We set out on an adventure with the kids to make a tour of the Northeastern United States. Our main stay was going to be in New York City to visit with Aunt Andrea and Uncle Chris, but we decided to add a few more stops to our big adventure. Our first stop was going to be in Niagara Falls. I had told Brinley about a week before our trip that we were go to see a "BIG" waterfall. She was so excited and asked me everyday until our trip if we were going to the waterfall that day. I was so glad that it was finally the day that I could take her to see it.
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| Headed off on our journey. Typically we would drive through the night to get to our destination, but we decided to wake up and begin our journey during the day. Jennifer and I always seemed to be so tired when we drove all though the night. |
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| Jennifer made a mistake with trying to fill up the kids cups with one of their favorite treats an icee. She ended up dumping in all her lap. We had to pull over to the side of the road so that she could clean herself up. It wasn't too long into our journey that our little travelers were passed out in the back seat. I sometimes miss the days of sleeping on car trips. |
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| We arrived at our hotel and unloaded the car and got the kids changed and then quickly headed to the big waterfall. I had previously been on the Maid of the Mist, but nobody else had. We quickly rushed to the ticket stand and got in on one of the last boats of the day. I had forgotten about how wet you actually get, but we all had a great time. We even spotted a rainbow too! |
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View of American Falls from the USA side.
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| The Heflin's at Niagara Falls. |
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| Little Landon loved hanging on this railing. He even attempted to climb over it a few times. |
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| My ladies looking at the powerful falls. |
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| My little mini me and I enjoying the falls. |
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| Next we decided to take a trip across the border to Canada. Apparently if you are under 16 you only need a birth certificate. We headed over and decided to check out the view from this side. However, both kids were kinda over waterfalls by now. We were able to get a few pictures together before calling it quits and heading to dinner. |
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My little diva decided to have a little photo shoot in Canada.
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| My beautiful wife and I. The last time we were visiting Niagara Falls was for our baby moon before Brinley was born. |
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| The kids overlooking the falls from America and Canada. |
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| We decided to try out a fun place for dinner. We headed over to the Rainforest Cafe. The kids were amazed with all the interactive animals and noises that were throughout the whole restaurant. |
It was getting late, but we drove by the falls again to see them all lit up at night. It was foggy so we decided to just drive by and not get out to take any pictures. The kids were exhausted so we headed to the hotel to call it a night. The next morning we had breakfast and then headed down to swim in the hotel pool.
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| The kids had a blast swimming in the pool. |
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| We were also too close to Buffalo that we had to stop at the Anchor Bar, which is the home of the original Buffalo Chicken Wing. They are delicious! Again if you are ever in the area you need to stop in and try some. Brinley said the wings were too spicy! |
Next we headed all the way across the state of New York to Schenectady to visit with my Aunt Mildred and her family. This is my dad's older sister whom we don't get to see as often as we would like. She always enjoys seeing pictures of the kids and she hadn't seen them since Andrea and Chris's wedding last year. Aunt Mildred was so excited to hear that we were coming to visit for a few days. Only other person I knew that would be this excited was the kid's cousin Nicki!
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| Both kids really enjoyed playing with Nicki. They played with Nicki's old dollhouse. Landon rocked in her old chair. Nicki even took them for a wagon ride in the neighborhood too. As you can see she even wore Landon out and he fell asleep watching cartoons. It was fun to see them interact. |
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| We were playing out on Aunt Mildred's deck and Brinley got Jennifer's phone and started taking pictures. She is actually a pretty good photographer. |
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| Aunt Mildred still hasn't adapted to all the new technology so the kids were teaching her how to use the iPad. Landon watched a little bit of the movie Frozen with her too. |
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| We were all able to go out to eat together at a family style Italian restaurant called Buca di Beppo. The whole gang was there: Gary, Pete, Aunt Mildred, the Heflin crew, Randy, Nicki and Shelia. |
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| We took the kids to a park one day and Aunt Mildred and Pete had so much fun seeing them run and play on all the different equipment. Jennifer and I really loved the rubber matting that they had throughout the playing area. It was so much better than the mulch that we have at the parks here in town. |
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| They also had a huge lake that was full of goldfish and ducks. Aunt Mildred brought some Cheerios for the kids to feed them with. Of course the kids loved seeing all the animals. |
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| The kids really enjoyed spending some time with their Great Aunt Mildred and Pete, but mostly I enjoyed getting to see them interact with the kids. Aunt Mildred even let Brinley bring home the dollhouse that Nicki had played with growing up. |
We had only been on our vacation a few days and we had already done so much. Next stop was the big apple, New York City. We were heading down to spend about a week with my sister Andrea and her husband Chris. The kids were excited to be getting to see them again. Thanks for reading and God bless!
