Worth the Wait!!

This trip has been a long time coming!  We started talking about it in 2015, then fully booked and planned it for summer of 2016. ...Then Mom had to have major back surgery that summer, so we cancelled everything and eventually rebooked it for 2017.  I'm so glad it worked out this time!!

Jill used to work as a travel agent, so she took care of booking everything and did such a great job making it an awesome and memorable trip. She also made sure that Mom was comfortable and had access to wheelchairs for any long distance walks or hills, which was much appreciated. 

I am so very thankful to have had this trip with my parents and Bill and Jill. I wondered if I would feel like a fifth wheel, but I never did. Whether it was me with Mom and Dad, me with Mom and Jill, me with Dad and Bill, or me with Bill and Jill, I had a great time and didn't feel awkward or out of place.  Hooray for family and fun family friends!!

There are so many great memories, pictures, and stories that it's hard to know where to begin.  This was the view from Bill and Jill's hotel room (Embassy Suites Fallsview, Ontario, Canada, Room 2811).  Epic. It was perfect being able to sit by the window and look out over Niagara Falls.

Okay, I'm gonna start from the beginning with a brief Niagara trip recap:

Dad left Saturday morning, then Bill and Jill picked Mom and I up at 3:45am on Sunday. Sounds painfully early, but my trip adrenaline had kicked in, and I was wide awake!  We drove to the airport, where checking in was very smooth. Flew to Atlanta, then on to Buffalo Niagara airport in NY. From there, we rented an SUV and Bill drove us into Canada. Crossing the border was quick and easy, but I was sad I didn't get a fun stamp in my passport. 

We were trying not to use navigation because of the higher phone rates in Canada, but finally gave in after 45 minutes of aimlessly trying to figure out how to get to our hotel. We got to the Embassy Suites, where Dad had already checked in and brought all our stuff up to the room.  =) The view of the falls from our room was awesome, but it felt surreal without being closer to it and hearing the water! Bill and Jill's room wasn't ready yet, and we were all starving after our crazy early morning, so we grabbed lunch/dinner at TGI Fridays in the hotel. We laughed about that being our first international food choice, but I gotta say, the cheeseburger was awesome (or maybe I was just that hungry). 

Dad dropped us off then met us by the zipline area. I thought the plan was for Bill and Jill to do that, then Mom said Dad was going to try it. Whaaaat!? So I decided to join them, then Jill decided to back out, and she got some good pics of us instead. :)

It was my first zipline experience, and I loved getting to do this with Dad!!  It was extra exciting and cool because the zipline is new and would not have been there if we had gone in 2016, and I wouldn't have been under the weight limit if I hadn't been on Weight Watchers for the last month, so when I realized that, I knew I had to do it... because I could!! =)  

The girl working there put my helmet on too tight so I had a big mark on my forehead when I took it off. lol  And when you get to the top, they weigh you on a scale and write your weight on a bracelet (yikes - hooray for long sleeves! lol). I discarded that bracelet right into the Niagara River when we were on the Hornblower cruise later that night. Even though it was littering, it felt appropriate and freeing. ;-)

The wind and overcast weather were perfect for the zipline, and we had a great view of the falls. I made sure to look at them and look back at Dad and Bill on the way down!  The end was the only part that freaked me out a little because I didn't feel like I was slowing down soon enough, but all was well! lol

Fun Fact: Maid of the Mist is the blue boat which leaves from the America side where everyone wears blue ponchos, and the Hornblower is the red boat on the Canada side with reddish pink ponchos. They both go on the same course and see all the falls. =)

(The walk down to this cruise was long and all downhill. We were able to get a wheelchair for Mom afterward so that she didn't have to make the climb back uphill! Bill pushed her while Dad went ahead to get the car for us. Lots of curbside service this trip!)

They had an area inside if you didn't wanna get wet, so Mom grabbed a seat in there where she took this happy pic of me and Dad. =)

Mom and Dad =)

I was so happy being this close to the falls!! I was thinking to myself, "Wow, I haven't really gotten that wet here" right before the boat turned and ALL THE MIST came at us! =)

Fun!!

That night, we went to Bill and Jill's hotel room and talked and watched the fireworks. We were there from 9:00 - 10:30 because we weren't sure what time they would start.  (It starts at10:00, for anyone wondering.) =)

The next morning, Dad drove us over to Niagara-on-the-Lake. Yes, that's all hyphenated as the name of a town about 30 minutes from our hotel. We pulled over along the way to take a pic of this view!

Niagara-on-the-Lake was quaint and precious!  Cute shops and tea rooms and cafes and pretty flowers everywhere. =) We moseyed through the town and took several pictures then walked through the ornate Prince of Wales Hotel. This was a little corner cafe where Dad dropped us off. Cuteness.

On our way back to the hotel, Jill spotted the place for Helicopter rides. The parking lot was empty, and they told Dad that their gift shop was open but they weren't doing rides because of the rainy/windy weather that morning. We got out to use the restroom and look at the gift shop for a minute, and in the 5-10 minutes we were there, they decided the weather was okay and that we could be their first flight that day. Umm, yikes!  That made me nervous all by itself, not to mention the fact that I had taken my motion sickness pill just 15 minutes before (you're supposed to take it an hour before anything, but I didn't know that was the plan). But we were off and away -- me, Bill, and Jill, that is. 

We got some great views of the falls, as you can see below. It did make me a bit queasy with all the tilting, so I was glad it was a short ride (less than 15 minutes total). 

How cool to have my first zipline and helicopter experience during my first trip to Canada! =)

*Also, note how the Hornblower boat is not really all that close - we watched from the room and they never really go into the horseshoe part, but there's still so much mist that you get soaked!

After the helicopter ride, Dad dropped us off to check out the view from the ledge close to the falls outside. We'd noticed tons of people piled up there taking pictures, so we wanted to check it out. SO FANTASTIC!! (It's the top pic of me on this post.) Seeing it that close up where you could hear it and see it pouring over the rocks was one of my absolute favorite things!!  We all decided that Dad had to see it too, so he and Bill went back whilst me, Mom, and Jill rested a bit (yay for our room having a whirlpool bath!)

After resting up and changing clothes, we walked across the street to have dinner at this cute Italian restaurant called My Cousin Vinny's!

The food was wonderful (Mom and I shared chicken parm and white pizza) and the atmosphere was great. We sat outside where the weather was so nice and they had a band playing, and it was all just lovely. There was another family at a table near us, and the band randomly asked them where they were from, and they said, "Oklahoma!" So we struck up a conversation with them. lol

We walked to the gift shop across the next street and bought a few t-shirts and other souvenir gifts, then back up to the hotel. (Jill booked our trip there for Sunday and Monday night, the two nights of the week where they do fireworks!!) We went up to their room again and all sat near the huge curved window to look at the illuminated waterfalls and watch the fireworks show... one of my favorite parts of the trip!!  Jill took several pictures, so I had to get a shot of her with her camera. (And yes, that's a massage chair in their room. lol Crazy nice!)

One of her pictures from that night:  WOW!

Tuesday morning, Bill and Jill headed to the airport early, and we packed up our crazy amount of stuff and got in the car to head to NYC (left around 9am and got there around 5pm).

Here's some Canadian candy because I'm weird and found it interesting that the wrappers were different. lol  The speed limits were in kilometers and certain signs used meters instead of feet, which meant nothing to me as I have no concept of meters. We never had to convert our money, and most of the menus had both Canadian and US dollars written on them (also in the pic). 

The predicted rain was very minimal, and the weather was in the high 60s and low 70s, so super nice.  Other than the lack of road signage for people who don't know the area, them having no Mountain Dew anywhere for Mom - lol, and the crazy long waits for an elevator (between 5-10 minutes - they had 6 elevators for a 42-floor hotel and it just wasn't enough!!), it was all pretty perfect, and I'm so grateful for that!!

Finally, here's a happy Flipagram of the Niagara part of our trip: