New York Part 3 (last one)

 The whole reason I had the idea to take the girls to New York at this particular time is that my dad and Kathy are in Buffalo serving a mission.   I thought it would be fun to show the girls the city and then head to Buffalo to see where they're serving, Niagara Falls, and church history sites.  It was a great excuse to head that direction and I'm pretty sure this wouldn't happen any other time.  Jake isn't really interested in the city, and he's definitely not interested in church history.  I'm learning to be creative about still being able to see/do things even when he doesn't want to.  Like making it a girls trip!

Anyway, we had good fun in Buffalo.  It was great to see Dad and Kathy.  They're at the end of their mission, so it had been like 16 months since we saw them.  In person that is.  It was also fun to see the places they see every day.  Especially since they take no pictures so we've seen nothing their whole mission.  Before we went on our trip Sage asked me if Grandpa's personality would be different.  I think she was relieved that he was still the same grandpa as before.

Our first day there we went to Niagara Falls.  We were planning to go in the caves, maybe the boat.  You know, all the things that make it fun.  When we got there it seemed strangely not busy.  Figured it was just because it was a weekday and not the summer.  However, when we went to buy tickets to the caves we realized that everything was closed.  There were no closed signs, no workers, nothing.  Just everything shut down.  So we walked around and tried to see the falls.  Unfortunately, things were not in our favor and the wind was blowing the water from the falls right into our faces and making it so we could hardly see the water falls.  On our way out I finally saw an employee and asked why everything was closed.  Apparently the power had been out for like 5 days and they couldn't figure out why it was out, nor could they get it back on.  Every day they thought they would get things going again, and every day it was still out.  So we lucked out to go to Niagara Falls on one of the few days they've probably ever been closed.  Basically we went to Niagara Falls without really seeing Niagara Falls.  

The next day we were off to Palmyra and church history.  We'd decided before the trip that we would stop at the temple and do baptisms, so we all made sure to bring our recommends and dresses.  We pulled up to the temple and there were no cars in the parking lot.  Just like the falls, the temple was closed.  We can't win.  We didn't let that keep us down.  We headed to a most delicious burger and ice cream place.  The weather was beautiful so we sat outside and enjoyed every bite of our food.  From there we went to the Book of Mormon printing press.  Probably my favorite stop.  As we left the printing press it was starting to rain just a bit.  No worries, we can handle rain.  Next stop was to the Smith farm and the sacred grove.  As we left the visitor center we grabbed some umbrellas.  It was raining a bit harder, but again, nothing to slow us down.  We finally finished at the houses and headed into the sacred grove.   We were enjoying being outside, all the beautiful leafless trees, when the rain started coming down harder.  We picked up our pace and pretty soon we were mostly running because it was dumping rain on us.  Dumping.  We were probably only halfway back to the visitor center at this point.  Soon there were huge puddles of mud and little rivers we had to jump over.  By the time we made it to the car we were all soaked.  Like dripping soaked.  Apparently when it's raining that hard umbrellas don't do much.  Not to be deterred we continued on to the Hill Cumorah visitors center.  They were amazed at our level of wetness, but still allowed us in.  I was hopeful that during the tour the rain would let up so we could run to the top of the hill.  This did not happen.  Instead we ran to the car, admitted defeat, and headed home.  Of course there was lots of traffic, so we got to enjoy an extra long drive home in really wet clothes.  Basically we went to the Sacred Grove and Hill Cumorah without really seeing the Sacred Grove and Hill Cumorah.  Are you sensing a theme?

Kathy saved us with her yummy dinner that night and we played a rousing game of Tenzi.  The next morning started off with Grandpa's golden delectable pancakes.  In case anyone's worried, they were as good as ever.  Then we went on a tour of a battle ship and subway.  They were both kind of creepy.  Scary mannequins and weird music and smells.  The subway was especially terrifying and Sage led us out at an almost sprint because we were so terrified (Dad made the wise decision not to enter the subway).  We made one more stop for ice cream, and that brought us to the close of our Buffalo trip.  We were thwarted on every side, but not defeated.  Because luckily our main objective was seeing Grandpa and Grandma, and in that endeavor we were successful.  You can't beat us Buffalo!

We made it to their apartment!

Niagara Falls somewhere in the mist

Saw the outside of the temple.

This is when we were still having fun in the rain.  Soon after this it was every man for himself.

Can you tell how wet we are?  

Sage gunning down another ship.