Niagara on the Lake

We visited Niagara on the Lake today. It a pretty little touristy town. Lots of flowers and shops. We saw some really awesome animal prints at one shop that were painted by a local artist. I bought a pretty little dragonfly wind chime. We had lunch out of our cooler today then we drove over the The Queens Park to look at Lake Ontario. We sat for a while enjoying the view. Jacob and I took a walk on a little trail by the water. There will be more pictures of Jacob in this post because Anthony wouldn't go with us :( After the trail we saw a dog that looked just like Diesel with a little bit shorter hair. The owners said he was part lab but they didn't know what else. His name is Mack, like the truck ;) Wish I had thought to take a picture of him! Don't think the owners believed us until Anthony showed them a picture of Diesel on his phone.

We drove to Hamilton after the park. The route was suppose to take us along the lake but we really didn't see much of it but glimpses :( Hamilton is a very industrial town, not very pretty. But they do have a little area on the lake that is nice and its pretty there. Took the boys to an indoor go cart place. They both seemed to enjoy that. No pool here so they are kind of bummed about that. Had dinner at this little place by the lake called Hutch's. The food was okay, kind of a Parkette with fish. They had something listed called ice cream wafers, while they last so Jacob asked about them. Sounded like and ice cream sandwich to him so he ordered it. Turned out to be a box of just the wafers. So we ordered ice cream and made our own sandwiches!

Smallest cannon ever!!!!

Lake Ontario with a fort in the background.

Huge rock chained to the ground!!!!!

Niagara Falls, the Canadian side.

Our 75 dollar lunch!!!

The view from our lunch.

Man VS Food!!!!

Got up this morning and headed for the boarder. It was pretty easy going into Canada, but the line coming into the U.S. was LONG. We got to our hotel way to early to check in but they gave me a tag for our car so we could park it and go. We aren't very far from the falls but the hill is HUGE. It was hard walking down it, I knew it was going to be terrible walking back up. We walked up the path to the falls and got to see the American side and the Horseshoe falls from a different angle than last year. We had a very mediocre lunch that cost 75 bucks!!!! Still not happy about that. We got two jumbo hot dogs a cheeseburger and a vegi wrap and 4 bottles of water!!! But we did have a view of the falls while we were eating, I guess you pay for the view.

We hung out around the falls for a little longer and then headed back to the hotel to see if our room was ready and to let the boys swim. The hill was murderous so we stopped half way up and got the boys an ice cream cone and David and I shared an Orange Julius. For dinner we looked up the address for a restaurant that we saw on Man VS Food. It was much better than lunch and didn't cost as much!!!

We got misted at the falls!!!!

Got up and headed towards Niagara Falls. We stopped in Columbus for lunch at Schmidts! I love the German potato salad!! And of course we had to get cream puffs, got them to go though ;) While there I noticed that something was wrong with the screen on my camera. It still takes pictures put I can't see the screen :(

Got to Niagara Falls, New York around 7:30. Checked in to the hotel and went to Hard Rock for dinner. Then we walked to Goat Island to see the falls lit up.

German village in Columbus Ohio, love the brick streets!!!!

The falls were really 'wet' tonight. Anthony found a dry spot :)

Cream puffs for dessert!!!!

Canada here we come!!!!

Taking a small trip while Michael is in Oregon with his grandma visiting his sister. Will only be gone 6 days this time. Michael called me on the layover in Huston, said he already missed me!! I thought he was going to cry when I dropped him off at the airport with Jackie. I told him he will have such a good time that he won't even miss me.

We will be stopping by Niagara Falls again. Had such a good time there last year we wanted to go back. Will also be checking out the Canadian side this time. It has been close to 17 years since we were on that side of the Falls. Jacob wants to go behind the falls so we will see about doing that. Then we are driving through the southern part of Toronto and coming back into the states close to Detroit.

Reed's Orchard

We went blackberry picking after school on Wednesday with our friends Rachel and Walker. It had been so hot but it was quite nice today. There were some huge berries!!! Thinking about taking Jackie back there to pick berries for a cobbler the weekend we will have company :)

Nice man stopped and gave the boys a ride.

School year 2011- 2012

We started our school year on Monday, August 8th 2011. Forgot to take our annual start of year picture, maybe I will take it next week and pretend its the first day :)

We got a little bit of a rocky start because we all got sick after we got back from Toledo. But by the end of the week we had hit our gro0ve.

Anthony is a Sophomore this year. He is taking...

Biology
Biology lab
Algebra 2
World History
Spanish
English 2
Performing Arts
College prep vocabulary
and continuing his guitar lessons

Michael is taking
Algebra 1
Latin
Language Arts
Drama
History
Chemisty
Spelling/vocabulary

Jacob is taking almost the same as Michael except he is taking 7th grade math, and instead of Drama he will be taking a photography class.

Day two in Toledo.....

We spent our second full day in Toledo visiting metroparks and taking pictures. That all it takes to make me happy :)

We drove back up to Luna Pier to try to find the geocache that we didn't find the day before. It was pretty but there was a fence with a no trespassing sign, so we left :(

Jacob had to try cat tails, after all survior man says they are good!!!

Ohio has beautiful parks.....

We got up this morning and headed for Luna Pier, Michigan. There is a geocache there that I have been itching to find for about 2 years and just never made it up there. We found one cache but not the one I wanted to find. I drove around lots of little streets trying to find the place to start the hunt. Never found it so we gave up and had lunch. We got back to the hotel and the kids went swimming for a while, and I looked up the cache again. Turns out we couldn't get to the cache from where we were at all, needed to get off at the exit before Luna Pier!!!!

After swimming we went to Maumee State park to take some pictures. Its on Lake Erie and very beautiful. We headed to Don Pablos for dinner. I have been wanting that ever since they closed the ones that were in Lexington. The food was good after they brought me tacos that had meet in them. After dinner we drove to another park called Side Cut on the Maumee River. So pretty there it made my heart sing. It was getting dark so we didn't even get to see all of it! Maybe we will get back there tomorrow if we have time. Definately going to Wildwood, I am taking pictures of Alyssa and Abigail :) Oh and my guys too.

Maumee State Park.

Side Cut Metropark....one of my new favorites.