Nick and Jen Lloyd

For our four day weekend this last weekend we decided to make the 7.5 hour trek up to see Niagara falls. We weren’t sure if we would be able to get across the Canadian border because of recent increase in security (i.e. requiring a passport, which Nick doesn’t have) but we got across just fine with our driver’s licenses!
Friday we drove up, crossed the border and checked into a cheap hotel for the night. Saturday morning we bought the “Adventure Pass” and started off on our adventure. Nick was so excited to have Canadian money…it was his first time in Canada! (Jonah too!)

We found $2 parking right behind the visitor center and walked a few blocks to the falls. Nick was going crazy taking pictures.


First on our adventure was the “Journey Behind the Falls”.

You get to go down right next to the falls and then through these tunnels that go 1/3 of the way behind the falls and there are two viewing spots where you can see pretty much a wall of water. It was awesome!

Next was my FAVORITE, the Maid of the Mist! It was soooo cool!

I felt weird putting plastic bags over Jonah for these activities…usually plastic bags and children don’t mix, but I had to keep him dry! Especially on the Maid of the Mist. It takes you right up into the middle of the Horseshoe falls where it is windy and wet. You can just feel the power of all that water churning. It was incredible! Nick devised a plastic bag with a hole in the front for his camera to take some pictures while on the Maid of the Mist.


Next we went on the “White Water Walk” where the oldest elevator in the park ( I think the lady said it was 72 years old) took us down to a tunnel and out to the river where you can walk down a boardwalk right next to the class 6 rapids. It was really pretty.

While waiting for the bus to go to our last grand adventure, we got some Canadian candy. Nick got a “Mirage” bar and I got “Smarties” (which are kind of like M&M’s.)

Just down the river from the class 6 rapids is what is called the “Whirlpool”. The river makes a 90 degree turn and due to some softer rock in that spot, it has created a HUGE whirlpool…the size of a large pond. It’s pretty cool.

Last adventure of the day was “Niagara’s Fury”…a video about the creation of Niagara falls. Not just a video…an experience, the theater rains on you and the floor shakes. It was crrazy!

While on our way back to the car we saw a rainbow that looked like it was coming right out of the falls. What a perfect way to end the day!

We headed back for America where we had rented a Cabin at the KOA in Lewiston, NY to stay in. We wanted to camp but it’s pretty cold up there so we decided to rent a cabin so Jonah wouldn’t freeze at night. Our friends, Luke and Tiffany and their 6 week old baby boy, Cameron, met us at the cabin that night to camp with us and see the falls the next day from the American side.

It ended up being REALLY cold on Sunday, so we all bundled up and went to see the falls. The view of the horseshoe falls wasn’t quite as good from the American side, but it was neat to see the American Falls up close. And we loved the maid of the mist so much that we decided to do it again with Luke and Tiffany.

Then we headed back to the cabin to warm up around a cozy campfire, hang out and eat yummy camping food like tin foil dinners, s’mores and banana boats (which I had to teach everyone to make…am I the only one that’s ever heard of a banana boat?)

It was a wonderful weekend. Nick and I feel so blessed to be able to go out and do things like this, especially with his departure coming up so soon. The only thing I hate about doing fun things like this is that it makes the time go by so quickly. I want time to just slow down for the next couple of weeks while I still have my husband around…

Results are in from yesterday’s Army 10 miler. Nick ran a 1:15:50 time, 2145th out of 30,000. Good job babe! I am so proud of you, you inspire me to be in better shape!

Jonah truly is Daddy’s little boy. He can be crying his head off and as soon as Dad gets home he will give him a huge smile. He loves to hear his Daddy talk. Nick reads to Jonah every night before bed and Jonah just loves it.

My favorite cousin Seth and his wife Kiersty decided to take a vacation to DC. I love that I live near such a popular vacation spot…it’s makes living so far away from everyone a little easier cuz they all come to me! I tagged along with them on their drive to Getttysburg on Monday. Even though Nick and I just went there I wanted to go back and do the battlefield tour again to try to understand it better.

I love this picture of them because I had just said something about “pretend like you’re firing the cannon” and Seth made some smart remark that I didn’t hear but apparently it was pretty funny cuz they’re both cracking up. And that is why I love them…they never fail to make me laugh. I forgot how much I missed them!

Then on Thursday, we went out for seafood with them to a place in the Inner Harbor of Baltimore called “Phillips”. Kiersty and I split an order of crab cakes and I have to say, they were GOOD!

Sooo…I’m just practicing using Nick’s camera. I’m not the greatest at it, but here are a few from my “diaper shoot” with Jonah. Just wanted to show off his cute rolls!

Saturday was national “Museum Day”. Participating museums offered free entrance across the nation. We decided to check out the Ladew Topiary Gardens. When we first moved here, a woman I worked with in Baltimore told me that I needed to put it on my list of must-sees. Normally it costs $13 per person. So free was a good price!

The garden was beautiful. Not quite what I was imagining, but beautiful nonetheless. There was a rose garden, a berry garden (for the birds), a white garden, a yellow garden, a pink garden, a topiary garden and lot’s of others I can’t think of. Basically some guy named Ladew inherited a lot of money from his parents’ leather business and so he moved to Maryland where he could enjoy his favorite sport, fox hunting. He bought this farm from a family that had been farming it for 200 years and he decided it would be fun to turn the whole thing into a European style garden. He was never married or had any kids so when he died he donated the whole thing as a museum. It makes me wonder what I would do if I had a lot of money and never had to work. I think I would travel a lot…Nick says he would buy a boat and a lake house and spend all his time writing.

I am learning how to use Nick’s camera, so all the pictures you see in this post were taken by me using the Nikon. The picture below is my favorite one that I took at the gardens.

So Jen, Jonah and I went to the Ladew Topiary Gardens on Saturday. Jen will blog all about the experience but I wanted to show a couple of my photos from the day. The first one is Jen in the gardens, and the other two are Jonah looking funny in the car.

Jonah is getting close to 5 months old now and it’s starting to show. He is ALMOST sitting up…by almost I mean that if we sit him up he can balance for a few seconds before slowing tipping over. He is also doing very well with tummy time and has a new found interest in food. He sees us eating and he wants some!