Trip to Canada!

Well, we made it back alive to find our house still standing, our dog still alive and Katie doing well! We had a GREAT trip! The flight was long, but the kids survived it..not sure if Adam and I did, we need a few days to recover.

We started out flying from Phoenix to Buffalo, NY where we rented a car and drove 30 miles to Niagara Falls. We spent the evening there in a hotel not wanting to drive all the way to Toronto after a long day of wrestling kids in an airplane.

We spent the next morning in Niagara visiting some great places! The falls were fun to look at, but didn't hold the attention of a two and five year old very well. We ventured from the water and found some other exciting places to visit-we recommend them if you can go. The first was the butterfly conservatory! A huge indoor (of course) tropical rainforest with millions of butterflies! They were everywhere-on every leaf. Garrett was a little scared of them at first, but as we walked through the jungle and they landed near or on us he was excited just to look at them. We would post pictures, but silly us left the camera in the car!!! ARRGH!

Next, we visited the Niagara Falls Aviary
it was well worth it! Again an indoor tropical rainforest with thousands of birds. One of my favorite places was the bat caves-they had just fed the bats and they were snacking on bananas and other fruits and being very active! Dallin had a great time feeding the birds out of his hands with them landing on his arms and head. Again, the camera was in the car! ARRGH!!

Then on to Cobourg to see Adam's parents. We were told the drive around the lake would take about 3 1/2 hours....that is if you go the speed limit. I think it took us about 2 1/2 hours-but no traffic! AND we didn't get held up at the border-evidently they like to let peple into Canada, it's letting them out that's the problem!

We spent a great week in Cobourg with the Russell family, Adam's parents, older brother Jason his wife BJ and their 4 children (Jarom, Colorado, Issac, and Avery), and Adam's younger sister Sarah. This is the first time in 3 years we had been together and it was a fun (noisy) time.

There wasn't room for us at Adam's parents place so we stayed at a local Inn "Breakers on the Lake" a great place to stay, we highly recommend it.

We spent the week swimming at the local YMCA, touring the town of Cobourg, visiting family in Oshawa, and made a trip to Toronto to the Science Museum. It was great for the boys to get to know their cousins better-Dallin was so sad when they had to leave. We had a couple of days with just us and grandma and grandpa Russell and the kids were spoiled terribly! They were sad when we had to leave.

We again drove to Buffalo and flew out on Monday morning (13th) and had a 3 1/2 hour layover in the Ronald Reagan Airport-only 10 min. from the Fowler's!!! They graciously came and picked us up and took us across the river to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial where we ate lunch on the lawn and played with friends. Thanks so much for the great Kabobs!

The Corbett's met us there at the park and we had such a good time catching up. Michelle commented that it is so nice that even though we've been apart for a while we are such good friends we can get together for a couple of hours and it feels like we've never been apart!

When it was almost time to go, Michelle took us on the driving tour of the monuments in DC. WOW! It was amazing! A really fun, and fast way to see the city! Michelle was an AWESOME tour guide and we only got honked at twice! We even had time to stop at the Lincoln Memorial and run into the bathroom! HA HA Then back to the airport and on the plane home.

We had a great trip! It was fun to see everyone and catch up. I'll post some pix as I get them from everyone else who was smart enough to get their camera out of the car!!!! SHEESH!