Niagara Falls

Dan and I took a day off at the end of August to take the boys to Niagara Falls.  We had never done the tourist thing there so we decided it was time.  We literally had to drag the boys kicking and screaming.  Such terrible parents we are trying to take them to see a natural wonder of the world.

It was raining steadily on the ride there and with the complaining from the boys, I was ready to give up on the day, but Dan was confident it would turn out.  So, we went.  And, it stopped raining as soon as we parked the car.  He is always right.

We started with the cave of the winds which wasn't really a cave much to the boys' dismay.

They were pretty freaked out by the whole experience.  It was a bit intense.

There were lots of stairs.  Lots and lots of stairs.

Lots of wet, steep stairs!

And, even though it had stopped raining, being by the falls was like being in the rain.

It was pretty.

The sound was ferocious.

They really didn't want to be standing right there.  Scary.

The Hurricane Deck was too much for the boys.  All three of them.

Wimps.

They did much better on dry land.

Gosh, it does look a bit intimidating... maybe I should have been more concerned!

Since we barely survived the Cave of the Winds, we decided to give the Maid of the Mist a shot.  And, once again, we dragged the boys kicking and screaming.

Yikes!  We have to go down there??

They perked up a bit once they won the battle to stay on the lower deck.

By the time we got off the boat, both boys were begging to go on again.  Success.

The nasty weather worked out really well for us.  There were no lines and the boat was really empty.  Nice!

Just beautiful!  The next time there are visitors, I won't complain about having to go to the falls.  Maybe someone will want to do this again with me.

Once off the boat we did the extra walk up the side of the American falls and caught this beautiful rainbow when we got to the top.  Perfect.

It is truly amazing.  The boys should think of Niagara Falls as more than just a place to get great nachos.

He was so excited to look through this.

Despite the ponchos, we still got wet.  

We did stop to get those awesome nachos before heading home.  And, as we were leaving it started to rain. The day really did work out just right for us.

Dirty Girl Mud Run

A little more than a week ago my friend Jeanne called to see if I'd be interested in doing the Dirty Girl Mud Run.  I said no.  Why in the world would anyone voluntarily get covered in mud?  Then I thought why not?

Here we are this morning, ready to get dirty!

I am certainly not a runner, but Jeanne is so I tried.  It hurt. And, I think I'm going to hurt a lot more tomorrow.

Dan was the photographer for the day.  I think he did a great job!

I'm not sure why my arms are up in so many of these pictures.  It may be because my shirt was huge and gross. The mud and grass and gravel was absolutely everywhere.

There were 12 obstacles and all but 3 were very doable.  There were two where you had to crawl through the mud and it was really disgusting.  Our cheering section was disappointed that we didn't do the army crawl, but I think we did well just getting through it.  Yuck.

This next obstacle was one of the easier ones.  The most difficult was something similar to this except flatter.  You couldn't climb up it and it was really difficult to crawl.  My knees are not happy with me.

Besides wearing tighter fitting clothes, my other lesson learned is not to cut my hair off before this event next year.  It would have been helpful if I could have tied my hair back!

Back to walking.

The second to last obstacle in full view of our cheering squad was a huge slide.

Up we go.

I was very concerned about the huge pit of muddy water at the bottom.

And, somehow managed to land standing up!!  Yay!  (Poor Jeanne wasn't so lucky)

We weren't quite muddy enough here so...

We made good on the last obstacle.  COVERED!

Mud is good for your skin, right?

It was a great way to celebrate my 3 year cancerversary.  We're already planning for next year.  Want to come?

3rd Grade & Pre-K

Today was a big day in our house.  Ryan moved to a new pre-school which is really just a second location of the same place we've always gone to, but this is in a former elementary school so it is a step towards Kindergarten.  He was so excited to have a backpack and his own lunchbox... with an actual lunch inside!!

Yes, Ryan could have started Kindergarten this year, but we decided he'd only benefit from another year of pre-K.

Tyler was excited too, but not nearly as excited as his brother.

 He did great today, but was bummed that he came home with homework... on the first day!!

In our district the elementary schools only go through 3rd grade so today was the last first day of elementary for Tyler.  Yikes!!  The next school goes from 4th grade through 6th so I'm hoping that means he'll be younger a little longer since he won't be with the big kids until later... I can only hope.

 We're proud of our big boys!!