Before the show, we checked in to our hotel and headed over the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner, where we discovered, that yeah, they did change the veggie burger chainwide and now the whole chain has been ruined for me.  Such a sad sad thing.  It was perfect the way it was, why did they have to change a burger that was delicious and swap it out for Boca?  Why? Why?  Why?

What can I say about the concert?  It was AWESOME.  Here is the view from our seats:

That photo was taken with my iPhone which makes everything seem further away, so to see how close it was, well it is remarkable.  It had also been so long since I’ve been to a concert that I had totally forgotten that we are allowed to have cameras, so of course I hadn’t taken mine and all I had was my cell phone and got some rather bad photos, and should have given up, but I kept taking them.

So the concert.  The warm up act was a dance troupe Legion of Extraordinary Dancers, that I really didn’t find to be all that interesting.  I just discovered though that it a group that Harry Shum, Jr (plays Mike Chang) is involved with.  Everyone else was screaming and yelling, so either they enjoyed it or they were faking it.  :)

While we were waiting for the real act to start, they showed photos and quotes from the show on the big screens to entertain us.  Also, we were the last row before a big aisle there on the floor, before the next group of rows of chairs.  Behind that group of chairs was another stage – which we discovered would be used during the concert – as would that aisle.  Right before the performers, who will be in character, complete with Artie in a wheelchair, come out, cheerleaders come out and start to rile up the crowd and are passing out little bags.  I had no idea what they were, as I wasn’t given one.  I guess I wasn’t cheering and carrying on enough.  The big screen lights up and Jane Lynch as Sue Sylvester comes on and explains to us what is going on and it is her Cheerios passing out puke bags for the concert.  Oh Sue.  What are we going to do with you.  Turns out, I didn’t need that bag, eh?

Finally, the cast comes out and starts to sing.  They open with “Don’t Stop Believing” as expected, even though that was a Season #1 song.   At this point, I don’t remember everything about it in sequence, so I am going to just spill my thoughts.  :)

I loved the back stage because I was so freaking close to it.  I am not a crying because I am there with the performers live kind of fan.  Maybe cause I am old.  But I just really liked seeing everyone up close.  The Warblers sang in the back.  The first person to sing in the back was Puck.  The young girls really flipped out over that.  He walked through the aisle in front of me.  Again, I didn’t die.  I’m just old, I guess.  :)

Throughout the performance, they would put vignettes of Mr. Shu and Sue Sylvester on the big screen interacting with the “kids”.  Problem with that is that is that the dialogue got drowned out by the real kids screaming and yelling.  I didn’t really understand that.  It wasn’t like they were actually there?  Again, I didn’t get it.

I had heard a rumor that when they sing Born this Way, they switch their shirts, but they didn’t.   I heard a rumor that Gwyneth Paltrow toured with them.  I guess Cleveland wasn’t exciting enough.  :)

The only thing, besides Mr. Shu not being there, (I know, I know, he is on Broadway) that disappointed me was that they didn’t sing any of their mashups and, to me, those are their best songs which shows the creativity of this group.  Fiddler on the Roof/Umbrella (c’mon, that is creative genius) does require Gwyneth and Matthew, I know, and they weren’t there, but there are plenty of other mashups that could have been sung.  Surely, those are better choices than Big-Bottomed Girls?  But, whatever.

But it was a  great show, lots of talent, good music and good dancing (except from Finn) and even Matt, who doesn’t watch the tv show enjoyed the concert.  Here are some of the photos I took.  And these are the good ones.

This was when they first came out

Puck singing – yeah, lovely picture, but look how close!

iPhone perspective

Kurt and Rachel – back stage

Mercedes – backstage (no flash)

Artie – safety dance – big screen shot

Safety Dance

Single Ladies (Encore) Back Stage

Complete song list (from internet, not me) not including encores:

“Don’t Stop Believin’”
“Dog Days Are Over”
“Sing”
“Slave 4 U”
“Fat Bottom Girls”
“PYT”
“I Want To Hold Your Hand”
“Ain’t No Way”
“Born This Way”
“Firework”
“Teenage Dream”
“Silly Love Songs”
“Raise Ur Glass”
“Happy Days”
“Lucky”
“River Deep Mountain High”
“Don’t Rain on my Parade”
“Jesse’s Girl”
“Valerie”
“Loser Like Me”

The first weekend in June, Matt and I went on a trip with my fellow zoo docents to the Columbus Zoo in Columbus, OH and the Good Zoo in Oglebay, WV.  Columbus Zoo is a HUGE and beautiful zoo and if you are a fan of zoos, I highly recommend this zoo.  There are animals there that we don’t have at our zoo, like koalas, tree kangaroos, red pandas, Pallas cats, artic foxes, wolves and the fishing cat.  Oh and a really big bat!  Thank goodness we don’t have those big bats in Pittsburgh.  I would have to move.  I couldn’t live in a place where those big bats are!  My favorite exhibits were the gorilla exhibit because it looked so small but yet was so big.  They have a lot of gorillas and you look at this exhibit and think it’s small, then you see a gorilla and how little space he takes up and you realize just how humungous it is.  I liked the exhibit because it had climbing things and ropes and ledges and all kinds of fun looking things for them to do.  I also liked the outdoor penguin exhibit.  I like outdoor penguin exhibits.  Not all breeds of penguins can be kept in outdoor exhibits of course, but when they can, I like the outdoor exhibits.  There were lots and lots of baby animals.  Mostly primates.  And they were all oh so cute.

It was extremely hot this particular weekend.  Heat indexes of 97 degrees.  Pretty much a heat wave on the whole Eastern Shore, I believe. Although Columbus is hardly the Shore.  Ha ha.  The Columbus Zoo does have a water park as well.  So if you go, you can make a weekend of it, spend one day at the zoo, and one day at the water park.  We stayed at the nearby Chase Suites Hotel, which was a very nice hotel.

The next day we went to the Good Zoo at Oglebay in Wheeling, WV.  I didn’t even know that this zoo existed.  It is 70 acres, so it much smaller.  But boy is it nice. They too have really nice exhibits and very well cared for animals.  We loved seeing the baby zebra.  She still had her fur on.   We had a great time!  Since I took about 400 pictures of this trip, I’ll just post four – one of my favorite animal, the baby zebra, and two more photos that I am just proud of.

Baby Zebra at Good Zoo

Always my favorite animal (next to kitty cats of course)

I’m proud of this photo because this little guy was elusive.  It took forever to get a good shot of him.  (Columbus Zoo)

And this shot?  Well, c’mon.  Look at it.  It’s just beautiful.  Also, not an official zoo animal.

Now on to North Carolina part of the post.

Just like St. Petersburg, the main reason we visit North Carolina is to spend time with family.  This time it is my sister, three nieces and nephew.   This trip was scheduled for Friday – Monday.  We do fly to Raleigh, and although we could fly direct via USAirways, we usually choose Southwest.  This time, we had to choose a flight with a 2-hour layover.  Then we get a notification that our plane was going to be delayed for two hours.  So four hours in the BWI airport.  That is way too long to have any layover anywhere!  But we finally get there and was very happy to be there!  :)

We got up early the next day to travel to King’s Dominion in Virginia.  The last time Matt and I were there Maddie was just a little thing, a baby.  I don’t think Owen was even born.  Maddie is now 11, so it had been a long time.  King’s Dominion is a three hour drive from where they live.  We got there shortly after opening.  The East Coast heat wave was still in effect.  The kids didn’t care.  :)  We had a nice split.  The two younger girls and their parents went their way and the two older ones came with Matt, Kayla and me.  We rode the big rides, the rode the small rides.  We did hook up for food and things we could all ride throughout the day.  It was so much fun.

One highlight – the biggest roller coaster in the park, the Intimidator, uses the elevator pulley to pull you up the first hill like the Millenium Force at Cedar Point does.  And like the Millenium Force – it will occasionally break down.  And it did.  With Owen and Kayla on it.  Um.  Uh-oh.  Owen was good about it though.  No freak outs.  So that was a relief.  Matt and I had that happen to us at Cedar Point, so we know how it feels.  The staff at King’s Dominion were a bit rude with us though.  Funny, Matt took a picture with his cell phone (okay, so I guess we do have a picture of this trip somewhere) and they said “You can’t take a picture of that”.  Matt said “I already did”.  At least they didn’t make him delete it.  We told them our small nephew was on the ride, but they still made us leave the premises, but we stayed as close as they would allow.  Yeah, we were those people.  :)

The park was not crowded.  The longest line was about 25 minutes and that was for the Volcano.  Which I love, but Matt says is too slow for him (I think that is why I liked it).  We kept thinking that all of the people were over in the water park and that they would be coming over to the rides side before long, but no, they never did.  In fact, the park just kept getting emptier and emptier.  :)

We had a blast.  Matt and I even got on the ferris wheel at night with the little girls.  CoCo is just filled with so much joy. She is just incredible to spend time with.  When people say we should look at life from the eyes of a child, they are talking about children like CoCo.  She is so very delightful.  Here are some quotes that I lifted from Matt’s facebook page.  Shh…. don’t tell him, and me = Matt in these.

CoCo: “It almost makes me want to cry!”

Me: What?

We closed the park and headed home.  My sister and I were in the same van with the girls and the boys and Kayla in another van.  They took one route, we took another.  On our route, we encountered the road being closed and so we had to detour.  We are exhausted, sleepy, thirsty, and here we are lost in the dark in Williamsburg Virginia.  The GPS was useless as it kept wanting us to go back to the exit where we were forced to get off in the first place.  But we got home – it took an extra hour.

Then we discovered the hamster was out of her cage.  We had a middle of the night rescue.  Yes, this is definitely an interesting trip.  :)  Fortunately, Sunday and Monday were much less eventful.  We spent time in the pool and playing with the kids and talking and just having fun in general.

Of course, there was the fun of actually getting home.  We had a very very short layover coming home.  I guess to make up for the four hours going down, eh?  Then we find out our flight from Raleigh was delayed.  Yay!  Our record of getting out of RDU airport continues to be 0%.  But we are always very early anyway.  We check our bags, the ladies taking care of this area are not paying attention and this took a little too long for my liking.  I know, what is the hurry?  Stay with me here!  We go through security.  Didn’t take long, but everyone had to be naked checked, no more sneaking through metal detectors only, so that slows us down.  We get to our gate and what do we see?  A plane that is boarding going to BWI where we are headed!  After spending two minutes discussing with Matt whether we should try to get on the plane and him not wanting to, I try anyway, and I run to the Customer Service desk and the lady said that she can get us on, there is lots and lots of room, the plane is half empty!  Yippeee!  Except.  The stupid gate man wouldn’t let us on.  Boooo!  So now we are down to our original and still 20 minute layover.   Mind you – all those annoyances – the luggage ladies paying attention, or not using the stupid scanners or not arguing with Matt – and we could have gotten on that plane! We literally missed our chance by two minutes.  So it was hard to relax waiting for our plane and even being on our plane despite being reassured we would make our connection.  We get off at BWI and we are literally one gate over from our flight to Pittsburgh and they are just lining up.  We get right in line and get right on the plane.  WHEW!

If only layovers were always that smooth. Oh wait, no.  It was too tenseful.

We take Kayla home and go to bed.  The next day, we have to get to Cleveland for the Glee Live concert and that is a post for another day.  I’m quite tired of writing.  Talk to y’all tomorrow.

I’ll refer you to my sister’s blog for photos of the children – she is in my Blogroll – All My Little Chickadees.

So, as soon as he could buy the tickets, he did.  Then we started scouring flights.  Flying to Toronto used to be so easy.  It’s less than an hour and it used to be cheap.  Now … it was very expensive.  Anything cheap was not direct and took many, many hours.  So we decided to suck it up and just drive.  We are not generally fans of driving to destinations much further than 3-4 hours.  There are other considerations too.  A drive can be short, yet difficult.  Or long, yet easy.  The first time we travelled to Toronto together, we didn’t really find it difficult.  Our problem was when we left, when we tried to get home, we couldn’t find our way “out” and we were driving all over Cananda and even when we finally found a place to stop to ask for directions – well, the people spoke French.  So … we thought – now we have GPS.  We can survive.  So we drove.  And yes, it wasn’t hard.  The hardest part is just when you get close to the city and that is where I made Matt drive.  And we parked the car and didn’t use it again the entire trip, because we didn’t need it.  Toronto has excellent public transportation and is also very easily navigable on foot.

Unfortunately, Toronto’s weather shadows Pittsburgh’s, except colder.  So they were also having cold and rain, just like us.  So we had to deal with being cold and all of that.  In the past, we’ve gone to Toronto in July, when it’s hot, but we were hoping they would get a freaky warm episode, so that we could go enjoy the islands, but no such luck.

We drove up on a Thursday, got there in time for dinner.  We basically did just that.  Checked-in the hotel, went to dinner, walked just a short while just to feel like we were in Toronto and then hung out in the room.

The next morning, Friday, we got up and had breakfast at the hotel, which was included in our room rate (thanks AAA).  This was also the day of the Royal Wedding.  Just FYI.  :)

In all of the times we had been to Toronto, the one thing we had (surprisingly) not done was go to the Hockey Hall of Fame.  So we decided to go do that.  This was also the only place the whole trip, pretty much, that I took pictures.  Here are some of them:

The Great Hall in the Hall of Fame – used to be a bank building.  I just thought this was beautiful!

More of the Great Hall

Me with the current Stanley Cup.  I wanted to point out the square with the most recent Penguin win, but Matt wouldn’t let me.

Why so serious?

This is the original Stanley Cup

Later that evening, after locating some food, and believe me, we eat well in Toronto (I think we went to the Hard Rock), we saw the musical Billy Elliot.  We had never seen Billy Elliot before, and it was good.  There wasn’t a heck of a lot happening in the theater this particular weekend, but we managed to fill our time.  Anyway, we did enjoy the show and we had really awesome seats.  We always have good luck getting great seats at theater in Toronto.

Saturday was dedicated to the UFC event.  In the morning, it was hotel breakfast again.  Then to the UFC fan expo.  We chose to walk to the venue.  It was a good 1.5 miles.  And Mother Nature was actually kind enough to let it not rain long enough for us to get there without the rain.  It was still chilly though.  :) This was such a great idea!  There were vendors.  And there were fighters!  And the fighters were set up to meet the fans and there were going to be photo opps and autograph sessions.  However … I am not sure what exactly happened.   But the expo was WAY too crowded.  It was no fun at all.  What we actually got to see was LINES.  There were LINES to get into LINES.   The vendors were not very interesting – and some of the fighters were sponsored by the vendors, so the crowds were around the vendors and we couldn’t look at the vendors’ booths even if we wanted to. Everyone was packed in like sardines.  I would say that the expo needs some big time re-working.  :)     Matt was very disappointed that he didn’t get to have the experience he had hoped for and I felt horrible about it too.  I know he was really excited about it.  So we went back to the hotel and hung out until dinner.  I think we ate at Hey Lucy, which was tasty, tasty.  Then to the fight we went.

Now, I have to admit.  I was not excited about this.  Fighting never really seemed to be my thing.  It never really excited me. I don’t get it.  I am a very non-violent person.  Why would anyone want to beat anyone else up? FOR FUN?  And worse? BE BEAT UP?  I had planned to be totally bored.  Yep.  Planning for boredom.  I took a book with me in my purse.  But then I got to the event.  And I actually watched the events.  Every single one.  Some were quick.  Some were longer.  There was one fight where one fighter had a hematoma almost as big as his head and yet he kept on fighting.  Now that is tough.  I do admit that by the end, even though I did watch them all, I was kinda getting tired of being there.  Blame the ADD.  I was ready to move on to something else.  But they did keep things moving, and the down time between fights wasn’t that long.

My biggest gripe about the fight itself is the music.  At first it was okay.  But by the end of the night is was SO FREAKING LOUD that I was losing my mind.  It just kept. getting. louder. and. louder.  It totally wasn’t necessary.  I’ve been to concerts that weren’t as noisy.  I understand the music filled in the gaps between fights, but still!   And the people next to me – and yes, I realize this has nothing to do with the event – were smoking cigarettes!  They were not permitted and it wasn’t until the end of the night that I discovered who it was, or I would have reported them.  All I knew is that I smelled them.  I thought I was losing my mind! I asked Matt “Do you smell cigarettes?”  and of course, he either didn’t or he wasn’t sure because the smoke would start blowing in another direction.  Oh well.  So in addition to going deaf, I was getting lung cancer.

So, once again, I surprised myself by enjoying something I didn’t think I would.  Would I go to another UFC event?  Yes.  In fact, there is one in Pittsburgh tonight.  Oh sweet irony!  It was announced after we bought tickets to go to Toronto.  Thing is – I didn’t know if I would want to go.  So Matt bought two tickets only, so that he could take my cousin and then in the event she couldn’t go, I would go.  But had I known it wasn’t totally intolerable, I would have had him buy three.  Oh well!  What are you going to do?

It makes absolutely no sense to me, because I really do abhor violence.  I do not like people fighting each other, either physically or verbally.  I do not like acts of violence against ANY sentient being.  But maybe because this is agreed upon ahead time?  Consent?  Is that what makes the difference?  I do not know.  It is just another of life’s conundrums.

Back to the Toronto trip.

Sunday, we had no real plans.  So we decided to see the play Calendar Girls.  If you are not familiar with the story, it is about a group of mostly middle-aged women who need to raise money for their garden club, so they decide to pose nude for a calendar.  This is a true story, of which a move was made, and then the play.  We really liked it and thought it was really well done and funny.  We were pretty surprised to find out later that there were very very negative reviews of this posted online.  Harsh critics they were.  I can pretty harsh, and I am not an expert.  But really, it didn’t deserve the criticism.

Another thing we did on Sunday was go to a movie, which I have to admit, I forget which one.  But I have to say – this movie theater was the coolest theater I have ever been in.  It was an AMC  theater and the building was round.  You walk in and pay on the ground level.  You need to then go up two levels on the escalator before getting into any theaters.  The theater itself was two levels!  Toronto has an extensive underground city – the PATH they call it – and also a subway – and at ground level was a subway stop, and part of the PATH.  The first two levels of the building had shops and a food court.  Then the first level of theaters and the second.  The theaters were stadium seats, they had 3D theaters and an IMAX and it was so clean and super new.  It was just beautiful.  Honestly, I should have taken pictures.  But I would have looked really, really ridiculous.  But I wish theaters in this city were half that nice.  We have ghetto theaters, with a nice one thrown in here and there, but nothing on this scale.

Monday, we headed home and that was our wonderful trip to Toronto.  I love Toronto.  Even though it was cold and raining most of the time and we had to carry umbrellas, there is no such thing as a bad trip to Toronto.

]]> http://www.jennriffle.com/2011/06/26/travelling-tales-part-ii-ufc-129-and-toronto-canada/feed/ 0 http://www.jennriffle.com/2011/06/26/travelling-tales-part-i-st-petersburg/ http://www.jennriffle.com/2011/06/26/travelling-tales-part-i-st-petersburg/#comments Sun, 26 Jun 2011 20:19:07 +0000 jenn http://www.jennriffle.com/?p=429 Continue reading →]]> In March, yes, March, I am behind in talking about my travels, so what?, we went to St. Petersburg, Florida to escape the Pittsburgh winter, but mostly to see this beautiful little girl:

That is our niece Eva.  She is four years old.  Unfortunately, she doesn’t live near us, but fortunately, her mom picked a wonderful place to live and so we love to go visit!

This particular March, it was already hot in Florida.  Very hot.  But this is what we were leaving:

Since the main attraction is indeed spending time with Eva, we didn’t do a lot of touristy stuff.  The first night we got there, Eva was spending the day with her daddy, but we had lunch with her and then we fought to stay awake.  We walked down to the nearby park, Crescent Lake and walked the loop.

The next day, however, we spent the entire day with Eva and my sister-in-law.  We went to the park and just hung out and had a great time.  Eva picked out her outfit.  I think she did a good job:

That evening, we babysat her while her mother went to work.  Here was some of the stuff that went on.

The next day was BEACH day!  In MARCH!  Yes! Pinch me!  Not only was it hot enough to be outside in shorts, the water was warm enough to go into.  While we were laying on the beach, we decided what else we could do when we were done.  After all, none of us wanted to be there all day and become as red as a lobster.  Then we got hungry.  So we found a place for lunch and had some yummy food and then went mini-golfing.  It was Eva’s first time mini golfing and she had a blast!

The unique “twist” to the golf course was that it had alligators that we could feed.  A little alligator farm.  It was kinda cool, just because we could feed them.  But it also seemed a little cruel.  I mean – it wasn’t that big and there were a lot  of them.

Feeding the alligator what we believe to be dog treats

Perch where most of them stayed.  You can see an alligator head in the lower left of this photo.

Later on, we went home for a nap, then went to the St. Petersburg’ Pier where I finally, finally got to see dolphins jumping and frolicking.  I’ve seen dolphins of course.  I’ve seen them in captivity, but to see them in their natural environment and doing their natural dolphin things, it was just so wonderful.  There was a big group of them out there.  And I even got to see a baby!  It was oh so very cute.  The day ended with a great dinner at an Italian restaurant, and then we all went home and crashed.  Florida air just makes you sleep very well!

The next day, Wednesday, we headed home.  Our trip was too quick and next time, we agreed we would stay longer.  We are planning to go down for Halloween.  And hope to make this week in March/Spring Break an annual tradition too.

]]> http://www.jennriffle.com/2011/06/26/travelling-tales-part-i-st-petersburg/feed/ 0 http://www.jennriffle.com/2010/10/07/the-highs-and-lows-of-niagara-falls/ http://www.jennriffle.com/2010/10/07/the-highs-and-lows-of-niagara-falls/#comments Thu, 07 Oct 2010 20:43:29 +0000 jenn http://www.jennriffle.com/?p=253 Continue reading →]]> I’m so behind in my blogging, it’s been such a busy time, and mostly just with the day-to-day, so blogging often gets put on the back burner.  That is why this entry is from an event that took place last month.

Every year, my husband and I go on a trip for our anniversary.   Last year, our 10th anniversary, we went to Kauai.  This year?  Erie, PA and Niagara Falls, ON, CA.

Our actual anniversary was spent with him at a college football game and me at zoo training, then rushing home to load the car to drive to Erie.  What’s in Erie?  Nothing really, but there was a marathon the next day and Matt was participating in the half marathon and I, the 5K walk, the next day.  Once we got to Erie, we had an exciting dinner at Steak ‘n Shake and then went back to the hotel and rested for the very early and long day the next day.   Matt did his half, I walked my 5K and then we headed for the falls.

I’m not going to give you all a play-by-play, that would be boring.  But I am going to summarize and tell you what I thought were the high points and the low points.

Food:

We ate mostly at well known eateries.  We had the hotel breakfast buffet and it was okay.  The view of the falls was nice.   Twice we had breakfast at a family restaurant on Clifton Hill. They had good home fries, but it was just okay, edible.  Nothing incredible.

The standout was the Secret Garden.

Inside, the decor reminded me of a grandmother’s house.  Pick any grandma, it doesn’t matter.   I ate the grilled eggplant sandwich and Matt had the chicken fingers and fries.   That doesn’t sound spectacular, but it really was good.  Even Matt, who wouldn’t touch an eggplant if his life depended on it said “That looks good for what it is”.  :)    But the ambiance and the fact that they served real, unsweetened brewed iced tea are the reasons to visit.

Here is the cute birdhouse on our table.  All the tables had one, and they were all different:

And here is the dining room.  There is also outside seating.

Entertainment/Tourist Attractions:

My favorite thing that we did, besides Maid of the Mist boat ride, was the Daredevils exhibit at the IMAX theater.  The exhibit had videos, artifacts, reproductions and even the actual vessels from attempts to go over the falls.  It was small, and inexpensive.   The movie that plays at the IMAX was just okay.

While you are down at this end of town, you will probably want to do the Skylon Tower.  And I recommend that.  Supposedly you can see all the way to Toronto up there, but we could not be sure that we saw it, even though it was indeed a clear day.  However, you should skip the 4D movie that they try to sell you.  It’s totally a waste of money and time.  The story is contrived, and the effects are designed just to make the seats move and squirt you with water.  Has no bearing on the very stupid movie they show you.  Plus when you wear the glasses, you feel like you are going blind.   Please don’t bother.  It’s 20 minutes of your life you can’t get back.

Obviously, since I already mentioned this, the Maid of the Mist boat ride is a must.  You will get wet, but it is very much worth it to be there under the falls.

Clifton Hill is the street where all the other touristy things are.  The things we did that were fun were the Louis Taussad’s Wax Museum, Guiness Museum, Ripley’s, Galaxy Golf (very challenging), and the shooting “ride” at the Canadian Midway.

Movieland … well, it was so bad it was funny.  The theme, movies, is obvious.  Inside there were wax figures.  Terrible wax figures.  A few DID look like who they were supposed to, but for the most part, had they not put name tags on the figures, we would not have been able to identify them.  There was what I called the Hall of Crazy Arm Arrangements and Michael Jackson was missing a hand and Meryl Street an arm.   Not saying for you not to go, just don’t expect greatness.

And how can I forget? Bird Kingdom!  This is walking distance from Clifton Hill, it’s on the road by the falls, past the Rainbow Bridge (you have to walk under it).  It is Canada’s aviary.  At first, it is a weird place. They have more space then they need, and when you go in, you think “ghetto”.  But the small bird room was fun with all the birds walking around.  Then you get to the main attraction.  The main aviary.

From the Maid of The Mist

Hotel:

We stayed at the Sheraton on the Falls.  It was a great hotel convenient to Clifton Hill and this was our view from our window:

The Casino Niagara was attached to the hotel, as was a game room, the Hard Rock, Hershey World and a water park.

We highly recommend this hotel.

Casinos and Miscellaneous facts:

The Fallsview Casino is down by the Skylon Tower and Horsehoe Falls.  It is billed as a resort and it is on par with a Las Vegas casino.   The Casino Niagara was equally nice.  One of the things I noticed in Canada, is that you have to be 19 to get into the casinos and they are non-smoking facilities.  Want to smoke?  You go into the smoking room.  I wish all casinos in the US would be that way.

And if you are there after Labor Day, don’t go to the Dairy Queen looking for chocolate ice cream.  Canadians don’t eat it and the stores only carry it for tourists and once tourist season slows down, its out with the chocolate!

And that is it!

Below is what happened in August, in no particular order:

We celebrated our nephew’s birthday:

We had record breaking temperatures:

Skyler discovered the dryer:

We discovered a dead mouse:

I celebrated my birthday with my cousins:

We were visited by fawns:

The geese started to gather for their southern migration:

I started a quilt:

The cats continued to be cute:

Despite getting a diagnosis of heart failure, Joey the Wondercat continues to keep on keepin’ on:

Oh, if only I could keep his face that clean now:

We went to Cedar Point:

We went to Ohio Pyle to see kayakers go over the falls (do not try this at home):

and attempted to see Cucumber Falls, but the summer was dry and it wasn’t much to look at:

and I had my zoo docent orientation:

All in all, a very good month.

In this episode, Colleen talked about her appearance on The Food Network. Now, you know I have talked about The Food Network and Vegetarianism before, as that was a very early post to this very blog.  I must give a note that this particular podcast was recorded in January 2007, when veganism was hardly ever mentioned.  I know that in recent days, a vegan cupcake was the winner of the cupcake wars and that a vegan (Natalie Portman) challenged the contestants on Top Chef or some show similar where chefs compete against each other.   But back in 2007, before veganism became trendy (it is, haven’t you heard?), they weren’t really doing much with it.

According to Colleen, the crew was fantastic with her.  They were professional and polite and everything else you’d want in a group of people filming you.   The segment they were filming was about “vegan barbecues”.    The crew spent the day with Colleen and her friends and everyone had a good time and loved the food.   Naturally, Colleen was a little nervous about the editing of the segment.   Which, apparently, was actually very well done (there is a rumor that the editor is a vegetarian).   However, the show the segment aired for was for a Bobby Flay barbecue show and he does episodes called “Crazy-ques“.

Yup, this segment was one of four stories about crazy barbecues.  The other segments included a barbecue taking place at a gas station and another taking place in Area 51.

Now, how does a veg*n barbecue compare to those weird things?  It doesn’t!  The only difference between a veg*n meal and a “regular” one is the lack of animal flesh/products (depending on whether its vegetarian or vegan).   And let me tell you …. VEGANS EAT THE SAME FOODS AS EVERYONE ELSE. The difference is what they DON’T eat.   Everyone, veg*n or omnivorous, eats fruits, vegetables, grains, beans … all normal food.  Yes, I’ll give you that most non-veg*ns probably don’t eat tofu and tempeh and seitan regularly, or probably never, but everything else that a vegan eats, so do non-vegans.  We just don’t make up something and say “it’s food”.   We eat the original food given to us by nature, before we learned to hunt and kill.   We eat food!  It’s not crazy!  People who don’t eat fruits and vegetables are not seen as crazy!  Even though I personally think not liking fruit is a little odd, it doesn’t mean I think you are crazy.

It’s just not!  It’s just a little different.    Thinking outside the box!

I just had to get that off my chest!  :)  Thank you for reading.

Also, I would love to see a vegetarian cooking show on the network.  I know of a lot of people who are interested in vegetarian cooking, even if they are not a vegetarian themselves.

For more information about Colleen Patrick-Goudreau check out her website:

#mce_temp_url#

Here is the podcast that this information came from:

Minding the Gatekeeper

Oh, it’s been a while since I’ve posted here.  What have I been doing?  Well, a lot and nothing special.  July was a laid back month, not a whole lot happening, until the week of my birthday, which is the last week of the month.

And a few days later, birdies noticed:

I love this gift.  It makes me smile every time I see a bird come by to feed.  But then I see this:

I usually open up the patio door to scare him off.  I like squirrels just fine, but I put out food for the BIRDS, not a squirrel.  :)

And while we are talking about food, Matt and I made some homemade pizza a few weeks back.  Here is a picture of my creation:

Looks yummy, no?  I used Daiya vegan cheese … both the cheddar and mozzarella flavors … I promise to my vegetarian friends, that this cheese is awesome … there are also lightly sauteed red peppers and onions and some Upton’s seitan sausage.  YUM.

‘This is the best pizza I had ever had!

That is it for the food portion of this post.  Now I will talk about more FUN and family.

Matt, two of my sisters-in-law, brother-in-law, and Matt’s parents, and me took the boys (nephews) and our baby niece to Idlewild park.  Here is a photo of the kids before the day officially started.  I called it the “While Everyone Was Still in a Good Mood” photo.

Joey, Jacob, Katelyn, Nicholas (Left – Right)

However, I ended up having to say “Some of the cutest kids in the world” photo as every one was so good.  Each kid, and maybe even an adult or two, had one little meltdown, but it was over quickly and the good moods and behavior returned.  It was a hot day, but not too much so as long as you didn’t stay in the sun for long.  It was fun.

Five days later, we celebrated our nephew Joey’s 7th birthday at his party.  He is such a cute kid and the most precious moment when the super shy Nicholas, who really doesn’t talk to me much, wanted to play ball with me.  It was so touching and sweet.  I enjoyed every minute of the attention he wanted to give me.

Later that afternoon, Matt and I spent three hours raking algae from our pond.  Yes, it was as fun as it sounded.  We learned an important lesson here.  Don’t let the algae get out of control!  What do we know? It’s our first pond.

The next day we attended Kennywood for Matt’s work summer picnic.  Kennywood has the world’s best French fries and even though the company provided lunch, we still made sure to get some of them.   We lasted three hours.  I don’t know why, but we just don’t enjoy that park as much as we used to.  The Thunderbolt and the Racer are some of the best coasters in the world, but after you ride those … you are left with mostly spinny rides that make me ill.   And the park feels small, so you can walk around it multiple times and check on lines.  I LOVE amusement parks, and I think I like the idea of Kennywood more than Kennywood.

When I was a young girl, I used to think the park was SO BIG and so much fun.  I guess these things change with age.  There is definitely a nostalgic factor at play here.

But enough of that.  What has June brought me?  Puppies!  Yes, puppies.  Everyone around me is getting puppies.  A friend just got a little puppy they named Charlie, my husband’s boss got a little bulldog named White Chocolate (or W.C.) Truffle, or just Truffle and my brother-in-law and kids just got a Boston Terrier named Rylie.   You want to see?  Okay.

Here is Truffle:

Here is Rylie:

So, at the end of June, we went to visit my sister and the kids, for our bi-annual visit.  Summer usually coincides with Maddie’s birthday, so we usually celebrate that.

This year was a little different because the kids had to go to karate lessons and CoCo had a birthday party on Saturday, so our beach trip was reserved for Sunday.   I love that they live only two hours from the beach, I would go to the beach all summer long if I lived so close to the beach!  Our day was perfect, it was hot, near 100, but it didn’t feel bad at the beach.  The waves were really rough this year, which we attributed to a storm coming through at some point (and it did).

I was so proud of the little girls.  Ginger went into the water this year.  Not far, but enough.  Good brave Ginger.  And CoCo showed no fear and went out to the water almost to her hips!  In a few years, we will be having trouble keeping her close by!  Maddie is a stronger swimmer than I am and so I found it funny that she couldn’t go out in the water without an adult (who was mostly me, LOL).  Maddie is such a charmer.   Owen, well, he is still a bit spirited, so he mainly stayed with his dad or mom.   Or with Uncle Matt.

This year, we went to the North Carolina Farmer’s Market.  The place was HUGE!  I can’t tell you how many stands they had.  But in addition to the many produce stands, there were flowers/plants, crafts (we didn’t see) and a restaurant.  We didn’t get to see it all, cause the kids were bored, but we did get good homemade ice cream!  I had blueberry!  Yum.  I thought how much it would be nice to have a farmer’s market like that here … but then, I remembered that we have the Strip District.  It’s different.  In NC, its more like a park, or a fair, whereas, the Strip is City shops with tables outside.

Our trip was way too quick and I honestly didn’t get many pictures.   So I am going to post one of all four of them that I stole from my sister’s website.

Left to right:  Ginger, Maddie, CoCo, and Owen

They also added a canine to their family.  However, he isn’t small or a pup.  His name is Kalua, aka Buddha or Bu.

For the Fourth of July, Ben and Sydney usually come home to PA and we get to see them.   On the third, there was a big picnic at my father-in-law’s house.  It was nice to see everyone.  We saw people we haven’t seen in a while … Matt’s cousin’s Liz and Steph and aunts and uncles.  Ben and Sydney are getting so big and they are very very smart and sweet!  It’s nice to be able to hold smart conversations with them.

Here is Sydney with Rylie:

And Katelyn, who is getting so big and has decided to just go ahead and like people, meeting Rylie:

The Monday after, that would be the 5th, Jacob, Ben, Sydney, Joey, Nicholas, and Kate, along with their moms and their grandparents and Uncle Matt and Aunt Jenn went to the Carnegie Science Center.  We were there for 5.5 hours and I was really ready to go home.  The new SportsWorks was pretty cool though.  And we had the entire place to ourselves for a long while. However, I forgot my camera and I only have this picture to show taken on my cool iPhone 4, which still needs a zoom:

That would be Uncle Matt on the bicycle in the air.  I did it too.  It was too short … as soon as you gained confidence, and knew you weren’t going to topple (it starts out going backwards) it was time to return.  But after my Hawaiian adventures, it was hardly intimidating.

Till next time!