I Love New York!! Family Reunion

Tuesday, July 7

We left for Rochester, New York early in the morning. We were supposed to fly into Newark, New Jersey but due to thunderstorms we were delayed. Our plane had to refuel at some airport in New York. I'm not sure what the airport was called, but as we were taking off and headed to Newark I could see Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty from my window. Due to the delays in Newark we had missed our flight to Rochester. The Newark airport was crazy and there were wall to wall people, I was so nervous about my kids getting lost in the crowd. They told us that we could not fly out until Wednesday morning. We had a tour planned for Wednesday morning of Niagara Falls, and then there was no guarantee that all of us could get on the same flight so we ended up renting a van and driving 5 1/2 hours to Rochester. One good thing about this drive was that we crossed over the Susquehana River, where Joseph Smith was baptized and where on the banks of the river he received the priesthood. It was cool the see it. We got in at 4:00 am.

The suite was beautiful. My parents had got all of the families their own suite with 2 bedrooms, a living room, and a full kitchen. Each bedroom had a bathroom. All three of the boys stayed in one room, all sleeping in the king size bed. Alyssa slept in the living room, the couch pulled out to a bed. And Paul and I stayed in the master bedroom that had a desk. Each room had a TV and the kids thought that was fun that we could all watch different TVs.

We were very tired, it had been a long day.

Wednesday, July 8

We had a wonderful breakfast at the Hotel and then headed to Buffalo, NY. My parents had rented two 15 passenger vans for us all to travel in. My brothers were the drivers and the rest of us just held on for dear life, no they weren't that bad. Anyway when we got to Buffalo we got on a tour bus with our tour guide, Ricky. We drove out to Goat Island. It's called that because way back in the 1800s a farmer took all of his livestock to the island to keep them away from the wolves. A really bad winter came and killed all the animals except one goat, thus the name Goat Island. We then saw the amazing Niagara Falls, truly miraculous.

The rapids under the bridge driving out to Goat Island


This is a picture of an old wall to the powerplant and a statue of Tesla.


This is some of my family in the "fancy" rain ponchos they gave us to wear. They also gave everyone "fancy" waterproof sandals.


Niagara Falls - There is a path that you follow and it takes you right up by the falls. It is a spectacular view.






We then went on a boat ride called "Maid of the Mist". It takes you to another part of the falls and drives right in the middle of the walls of water. It was amazing to have water on three sides of us. We got "fancy" blue rain ponchos on the boat ride.




You can see how big the Falls are by comparing them to the people in the corner of the picture.






We then went on this observation deck that hangs over the Falls.


Next we went to the Daredevil Museum. We learned lots of stories of people that have gone over the falls and survived.

Here are some pictures of some of the ways that people chose to go over the falls.




Then our tour bus got a flat tire and we sat around for awhile. Finally a different bus came, but by that time we had to get back to return our van rental from the day before so our tour got cut short. We missed visiting the powerplant. Oh well, I think we saw the best parts anyway.

To be continued...