1 Year Anniversary

My 1st blog post here was 1 year ago today!

Don't have any trips planned to look forward to yet for the new year, but we're ending the year/starting out the new year with a long vacation in Florida.

We left Mom & Dad's place in Steinhatchee last night and went to Mom & Dad's place in Hudson, where it was alot warmer.

Today we are at my sister's getting ready to ring in the New Year!! (If I can stay awake that long, haha)

Big Fish

Dad's friends came, and he took them and John out fishing. John caught the biggest fish, a big Grouper. They also caught a bunch of black Bass, and Mom fried them up for dinner. Delish!

It's still cold, hasn't gotten much over 50* the whole time we're here, but feels colder than that. We got out yesterday and went to see the new Pier, but hurried back to the car to get out of the chill wind.

Brrrrr!!!!!

Traveling is definately better on Christmas Day, than the day after. We left home about 9:30am, and arrived at Mom & Dad's around before 5:00pm. 
The weather was nice, sunny and warm. Mom had a box fan going, and had to open the windows - Now that's what I'm talking about!!

We had lasagne for dinner, and opened presents and spent the evening playing cards and domino games.

The cold caught up with us that night. Daddy came to wake us up the next morning and opening the door was like opening a refrigerator. He was wearing a winter coat.  It was cold all day, we couldn't even get out to go walking or fishing.

Mom cooked a big dinner of Ham and okra, green beans, fried squash, mashed potaoes, etc.  After we ate my sister's family packed up and went home.  We had planned to leave and go on down to my parents' other place, but Dad said they were going out fishing the next day, so we stayed over another night.  No real hurry to go anywhere I guess. Especially since there's internet here.
Spent the day hanging out inside reading and playing games and eating all day.

John got up at 6am this morning to get ready to go fishing. Don't know what time they left.  It had rained when I came to the house. Still very chilly, only 48* at noon today.

I think it's supposed to warm up again about Wednesday. I hope so! I could have stayed home for cold.

This weekend we took another little trip back up to Chattanooga, Tennessee.

First we visited Hamilton Place Mall. I just enjoy going to a Mall at Christmas, and seeing all the lovely decorations and all the shoppers with their shopping bags. HPM didn't disappoint.
And they had a Pretzel Time!! Horribly expensive, but we sure have missed those delicious pretzel bites.

Everything was so colorful and bright!

Later that evening we drove up to Rock City, for the Enchanted Garden of Lights.

It had stopped raining, and was just chilly enough to seem Christmasy, but not so cold to be miserable.
The lights and displays were pretty, although not as pretty as the first time we went a few years I didn't think.

Afterwards we got some delicious fudge from the Fudge Kitchen.

It was a nice Christmasy-time Family Outing.

A funny note to the story is, we were walking along and Ryan got a text message from a pal of his from school. The boy had sent a picture of some spot at Rock City....having no idea that we were there at the same time. Ryan messaged him back a picture of where we were at, and turned out he was just not far behind us. LOL!

Thanksgiving Plans

We had planned to go on a cruise for Thanksgiving week, but it didn't work out.

We'll be spending Thanksgiving with all the family at Mom's.

Enchanted Corn Maze & Voodoo Bayou

Well we picked our date, and got up early to get started. I packed a picnic lunch and when everyone was here, we set out for Flintstone, Georgia.

We arrived at the Enchanted Maize about Noon'ish and bought our combo for the Maze, Forest of Fear and Ghostride. We headed on to the Corn Maze, as, really, that was the only thing to do.

When I had read on the website about the place, I had the idea that they offered more to do than they did. There was an inflatable jumping thing, and a table set up for pumpkin painting, and a small fire...but no marshmallows or smores offerings.
To be advertised as "By Rock City", it was pretty disappointing. The only things very Rock City'ish was the Gift Shop and Photos, and the concession stand prices.

The weather was pretty bad (not Rock City's fault), it was very cold and overcast, and wet following a few days of rain. The Maze was a sodden mess, you practically had to swim through parts of it.
But it was fun, I guess. Having no sense of direction, I just follow everyone else, taking my pictures of them experiencing/enjoying the event, so that makes me happy.


The Maze spent all of about half an hour, then we decided to go to the car and have our picnic lunch. Only to discover I had forgotten to have John stop and get a loaf of bread on the way up. So we had to leave and go find the Walmart. Tara needed a pair of gloves anyway.

We stopped at a picnic area place on the side of Cummings Hwy. where the Big Rock Court Motel and Super Waterslide used to be. The kids tried to eat out at the table for awhile, but soon jumped back in the car.

After we ate, it was still much too early to go back and sit and wait for hours and hours for the night-time part of the activities to start. Eventually we decided to go to Ruby Falls.
We hadn't been to Ruby Falls in years and years. To me it was always like a 'been there, done that' kind of place. But I didn't care for the Oktoberfest events going on at Rock City, and we never really enjoyed the Chattanooga Aquarium, and I couldn't think of anything else.


The caves and formations and all were still pretty much the same as always, but now, I guess the attraction has gotten so popular, they take much larger groups at a time, and they get you on through and back out.
I remember we used to stop at every formation and the guide would point it and talk and tell about it and this, that and the other. Not now. You start out watching a short video telling about the man who discovered the falls, and stop maybe twice to view some items of interest.

Also new now, they let you walk around behind and up under Ruby Falls, so that was neat.

We spent some time going up on the Ruby Falls Castle Observation Tower, where there's a nice view of Chattanooga, but boy was it cold! and then it started raining on us.

They played some in the Gem Mining area, and we knocked around in the Gift Shop for awhile. Eventually we left to head back over to the Maze and take our Hayride that was included in the price of the Maze before they closed it down.
Sitting on haybales in a trailer being pulled by a tractor through a cornfield...how exciting was that!
Ryan and Kevin found some "spooky" and fixed Kevin up for the scary stuff later.


We stood around by the "bonfire" a little while, then eventually went back and got in the cars to sit down and warm up.

Eventually it got dark and the nighttime activities started.
First we went through the Forest of Fear, which was a spooky trail through the woods, with scary props and of course Monsters jumping out and scaring the pee-diddle out of you. It was pretty fun, but again, not as professional as what I was expecting for the place to be connected with Rock City.

After that we went on the Ghostride, another ride in the hay wagon trailer. We went out into the cornfield and got out of the trailer and sat around a stinky campfire and were told a ghoststory. Then we were supposed to get up and run while Monsters chased us, but we were near the back so all the chasers were already gone after the first people I guess.
We got back in our hay trailer and rode back to where we started.

It was nice to have spent the day together as a family, doing something away from home.

Halloween Plans

We enjoy Fall/Halloween events during this time of the year. Some past activites we've done have included Pumpkin Farms, Stone Mountain's Pumpkin Festival, Six Flags Frightfest, Haunted Hayride at Red Top Mountain, and Vinson Mountain Volunteer Fire Dept.'s Haunted Trail.

This evening I was looking around a little bit for some ideas about things to do/visit this Fall and Christmas (I really want to visit Gatlinburg at Christmas; Tara mentioned they'd like to go to Rock City's Christmas Season that we went to a couple years ago). We'd also discussed that they'd like to visit a Haunted House of some sort.

Anyway, I ended up finding something pretty interesting: A Corn Maze/Haunted Event combo.

Corn Maze's are neat Fall/Harvest activities to do. We've gone to a few in the past.
This Corn Maze is in North Georgia at Lookout Mountain and is apparently owned/operated by the same group that had Rock City, Ruby Falls, etc. So you figure it's got to be good.



Then, once the sun goes down, the place turns into VooDoo Bayou; the Forest of Fear trail and a Ghost Ride.

Upon further investigation, I see they are offering an Eerie Express train ride to the Enchanted Maize/Voodoo Bayou.


For the price, you almost can't skip the train ride: The Maize by itself costs $9.00 a person; the VooDoo Bayou costs $15 for the Forest of Fear and $10 for the Ghost Ride, or a total of $20.00 combined.
If you buy a combo Enchanted Maize and Voodoo Bayou ticket, it only costs $25.00 per person.
If you take the Eerie Express train ride, you get the train ride and the admissions to the Enchanted Maze and Voodoo Bayou for $28.00 per person.

*On 2nd thought, maybe not as good a deal as it first appears. I've sent an email asking about it, but it appears the train doesn't leave until 6:00pm, and you don't arrive at the Enchanted Maize until 7:45pm. Which gets you to the VooDoo Bayou okay, but not really leaving time to explore and enjoy the Enchanted Maze part.

Niagara Falls, Canada Day 3

We got up this morning and ate our breakfast and headed for the Maid of the Mist attraction while it was still early, before it got so crowded. We didn't have much of a wait, and were the first ones on our boat so got prime real estate right up front.

This was a very cool ride, taking us close past the American Falls, and right up into the Horseshoe Falls. Also loud, wet, and exciting!

After this we headed back to the hotel to pack up and checkout and move to the Country Inn & Suites across town.
We got the to CI&S early, but our rooms were already ready and we were able to move on into our rooms.

Later we had a terrible lunch at...I guess it was inside the Niagara Casino at Clifton Hill...and then walked across Rainbow Bridge to New York. Stopped and took pictures at the Int'l Boundry line, with half us in one country, the other in the other. Pretty funny.

New York Niagara State Park is pretty, with plenty of scenic views of the falls, lots of greenspace, picnic and play areas.

We walked across a bridge to Goat Island and decided to do the Cave of the Winds attraction.

Back at home reading about the attractions at Niagara, I hadn't even planned us doing Cave of the Winds. For one thing, there is no cave anymore. It caved in.
I assumed that it was alot similar to Journey Behind the Falls, except that you can still go behind the Falls in Journey, so Cave of the Winds would be redundant, and not even as fun.

WRONG!

I think this attraction turned out to be our favorite one of all. You walk on wooden decks that actually go up under and into the Falls.
At the top there is the Hurricane Deck, where you can stand and the water thunders down onto your head.
It was really, really cool!

We returned to the hotel to dry off and rest a bit. My sister's family went off to eat somewhere, and we went and found an A&P grocery store and bought some groceries to be able to eat more in the room; sandwiches and snacks.
The A&P store still looks like they did when they used to have them down here. I don't think the sign has changed a bit. Nostalgic.

Niagara Falls, Canada Day 2

This morning we got up and headed to the hotel restaurant for a delicious hot, free breakfast. There were eggs, sausage, bacon, pancakes, toast, fruit, pretty much every breakfast food.

After breakfast we walked down the hill and got our first real look at the Niagara Falls. Took the first of all the necessary, obligatory "Pose in front of the Falls" pictures.

We bought our Adventure Passes, and made our way to the Tablerock Center where we started our adventure visiting the "Niagara's Fury" show/ride.
I had read several reviews about this attraction, most of which were bad and down-putting, but we liked it.

First you put on a free, recyclable rain-poncho they give you and go into a theater where you stand and watch a cute little cartoon story talking about how Niagara's Falls were formed. It was interesting and the story was cute.

Next you go into a 4-D theater and grab a post and hang on. Along with telling you how, this story shows you how Niagara Falls was formed. Including rain and storms and avalanches. Exciting!

Next we visited the Journey Behind the Falls. They give you another free rain-poncho and then you go down many feet in an elevator to some tunnels in behind the falls.
Go to the right and you can see some portals open behind the Horseshoe falls. The water thundering down is amazing.

Down the other tunnel, you go out onto a viewing deck right beside the falls. It looks like you can get within just a few feet of the side of the falls. Loud and wet and exciting!

After JBtF we returned to the hotel room and decided to go out and find something for lunch and look for a Walmart. We always like to locate the local Walmarts in case we need anything.

We were using a Nuvi navigator to locate places, but for some reason it didn't show a close-by Walmart, and we ended up going back into New York to go to what we thought was the closest Walmart.
We tried to stop at a Dairy Queen for lunch, not knowing what an "Orange Julius" DQ is/was. Turns out the only food type food they have is hot dogs. No burgers, bbq, chicken, etc.

We ended up stopping at a Taco Bell, where everyone was amused to see they had Taco Bell french fries. Our Taco Bells here don't have fries.

We tried to visit the New York Niagara State Park, but there was a $10 parking fee we didn't want to pay, since we could walk over for nothing (actually there was a .50 toll when you leave Canada).

Later we went back down to the Falls area and rode the People Mover bus out to the bus terminal and back up to the Clifton Hill area, where we would be staying next.

We walked along that area, checking out some stores, taking some pics, and making our way back to the Falls area. The rainbows come out in the evenings so we took rainbow(s)/falls pictures.

Later we got Pizza Hut pizzas and returned to the hotel and ate and the boys went swimming.
There was another fireworks show that night. John walked down to see them from the ground and listen to the band and check out the night-happenings.

Niagara Falls, Canada Day 1

Up and on our way early this morning. Aunt drove us to the airport. We arrived about 7:00am, which gave us time to check our suitcase, get through security, and grab some breakfast. We were boarding the plane before we knew it.

The flight was smooth and not too long. We landed in Buffalo, NY about 11:16am. My sister and family arrived about 30 minutes behind us.

We boarded the shuttle to the rental car place, and were given twin blue Camry's, although we'd rented Chargers (or similar)(I don't see Camry's and Charger's as similar, but Ryan preferred the Camry anyway, so oh well).

Since we were in town pretty early, we decided to do our Buffalo tour day. We started by visiting the Anchor Bar for lunch, to eat authentic, original Buffalo Wings.

The restaurant was interestingly decorated, but we were seated in a small enclosed-looking porch area of some sort that was crowded with the nine of us stuck into a corner. A bus-person had left a cleaning rag laid on the window ledge and it smelled bad. Later a fellow came and got the rag (leaning over me without so much as an "excuse me") and we saw him cleaning other tables with the smelly rag.

We got our menus and started deciding what we'd eat...I'd already pre-planned on a bucket of Buffalo Wings. Then we noticed that for drinks they served Pint size drinks, with no refills. A place that sells hotwings and doesn't offer drink refills? WTH?
The menu also stated "No Separate Checks", and that an automatic tip of 15% was added to parties of 8 or more.

As a result of this place's greed, we all ordered water to drink, and the waitress got a less of a tip by force than we would have tipped voluntarily.

The food was allright, but the wings were swimming in grease.

Next we visited the Market Arcade building, which we were standing in front of and didn't recognize, the place looked so bad. I was expecting a better kept building advertised as a tourist destination, with the Official Visitor's Center inside.
The Visitor's Center was closed.

Then we tried to visit the City Hall, which looked interesting from the outside, but was also closed.

We found Buffalo dirty and run down and not worth visiting.

We then proceeded on to Niagara Falls, Ontario, and checked into the Embassy Suites hotel.
We opted for the $20/day Valet parking, which wasn't the pain-in-the-neck other travelers complained it to be.

When we booked the room, my brother-in-law and I requested close rooms, and we were put in rooms 3606 and 3608, with a connecting door, which was great. We just left the door open and were able to go back and forth with ease.

Our room had great views of both the falls and the city of Niagara Falls in the bedroom.
The bedroom was nice, with two queen beds, that weren't all that comfortable to me. Husband didn't complain, though, so maybe it was just me.
We had a jacuzzi tub, with shutters that opened so you could look out and see the falls (if you were standing in the tub or very tall).

There was microwave and a small refridgerator. The other room was the livingroom, which was more as a bedroom for us. We spent all our time in the room in the bedroom where we could enjoy the view out the window.

We had arrrived in time for the Managers Reception so we headed off to that. It was in the atrium on the 9th floor. We had tickets for 2 free drinks; 1 per person of a couple. I don't drink so my hubby got 2 drinks. We enjoyed snacks of chips and salsa, carrots/veggies/ranch dip, dried fruit, cheetos, candies, etc.

There was an arcade on this floor, but the games were expensive at $1.00 (or a Looney) each to play.
We explored the indoor pool, and walked outside to a deck/patio area and enoyed some sun for a little while. (We found it rather chilly in Canada, after the temps we're used to in Georgia and Florida.)

Later I took the middle boys to the pool for a swim while the others relaxed in the rooms.

As we were going to bed, all of a sudden we hear a BOOM! and look outside and they are having a fireworks display.
We never did figure out why they had it on Saturday night. The schedule is Fridays, Sundays, and Holidays. Unless they were celebrating Flag Day, a day early, all we could figure was that they planned a special fireworks display just for us! lol.

Flashback

Looking through some pictures of past trips, I came across this cute video clip of the boys dancing to "Hey, Baby" by DJ Otzi on our 2007 Thanksgiving cruise:



I am sooo ready for another cruise. Come on, November.....

Hotel Rates Came Down Yay!

Checked the rates at Embassy Suites and they had come down from $315.00/$255.00 to $295.00/$205.00, so I called and they adjusted those for me. Called my Brother-in-Law to tell him to call, and he did, and he got even cheaper rates. So I checked again, and yes, they have come down to $275.00/$175.00 now, so I called and got that adjustment. (That is the Canadian price, so even cheaper for the US Dollar.)

Anyway, that's a savings of about $120.00 total, which is great! I've never had that happen before.

When I checked the other day, the Country Inn & Suites was the same price as when I'd booked, but, just for the heck of it I checked again today and that price has also came down. The same room I had booked was about $10.00 night cheaper, but they have the same room with a Sweet Deal that makes the room about $24 per night cheaper. So I called and got the adjustment, and viola', another approx. $120.00 savings. Wow!

PS, the plane tickets did come down cheaper after I bought ours, but they don't give refunds. I emailed and asked anyway, just for the heck of it, and got an email back saying they give price differences in the form of credits on future reservations, and something about charging a fee for changes to reservations, and at any rate, they don't price compare with other websites, only their own, and they didn't show any price reductions on their website. Ohhhh liarrrrrr.

Flight & Rental Car Booked

Back when I first started checking on prices for our Summer Vacation to Niagara Falls, the cheapest flight cost I could find was $138 per person, each way, on Airtran.

Not being a seasoned airline traveler, I don't know much about flight prices; whether they'll go up or down the longer you wait.

I still don't, really. Maybe they usually go up, but in this case maybe less people are traveling because of the fear of the swine flu, so they had to slash prices to try to get people to fly.
The reason I thought about that was because, as near as I can remember, it seems like before, a few months ago, when I clicked on seat availability, there were more seats available now than then.
But, for all I know, maybe it's a different airplane.

At any rate, I checked again a few weeks ago, and the prices had come down to $118 pp. I researched around and tried to find out what was normal for airline ticket costs to do...should I go for it, or wait...couldn't figure out anything.
So, I left it again.

Then tonight I checked again, and the price had come down to $69/$89 pp.
Maye it would go down further, maybe not. I decided to not risk it, and went ahead and bought them.

They gave me a code for a deal on renting a car from Hertz, but I checked around some of the other car rental places and found a better deal with Thrifty Car Rental even without the Airtran code.

Hotels and transpo all booked. That's a big part of the trip planning out of the way.
Next, What To Do and Daily Planning.

Lake Allatoona

A few days ago J wanted to take the boys and go do some fishing, but there's not really any good fishing places around here. I told him we'd go over to Lake Weiss and fish one day.

At some point after that it dawned on me that we live maybe a half hour from our own lake, Allatoona. I don't know why I never remember it's so close. I practically grew up going to Lake Allatoona, we've had family reunions there, went for an EMS family day.

Checking my calendar and seeing J was off on Sunday, I decided to plan a picnic and a day of fishing.
Researching the lake on the internet turned up alot of options. Found out there was a Visitor's Center with a museum and a Dam overlook, and day use parks with picnic areas and grills.

We headed first to the Visitor's Center and checked out the museum, then walked up to the overlook and looked at the Dam and back out over Cooper's Furnace and the Etowah River. Beautiful View.

Then we drove down to the Cooper's Branch Day Use area. I didn't realize it at the time, but we arrived at a great time. There was hardly anyone there. We got our pick of spots right down beside the water. Not long after we got there, within thirty minutes probably, the place started getting more and more crowded.

J got the charcoal burning then they got the poles ready and fished, while I kicked back in my chair and read my book. Aaaahhhh. Lovely, relaxing, day.
When the charcoal was ready J cooked the burgers and dogs. We also had potato salad, cole slaw, chips, chocolate chips cookies for dessert and sweet tea to drink. Yu-u-um!
 

  Unfortunately the fishing wasn't as good as lunch. After lunch we packed up and went to another part of the lake, off the side of the road in a cove, but the fish weren't biting there either.

So we gave up and drove over to Cooper's Furnace park and check it out. It was muy crowded, but we viewed the Furnace and read about it and walked down by the River.

Georgia Renaissance Festival

This weekend was opening weekend of the Georgia Renaissance Festival, and they were having a special BOGO (Buy One Get One Free) ticket sale. This was something we had been wanting to visit for years but had just never got or made the opportunity to go before. Me and Ryan heard the commercial on the radio and he said we should go, and J was off on Saturday, so it sounded like a good time to go.

It was terrible time to go. Everyone in the entire world was all trying to go at the same time. The interstate was backed up for hours. Once we finally got off the exit, there was a two-lane road for a couple miles, which while those of us waited in line, other jerks would drive up the left lane and cut in front of people. I mean literally cut in. We had a car force it's way in on us. They absolutely were going to hit us if we didn't get out of their way.

We finally arrived to the festival and paid our $39.95 to get in. Thank goodness we didn't pay twice that much.

We had tried to get there around 10am, but because of traffic it ended up being after 2pm before we got in.

We caught a show called "All the Kings Horses". It was boring. A couple of girls running the horses in circles mostly.

I guess we missed the joust show.

There were some neat mid-evil "rides", but the rest of it was mostly shops and eating.

I tried a turkey leg, because that was the thing to get at a Renaissance festival. It tasted okay, but was tough to gnaw on.

The prices of everything was outrageous, even for an event like that.

Everyone left at the same time, it seemed like, and trying to get out of the parking area was crazy. We were parked in cow pastures, and some people tried to form lines, while others were just barreling out through the middle and cutting into the line at the front.

After a couple of hours, and ending up having waited behind an apparently parked car, we cut through the middle and into the line and was out of there in less than 5 minutes. Crazy!

Desoto Caverns

We had wanted to go up to Mom and Dad's this weekend, but they had left to go back to Florida already. Since we had gotten all geared up to go somewhere, we decided to find somewhere else to go.

I searched in a general couple hour drive radius, checking out a few places, and this place - Desoto Caverns in Childersburg, Alabama - looked the most interesting at the moment.

I packed a picnic lunch and we left out after John got in and got a shower. Later than I had wanted to leave, but we got lucky...I had forgotten the time zones, so we gained an hour when we crossed into Alabama.

It's still the off-season, so the place wasn't busy at all. But it's just Spring-y enough that the Jonquils were out and everything doesn't look so grey and dead.

The grounds were pretty, clean. The day was clear, sunny, up around 70*, not humid. Beautiful day.
We paid our admission and walked around a bit checking things out until time for our cave tour.
We walked down a tunnel to get to the cave, and then walked in to where the big main part opens up, and it was just an awesome sight to see. I took pictures, but they are discolored and grainy and don't do the real sight down there justice.

We toured around and saw some different things and got our picture taken. The cave had taken alot of abuse from over the years, with alot of broken stags, but still very neat, I thought.

After our cave tour we went to the big pavillion by the campground and ate our picnic lunch. Amazing how much better sandwiches taste away from home. Kind of like hotdogs at a ballgame.

After lunch we went to do some of the activities offered at the park; pedal car racing, bath tub racing, shooting bows & arrows, going in the big, wood wall maze, rock wall climbing, mini golf, panning for jewels, riding on some spin-around-until-you-puke things.

We all had a good time and enjoyed ourselves.

Would I recommend making a special trip any amount of distance to visit the place? No. But if you're in the general area, with not much else to do, then it's a nice place to pass a nice Spring day.

Family Night Out

Due to our schedules, mostly John's work schedule, family nights out are few and far between, so when we are able to go together and do something special, we consider it like a family trip, a mini-mini vacation if you will.

Yesterday we got to have a family night out, after Kevin's basketball game, we went out to eat and to see a movie.

We ate at Zaxby's chicken place. I only discovered Zaxby's this past week...I mean, I knew about Zaxby's, and John and Ryan had ate there before, but me or Kevin hadn't. Last week we had to go to a sports store in the next town to find Kevin some soccer cleats and shin guards, and when we were hungry and wanted to get something to eat, someone, probably John, suggested Zaxby's and we agreed to give it a tryout. The food in their commercials looks very good. I had the boneless chicken wings, and really liked them!

Yesterday morning John and I ran some errands, and it got on about lunchtime and we were hungry. The Waffle House was too crowded, and we didn't want to drive way out of the way to find somewhere else, but there was a Zaxby's there, so we agreed we could eat it again. I got the boneless wings again, and really liked them again!

In the meantime, Ryan was really put out with us for going to Zaxby's without him - twice - so yesterday evening, when we were deciding what to have for dinner, he said "I want Zaxby's!". So, we passed one, and I said, there's a Zaxby's, back up!

I think I've probably had enough Zaxby's to last me for awhile now, lol.

After dinner we went to see Clint Eastwood's brand new movie, Gran Torino.

Ryan had gone with his friends to see the movie when it was first released and he really liked it, and said he wanted to see it again. I kept hearing (reading) good reviews about it from others on message boards I visit, and thought it sounded like a movie we might enjoy seeing.

It was a mostly good movie. Could have been great, but.....that's all I'm going to say about that.

But we had an enjoyable family night out together. I recommend every family get out and do something fun together - movie, bowling, mini-golf, whatever - every so often.

Shopping for Vacation

One way to save money for vacationing is by shopping at thrift stores. You can get some really nice clothes, often name brand, at thrift stores for not alot of money. I'd say probably 98% of my regular everyday wardrobe comes from thrift stores.

Once a month for two days one of our local thrift stores has a 50-cent clothing sale where you can buy clothes for .50 each piece. Today was one of those days. Coldest day in like 10 years (10*F this morning!) and I was shopping for shorts, tshirts, and sundresses, lol.

But look what I got for $5.00; 1 sundress, 5 short-sleeve tops, 3 cami tops, and a pair of blue jean shorts:



I think this is my new favorite shirt. My son says it looks tres French. I just think it's cute.



Another nice thing about being able to get clothes so inexpensively is with the airlines now charging extra fees for checked luggage, I figure I can leave my clothes behind - maybe donate them to the room maids - and have the space in my suitcase to bring back my souvineers instead.

Hotels Are Booked

We decided to spend the first couple days of our trip at the Embassy Suites Hotel Niagara Falls. We booked the "2 Queen Premium Fallsview 2-Room Suite with Breakfast". The room will be located between floors 28 and 36, and overlooking both the famous Horseshoe falls and the American Falls. There's a free breakfast buffet included, and an indoor swimming pool, which the boys always enjoy.

Click on Pic for Hotel Details

We booked the Embassy for it's falls view and proximity to Niagara Falls, where we'll be spending the first couple of days of our trip visting the falls attractions like Maid of the Mist Steamboat, Journey Behind the Falls, White Water Walk, the Skylon, and taking MILLIONS of pictures and video.

Then, after a couple of days at Embassy, we're going to pack up and move to the Country Inn & Suites on the other side of town.

Click on Pic for Hotel Details

There's no Falls views, but it's walking distance to the waterpark, Clifton Hill, and the Rainbow Bridge.

We've stayed at Country Inn & Suites at other locations on a few other trips, and have liked them everytime. Free breakfast, free internet, microwave/fridge in the suite, and also an indoor pool.

I was going to say, we're going in June, the "indoor" part of the pool won't be a big deal, "any" pool would be good. But then I got to thinking, we're going to be used to 80-90*F temps with humidity by mid-June...The average 65*F temp in June up there is going to feel cold to us!
I better remember to pack some long-sleevers.

Trip Planning

Suddenly, trip planning isn't as fun as I remembered.

Oh wait. Now I remember. I don't think it ever is.

There is a saying - which I can't recall at the moment - something similar to 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder', but different. I apparently knew the saying at one time because I remember once, after we'd returned from one of our vacations, a friend asked how our trip had been. I told her to give me a couple weeks of distance from it and ask me again.

After which time, the trip had been great. Seems this same theory applies to trip planning. A few days ago I was so excited about trip planning I couldn't go to sleep at night. I stayed on my computer for hours, days, researching information.
At the time, my point was a general search of hotels and attractions and such to be able to draw up a idea of what the trip might cost. So, not extremely in depth.

With the decision to proceed made, now we get down to the serious stuff. I start with finding the hotel room.

If we're going someplace where the attractions are scattered out, or something we'd have to drive to anyway, then I'll pick a hotel on the outskirts of town, or maybe even on into a nearby town to get more value for my money. You can find nice hotels for less cost a little further away from the attractions.

On the other hand, if the place we're going is the attraction, for instance Niagara Falls, then I consider the hotel room as part of the attraction.
Why would you make the trip to Niagara Falls and not stay in a fallsview room? That would be like going to Las Vegas and not staying in one of the famous casino/hotels.

Which is what triggered my memory in regards to the trip planning not being as fun as I'd thought.

We went to Vegas in April 2007. I already had in mind that we'd want to stay at the Excalibur hotel/casino on account of the boys liking all the Midevil stuff. But I never stay anywhere without having first checked the reviews out at Hotels.com, so I looked it up, and, although there were good reviews, for some reason the bad ones stayed with me more.



At any rate, I was scared that we were going to end up spending our week in a shoddy, old, out dated, smoke-stinking room. I still wanted us to stay there, for the boys, but in order to lessen the what I was afraid would be the horror of it, only booked us there for a couple of nights, and then the remainder of our time in Vegas at the Treasure Island.

Turned out our room at Excalibur was gorgeous. It was large, and clean, with a big flat screen tv, large closet, big spa-like bathroom. We had a wonderful view of the New York New York and MGM across the streets. We loved it, and could have easily spent the whole week there without complaint.



But now, I am right back there again. In researching the hotel in Niagara Falls, I compared the options, and settled on the Embassy Suites Fallsview Hotel. The place looks great, the rooms have 2 queen beds and a sleeper sofa in the sitting room, which my boys like because they don't like to share a bed, and free breakfast.

Then I started reading reviews. Now I'm not an overly picky person, and I can generally overlook some complaints that were posted by obviously overly picky, critical people. But some issues kept coming up over and over again, and some of the things the people weren't complaining about but just mentioning that didn't seem to bother them, but I think would bother me. Or even if it was something I could deal with, I'm afraid my sister and/or her husband might be upset or aggrivated.

So now I'm second-guessing my first choice. Checking out other hotels, or considering spending part of the week at the Embassy, and the rest somewhere else.
Then I remember Vegas and tell myself I'm just doing that same thing again, and I'm sure the hotel will be fine.
But then again, what if I'm wrong?

Go here to view my Las Vegas/Hoover Dam/Grand Canyon vacation Photo Album.