We have been looking forward to this trip for a while. I have been trying to take the kids to Great Wolf Lodge for a couple of years now but it always gets put off. Last Christmas my in-laws wanted to give us money for a trip. I suggested that maybe a gift card for Great Wolf Lodge would be a good idea, because we wouldn’t be able to put the money towards everyday expenses and it would force us to take the trip. We had to wait until tax season was done because my husband is a Chartered Accountant, and we wanted to go after the election so we booked our trip starting today.
Today we left Simcoe around 1:00, after Eileen’s speech therapy class. My birthday is tomorrow, and about 10 minutes after leaving home Gord asked me if I wanted to open my present. As soon as he said that, knowing my birthday isn’t until tomorrow, I figured out I must have got what I asked for – a Bloggie Touch! I had been thinking having a Flip Cam would be awesome right about the time they announced they were going to stop making them. Then I came across an article outlining other similar type camcorders. I quietly forwarded the article to Gord suggesting that one of these might be a great birthday idea and voila! I have had it for about 8 hours and so far I love it. I am going to play around with it on this trip and then will write a full review when I get home.
I decided that we should spend one night in Niagara Falls before going to Great Wolf Lodge. Our first stop was the Butterfly Conservatory. Kaitlyn’s studied butterflies in Kindergarten in the fall so I thought she would find this cool. Well, Mommy thought it was a pretty cool place. There were hundreds of butterflies, and it felt like they were going to fly right into you but they never did. There was one who kept landing on Michael’s stoller. The girls like it but I think they were more intrigued by the man made waterfall inside the observatory. In another area there were informational displays and I think we all learned more in this area. Cool fact of the day = Butterflies taste their food with their feet.
After the conservatory we headed into downtown Niagara Falls for dinner. Our plan was to take the kids to the Rainforest Cafe. We had trouble finding it at first because it is in it’s own alcove but once we saw the sign I am not sure how we missed it. The girls had to pose on the bench with the frog Cha Cha for a picture before we even made it in the building. When we first walked it I thought “Wow this is cool”. As we were seated we were given the outline of the restaurant and explanation of the thunderstorms every 30 minutes and how the animals ‘come to life’. I thought this might be kind of fun for the kids but the girls immediately got freaked out that the animals would come to life and attack them. Gord and I were worried it would feel like a very long dinner. As the dinner went on they began to share my feelings and Kaitlyn went from “I never want to come back here again” to “I love this place”. We took many walks around the restaurant, encouraged by the wait staff, to visit all the animals both real and pretend. The best question had to be Kaitlyn asking why they had a shark in the restaurant (a real one) if there were no sharks in the rainforest. We agreed it was a good question!
Next we checking into our hotel, The Embassy Suites Niagara Falls. We are very happy with the hotel and considering where we are it seems very reasonably priced. I did pay a bit more to get a room with a great view of the Horseshoe Falls but it was worth it to see the girls plastered against the window. They even got so see the falls lite up at night from the comfort of our room. This is also a great hotel room for mom and dad because it has two separate room. This means Daddy can watch the hockey game and I can blog while the kids are sound asleep in the other room. So far very happy with our selection.
The one other thing we did before turning in for the night was taking a drive & walk down by the falls. Kaitlyn was initally terrified someone would fall it but we did convince her it was safe. It was cute when she started to question why it was raining and we told her that it was just the mist off the falls. We weren’t there long as they were getting tired by we can now say we took them to see the falls.
A great first day of vacation. Looking forward to a quiet morning, as much as it can be with 3 young kids, and then heading to Great Wolf Lodge early tomorrow afternoon.
Mommy's Lessons 