Niagara Falls

We had another fun couple of days during Jack's break and went to Niagara Falls with some of our good friends from Michigan. Thanks Rachel and Chris for such a fun time!
It was only a 4 hour drive to Niagara Falls from our place and Jaxon did pretty well in the car.
Our very first view of the falls.
Jaxon's first view of the Falls.
Exploring around Niagara Falls.
The area around the Falls (Clifton Hill) was kind of "Vegas" like to us, with lots of attractions, TONS of haunted houses and wax museums and lots of lights, food, and sounds. It was fun walking around.We got to do a couple of the Niagara Falls Experience type things too. Our favorite by far was the Maid of the Mist boat ride. In the picture below, you can see how close these boats get to the falls.Here's us getting ready to board the boat. I was impressed they even had little kid size rain ponchos for Jaxon.
Unfortunately, the rain ponchos didn't do much to keep the spray of the falls off of us and we ended up getting soaked. You can barely see Jack and Chris behind all the other tourists in the spray of the falls.But it was pretty cool to get so close to the falls.
We also did the Walk Behind the Falls.
All in all, it was a FABULOUS vacation. What a fun get away that really wasn't too far away. We got to enjoy some good food and great weather too. Sorry for all the pictures, but if you didn't get enough, we have more here. :o)

Sweeet-ness

It's been SOOOO nice having Jack home for Spring break and we've been loving just relaxing and spending lots of time all together. We headed over to Mally's Chocolates a couple of days ago to take a tour of their chocolate factory and see all their sweets. The tour was actually a lot of fun and since we went during a week day, it was pretty empty and the workers enjoyed waving at us and having Jaxon smile at them. :o) We weren't allowed to take pictures of the tour, but we saw this sign at the end of the tour and Jack HAD to get a picture of it. We had a good laugh about it. :o)
Jaxon is just walking all over the place now and enjoyed walking around the bright pink candy room.We got some yummy sweets from there...which actually weren't chocolate. :o) But they had super yummy sour candies.
We also went to the West Side Market in Cleveland. It's an AWESOME farmer's market type place with lots of vendors with TONS of yummy fruits, vegetables, meats, and sweets. We got a couple of things we needed and on the way out, a really nice vendor offered me a bunch of starfruits for a dollar. When I agreed and he started bagging it, he wanted me to buy another dollars worth and so was just loading more fruit into the bag. I told him no thanks, but he insisted, and so in the end, I got a HUGE bag of starfruit for just a dollar. :o) It was great!!
Starfruit always reminds me of Hong Kong and of my parents, so I've been loving having so many to munch on.

Fun in Michigan

We were excited when we moved out here to Ohio to find that we were now within driving distance to our good friends Chris and Rachel, who are living in Michigan. It's been a while since we've been out here and I FINALLY got a chance to drive out to visit with them. It was my first road trip on my own with Jaxon and I was a little nervous, but I'm glad I did it cause it was super fun. It's only a 2.5 hour drive, so Jaxon and I just hit the road and went to give Jack a little bit of private studying time :o). Jaxon got to play with Allie and Chris and loved every minute of it.
Here's Jaxon and Allie.
Jaxon loved being held by Chris. Chris is like 6'11'', so I think Jaxon thought it was an adventure to be up so high whenever Chris picked him up. :o)
Funny story about Jaxon and Chris. Jaxon used to say "mama" and "dada" all the time, but in the past month or so, he's just kind of stopped. The doctor said it's most likely because he's so much more focused on motor skills and functions right now that he's just not thinking about verbal communication as much. Anyhow, when we went to stay with Chris and Rachel, Jaxon all of a sudden decided to bust out with his "dada" to Chris...not Jack. But now that we're back home, Jaxon is back into the "dada" with Jack...but we're still waiting for the "mama" word to come back into his vocab.
Here's one of Rachel and I with our kids.
We didn't get a pic of CJ, Rachel's newest little one, but he was a precious baby and I loved holding a newborn again. Makes you realize just how big my own "baby" is now.
But thank you to Chris and Rachel for a fabulous weekend and we can't wait to do it again!!