Hello Kitty

Everyone enjoyed the last video so much, I decided to post another one. These days it seems we take more videos than pictures because Esther is doing so much new stuff and is really fun to watch.

Esther really likes all our animals. She will stand inside at the glass door and watch the dogs and holler at Macy (our dog) over and over, which sounds more like Shacy when she says it. But I think her favorite animal right now is our cat, Hello. She loves to pet on it and follow it around. We got a good video of her the other day with Hello. You can hear me hammering in the background on the barn I am building.

What? A Video?

That's right, we are putting our first video of Esther up on the blog. Why has it taken so long? Good question. Here is the thing.....we have really slow high speed internet (the slowest they sell) because we are cheap, and our video camera shoots video in HD. This means it takes forever for us to upload a video. For the minute video below, it took like 2 hours to upload. I am going to try and start putting up more videos, no matter how long it takes. Sometimes videos are just better. Maybe one of my technologically/video savvy friends (Walt, John, Jason, etc) could give me some tips on how to upload video faster or how to downgrade my video to SD so it will upload faster.

Esther is growing by leaps and bounds right now. Not in size so much but in learning new things. New skills, new words, etc. It is really fun to see all the new things she does and understands. She is doing better at understanding us and what we are trying to get her to do. She helps pick up her toys and books before bed. One bad thing she has learned is how to unbuckle her car seat. But one of the funnest things she has learned recently is to spin. She will spin and spin in the kitchen until she gets dizzy and then she will fall down a bunch of times, the whole time laughing and giggling. In this video she had already been spinning for a little bit and was dizzy so she is falling down a lot. It is really fun to watch her.

Here's the first Esther video on the blog........

Niagara - Canada Side

For part two of our Niagara trip we were on the Canada side. Everyone always says that the Canadian side is better. I will say I have to agree. The reason is that the views are 100 times better on that side so more people go there which means the have more tourist stuff too. It is also very clean and nice looking over there. There are some negatives though. There is this one area that is the biggest tourist traps I have ever seen, it was like Branson, Las Vegas, and a theme park game area all rolled into 3-4 blocks. It was ridiculous and sad. But it was fun to experience the falls. And once again on this side it was not peak season so we never had to wait in line for anything. We did two main fun things while there, the Maid of the Mist and Journey Behind the Falls. One other amazing thing we did while there. Let me remind you that my sister was keeping Esther for us during our Niagara adventure. The amazing thing we did was TAKE A NAP in the middle of the day, at the same time. We both fell asleep in the hotel room and when we woke up we were really confused as to what just happened. So, it was a fun trip to Niagara Falls. It is definitely worth seeing but is not anything I would spend a lot of time at or want to go back too often.

First we went on the Maid of the Mist boat tour (as seen in Bruce Almighty and the Office wedding). I think it was the funnest thing we did. A couple hundred people pack on this boat and they take you really close to the falls. They have been doing this for a long time. We once again got to wear raincoats and got really wet.

Here is the boat like we were on going to the falls

Us having fun and getting wet

Rainbow bridge that connects USA and Canada

View of American Falls from the boat

The other thing we did was the Journey Behind the Falls. For some reason the Canadians built some tunnels behind the falls and you can go in them and see the falls from behind. It was pretty cool. The best part was they had a part that went outside and really close to the falls. Once again we got rain coats and got really wet.

Here is us in a tunnel with the falls behind us.

It was hard to get a good picture of the main Horseshoe Falls because there was a big cloud of water vapor. I think it depends on weather as to how bad it is. And you would randomly get rained on while walking along depending on the water coming up and the wind. The whole time we were there it was impossible to see the entire falls.

Niagara - American Side

As mentioned in the previous post, as part of our vacation we spent a couple days at Niagara Falls. I will break this into a couple posts so it is not too long. My sister was super awesome and kept Esther for us so it was just Margo and I (and Clara). It is something I have always wanted to see. First let me educate you that there are three different parts of the falls: American Falls (you guessed it, on the American side, Bridal Veil Falls (American side), and Horseshoe Falls (Canadian) We first stopped on the American side and checked out the Niagara Falls State Park which was pretty nice, and we went on the Cave of the Winds tour. This is basically a walk on a boardwalk that takes you close to Bridal Veil falls, really close. We were given special raincoats and shoes to wear. You go under part of the falls and it is crazy, it is supposed to be like hurricane forces. One thing that kind of freaked me out was the fact that they have to rebuild this boardwalk every year because it takes such a beating from the water and the fact that it is not permanently attached to anything, they just wedge the supports into the rocks. Anyway, this was a fun little tour to go on. We went at the perfect time of year because it was not crowded and we never had to wait in line to do anything.

This is America Falls with Rainbow Bridge in the background(view from American side). There is even a rainbow in the picture (you see a lot of those at the Falls(the cool people just call it the Falls)). We should play a game and see how many rainbows you can spot in all these pictures.

American Falls (view from the Canadian side). Bridal Veil Falls is the little one on the right that is kind of separate.

Proof that we were there.

Good shot of Margo and Clara

This is looking down at the boardwalk for the Cave of the Winds tour.

We took a waterproof disposable camera with us. I think we got some of our best shots with it. This is on the tour. I like how happy we look.

This is the craziest part on the boardwalk where it is hurricane like. Margo was too chicken to go under it. But you know me, I had to try it out.

I like this shot also just because of how happy Margo looks

Nice shot of me.