Friday Vacation Adventures

After pulling an all-nighter, needless to say, we had a late start on Friday. It was around noon by the time we got started with our day! We played some games, ate mac n' cheese for breakfast/lunch, and then headed out. Our first stop was to Sweet Melodies to enjoy some gelatos - really churned, delicious ice cream! We then went miniature golfing....

Afterwards we went to Dunkin Donuts to get some refreshing drinks after being in the scorching heat. We did some shopping, and then by that time it was time for supper. We picked up a pizza on our way to Shakespeare in Delaware Park. This organization puts on outdoor theater performances of different Shakespeare plays throughout the summer. People bring lawn chairs or blankets and just spread out on the grass to watch the play. The particular play we saw was "As You Like It." We weren't familiar with the storyline, but thankfully they had a synopsis in the program they handed out! It took us a little while to fully understand what was going on because of all the flowery Shakespearean language, but we soon got caught up in the story. It was a romantic comedy that had us laughing quite often! The actors and actresses did an awesome job! The play started at 7:30 and lasted till 10:30 with a short intermission in between.

Thus ends my vacation adventure blog posts. Saturday was a long day of travel again, and neither Alayna or I were in the picture-taking mood. :-) It's been fun doing all these blog posts, remembering all the fun we had on vacation. We definitely had a great time!

Thursday Vacation Adventures

On Thursday we headed to Niagara Falls. We got a special Discovery Pass, which included Cave of the Winds, Maid of the Mist, the Aquarium of Niagara, and a movie about Niagara Falls.

Our first adventure was Cave of the Winds. We put on the yellow ponchos they gave us, but it was SOOO hot out that they were literally sticking to us. We basically kept them on long enough to take a picture of how ridiculous we looked, and then took them off again. The mist from the waterfall felt so good on such a hot day!

Alayna went up to the "Hurricane Deck" to get soaked... :-)

Because it was later in the day, our next stop was to be the Aquarium of Niagara as that was the attraction that closed earlier than the rest. So we got out our handy-dandy tourist guide, and let's just say that the map should have had an FYI that said "Locations on map are farther than they appear." None of us had ever been to the aquarium so we had no clue where we are going. We started heading off in the general direction that it told us to go. We walked, and walked, and walked. We finally stopped at this welcome center near the border of Canada to ask for directions. Well, let's just say, the guy gave us the longest route possible to get to this aquarium. So we walked, and walked, and walked some more. Eventually Elizabeth got on the phone with her Mom so she could mapquest our location from her laptop at home. She gave us the street name where the aquarium was on, and we were very close. In fact, if we had just walked straight at one point we would have been there 15 minutes sooner! We were literally dripping in sweat by the time we got to the aquarium. The air conditioning never felt so good! So we walked around for a bit, went to the gift shop, took some pictures, and then went to our 2nd sea lion show of the week.

We took pictures with the scary fake shark...this was shortly after we arrived, and we were still slightly deranged from the heat. :-)

Once the sea lion show was over, we headed back to the Falls. Thankfully, we caught a trolley this time, and saved ourselves from the long walk. Our next adventure was going on the Maid of the Mist - by far, the best part of the day!!!!

Feeling stylish in our ponchos...

It was so neat to be so close to the falls!

We were on the boat as the sun was setting and shining directly on the falls. So pretty! There were rainbows everywhere! At one point, there was a full rainbow over the falls. Unfortunately, just something you can't quite capture on camera!

On the Observation Tower...

We then went to the Visitor Center, where we watched "Niagara Legends of Adventure" in the theater. It was quite an amazing movie about all the legends and history associated with Niagara Falls. I particularly liked the story of a teacher who went over the falls in a barrel filled with pillows and her little kitten. She wanted to be remembered by her students for doing something daring, I guess!! Nope, sorry...I don't have to be remembered THAT much by my students. :-)

After the movie was over, we went back to the Observation Tower to watch the colored lights shine on the falls at night. The show started later than it was supposed to, so we didn't stay too long. On the way home, we picked up 2 movies at a redbox and some Code Red Mountain Dew for the all-nighter we were planning. We ended up staying up till 5:30 watching chick flicks, playing games on the Wii and just being completely immature. It was a blast :P

Wednesday Vacation Adventures

After the previous day's adventures, we decided that Wednesday should be more of a laid-back day. We played some games in the morning at Elizabeth's house, and then went to Olive Garden for lunch to meet up with our friend, Cherie.

It had been 3 years since I had seen Cherie, so it was nice to catch up with her!

When we got back, we decided it was time to bake something delicious. Elizabeth had a whole binder filled with yummy dessert recipes, and after some deliberation, we finally decided on Nutella cookies. We had lots of fun making them. Seriously, we took about 50 pictures throughout the cookie making process. I will only post a few though...:P

They turned out quite delicious! Elizabeth gave me the recipe so I could post it on here, so if you want to give them a try, go for it! :D

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Nutella Cookies

Ingredients

½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup firmly packed light brown sugar
½ cup Nutella or other hazelnut chocolate spread
1 egg
½ tsp. vanilla
1 ½ cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
1/3 cup mini chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2. Cream butter with an electric mixer about 1 minute until smooth. Add in both sugars. Beat on high speed about 3 minutes until light & fluffy, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.

3. With the mixer on low, add the egg and Frangelico (or vanilla). Then add the Nutella and mix well.

4. In a small bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients, and mix on low speed until incorporated. Increase the speed to medium and mix just until the dough is smooth. Fold in chocolate chips.

5. Using a small ice cream scoop (or a teaspoon) form the dough into balls and place on greased cookie sheet. To prevent my cookies from spreading too much, I stuck the cookie sheets in the freezer for about 10 minutes before baking.

6. Bake 6-7 minutes (or 7-8 if baking from freezer). Let cookies cool about 5 minutes and transfer to a rack to cool completely. (Note: We ended up putting them in longer than 6-7 minutes, so you just have to judge timing for yourself!)

Tuesday Vacation Adventures

On Tuesday, we went to Darian Lakes amusement park. It was a long, hot, fun day! Because it was really hot outside, many people went to the water park, which meant that there were hardly any lines to get on the rides! We got on sooooo many rides, and some rides 2 or 3 times. Yes, we were quite worn out by the end of the day.....but it was worth it!

The first ride of the day - The Mind Eraser :-)

My favorite ride of the day...the river rapids ride, Grizzly Run! Getting soaked felt sooooo good!! :-)





On the Ferris Wheel....

We got to watch a sea lion show later on in the afternoon. It was indoors, and it was air conditioned. Needless to say, it was a nice break from the heat. :-)

Monday Vacation Adventures

We arrived at Elizabeth's house on Saturday evening, but vacation didn't "officially" start until Monday. :-)

On Monday we went shopping....

{None of these sunglasses were purchased by us...it seems to be tradition to try on sunglasses and pose with them :P}

We enjoyed delicious cheesecake at The Cheesecake Factory...

We sat by a lake to relax and read and then took some pictures by the lake....

A lady came up and offered to take a picture of us taking a picture of ourselves...it was slightly odd, but hey, we got a unique picture that few people would actually get of themselves! :P

We went to Mississippi Mud for dinner. Great name for a restaurant, huh?! Food was good, but we discovered later that the ice cream cones were quite faulty. (I won't post any pictures that may embarrass my sister and her faulty cone...needless to say it was a melting, sticky mess :P)

These were just some of the Monday highlights of our trip. :-) It was a great start to a fun week! Stay tuned for Tuesday's adventures.

And Let the NY Adventure Begin!

My sister, Alayna, and I just got back from visiting our friend, Elizabeth, in New York for a week. We had so much fun!! Over the next couple of days, I will be blogging about our experiences. Be sure to check back soon! (yes, I know, this blog has been rather silent lately...)

I was a little nervous to be driving 7 hours all by myself for the first time (I am not exactly gifted in the directional sense!), but other than a turn-around on both the trip there and back, everything went smoothly! Between GPS, my Dad's instructional session with the map, making my own color-coded map, and praying a lot, I felt rather confident of making it to my destination in one piece! Alayna did a great job calming me down a couple of times, especially in the beginning. :P

We stopped at Arby's for lunch on the way there.



I was glad Alayna had quick camera reflexes when I shouted "Take the picture!" as we zoomed by the "Welcome to New York" sign :-)