel.