Church History Tour: Day 1- NIagara Falls

 We flew into Cleveland, but actually wanted to start 4 hours away in Palmyra to work our way chronologically.

So we got our rental car and headed to Buffalo where we were spending the night in order to break up the drive. We got to our hotel and went to bed.

Through a series of fortunate events, we discovered that Niagara Falls was right next to Buffalo, where I happened to book our hotel. Being so close, we knew we had to go. In talking to a co-worker, I knew we wanted to go to the Canada side, but that required special permission for Ben. Thankfully, he got it pretty easily.

Camille was thrilled to go to Canada! It was actually pretty funny.

And, Canada did not disappoint!

It was raining on us here, even though it wasn't actually raining!

This is with the view of American Falls, which is separate from Horseshoe Falls

This is the top of Horseshoe Falls- the water was so fast! We had talked a lot about people going over the falls in barrels and we all agreed they were idiots.

Ben wasn't sure if he wanted to do the boat tour because we knew we were going to get wet. We did. We got SOAKED and drank a lot of water. It also completely felt like we were entering a massive storm- the water was churning so much and we were flopping all over on the water. And, it was absolutely incredible. Words can't describe it. We all agreed it was absolutely worth doing.

American Falls

Headed to Horseshoe Falls

We splurged and went to Rainforest Cafe for lunch. The town of Niagara really felt like Myrtle Beach- such a tourist trap, with all of the same things there as we found at Myrtle Beach. It wasn't a bad thing, and we enjoyed ourselves, I was just surprised.

Then we did the "eye" and saw the Falls from above. The girls really wanted to do it, and it was very cool.

Madame Trousseau's wax museum:

At this point, the girls were "done." But there was a lot Ben and I still wanted to see. We know we likely will never go back, so we wanted to take advantage. We walked back to our car, took some more stunning pictures, and were able to talk the kids into doing a soarin over the falls experience, and a "Behind the Falls" tour.

The ponchos got back on!

Here's the tunnels. This was really cool- you can literally hear the second you are underneath the falls. The falls are going over you, and then there's two tunnels where you can see literally "the back side of water." Who needs the Jungle Cruise, when you have this view? The force from the falls was so great! It was simply magnificent. God's beauty at work, for sure.

We did not get to the power plant, which Ben would have liked. But, it was time for us to leave Canada. Camille was sad. Now they both have plans to marry Canadians and move to Canada. I can't blame them.

Once back in Buffalo, we stopped at Anchor Bar for dinner- the original restaurant where Buffalo wings were created. We gave it very poor reviews- Ben says they are the worst wings he's ever eaten. We found out later why- apparently you need to burn/char the wings before dipping them in the sauce. They definitely tasted burned, which we did not appreciate.

Then we drove another hour to Palmyra to start the real reason we came: church history!

Homecoming Parade and Game

 It was a fun week with the  homecoming parade which Claire was in for ASLHS and Camille was in for color guard, and then the game which ThunderRidge won! Woo-hoo! Camille had her own fan club cheering her on in the stands as a ton of her friends were there rooting for her. It was pretty cool.

Homecoming Dance

 Claire looked stunning for Homecoming! Her dress was perfection! She went with a large group of friends, which had it's pros and cons. Claire would have preferred a smaller group, and there was a bit of drama going into it, but they ended up having a great time. They had dinner at Texas Roadhouse, where Claire ordered her steak "well done." So, we need to teach her how to order steak, but she said it was good.

Our traditional neighbors picture: