Niagara Falls

We spent two separate days at the falls. We drove down to the Canadian side one day. We explored the town, the falls,the river, and took the inclined railway back up to the town level. On our way home, we stopped on the U.S. side of the falls and explored Niagara State Park. What a gorgeous little islan!  If you ever get a chance to go, take the opportunity to walk all the way around the island. It's not a long distance, and it's flat. You get some amazing views of the river, too!  But for some sad reason, most people only visit the falls and miss out on the rest of the "island experience".  It's well worth your time!

The falls themselves defy description. I can't even begin to capture the wonder, might and majesty in words, so I'll just share a few of my favorite pictures. 

From the Canadian side of the river:

* take note of this shot here. Do you see the person next to the walkway by the falls?

Heading over to the U.S. side:

*Remember the earlier shot of the person standing by the edge of the falls?  That's where I'm standing as I took this picture, and I was a few steps down from that spot for the one below:

A couple of shots of the river upstream from the falls 

Like I said, this doesn't even begin to do the area justice. 

#bucketlist, #alliexpectedandsomuchmore

Happy Easter!

source: http://treadinggrain.com/2015/happy-easter-3/

I hope that you are enjoying this day as much as we are!  The weather finally reflects the season!  It's spring today!  Temperatures are in the 60's!

All of our kids are home for the weekend, and it feels great to have them home!  We've been talking a lot and laughing a lot. We'll be delivering them back to school in a while, but not before we have our awesome Easter dinner! 

Enjoy your day!

Frugal Car Trips

We are a family of 5.  Since I was a Stay At Home Mom for so long, living on a tight budget is second nature to me.  We love to go visit and explore new places.  Travel can be expensive, but we've found a way to cut down on the expenses as much as we possibly can. Since planning for spring break and summer vacation trips has just begun for many people, I thought I would share a few of the things we've learned along the way.

1) Books on tape are great.  (Play Away, CD, whatever format your car has).  We go to the library before we leave on vacation and check out several books to listen to.  Many of these books are read by some very well known actors, and they outdo themselves when reading these books.  To date, my personal favorite is Dragon Rider, written by Cornelia Funke and read by Brendan Fraser.  Our kids got into these books at a young age.  My Dad lived in Indiana at the time (a 10 hour car ride from home) and I remember them listening to these books when they were preschoolers.

2) Stop every couple of hours and run around.  KEEP A VERY CLOSE EYE ON YOUR KIDS no matter where you stop!  We still stop at rest areas, run around,  and maybe play a little catch or frisbee.  Unless if we're eating a meal, our stops run about 15 minutes.  (Longer when they were younger.)

3) Pack your own meals.  Food on the road is gross and greasy.  For our recent trip to Savannah, we packed bread, peanut butter and jelly, a fruit salad that I made before we left home, and a Quinoa Pilaf - with diced cooked chicken on the side, hummus, and corn chips.  We ate the peanut butter and jelly, along with the fruit salad for lunch.  The quinoa pilaf was for dinner - the non-vegetarians amongst us added the diced cubed chicken.  We had the hummus and corn chips for a late evening snack.  By far, the largest expense was the fruit, but it was well worth it!  (pack your own plates and utensils, too)


4) Drink only water.  We travel with our own bottles, and refill them at every stop.  When we traveled across Kansas several years ago, we took several thermoses of water with us - we were not certain how close together rest stops and gas stations would be.  Excellent forethought on our part.  They are far and few between out there.

5) Stay in a hotel that:
      a) Offers free breakfast.  (These hotels tend to keep fresh fruit out all day, so you can pick up a piece of fruit for a snack on your way in during the afternoon.)
      b) Has a club of some sort that allows you to build up points to earn free stays. 

6) Meals in a different place:
This varies from place to place.  We typically stay in hotels that include refrigerators and microwaves.  If we are going to eat out while we are adventuring somewhere, that meal will be lunch.  Many times, we will make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, fruit, and head out for our adventures of the day.  Depending upon how close we are to home, I will take dinners with us, or we will stop and pick up fixings for a meal or two on our way into town.  Since Savannah was a drive, I packed things in the cooler that would hold for a few days for dinner.  Salmon Pasta Salad is a perennial favorite in our house, and it holds well for a couple of days in the fridge.  I had also made a batch of confetti rice before we left.   Combined with the leftover diced chicken, it was a hearty meal.  The vegetarians in the family added chopped almonds and fake chicken crumbles to theirs.  I had an extra bag of chili in the freezer, so I threw that into the cooler, also.  We reheated that individually in bowls in the microwave, and that made a tasty meal one chilly evening!
*Note- if you bring paper, you don't have to wash it in the hotel sink.  I've tried washing dishes in the hotel sink.  I prefer using paper plates.  (But we travel with our own reusable wooden eating utensils.  I have to draw the line somewhere, and that's the line.  Wooden utensils.  Go figure.)

7) Park your car.
You are in a new location, explore it!  We've used public transportation in cities all over the United States.  It's an interesting way to get to see the new city, and a lot of hotels will provide transportation (or are within walking distance of) metro stations and points of interest.  We stayed in the city of Savannah, and walked everywhere while we were there.  The city is laid out on a grid, and it is much more friendly to pedestrian traffic than automobiles.

8) Camp
We did this more often when the kids were younger.  Camped out to Mount Rushmore, in the Black Hills, the Badlands, Devil's Tower, and home again.  Done it a few times on the beach at Assateague Island, and in several National and State Forests.  It's a great way to get away for very little.  (Meal planning when camping is crucial!  No refrigerators on site, and you're cooking over a camp stove or fire.  It's a blast, but make sure you plan ahead!)  The cost for a night in a tent at most campgrounds in National Forests runs around $20.  No television, no electronics, it's a great way to spend some family time with no distractions!

Traveling can be expensive, but if  you plan ahead, are willing to walk and forgo meals in restaurants, you really can have a great frugal vacation!

Juliette Gordon Low

While we were in Savannah, we stopped by the birthplace of Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of Girl Scouting.

I was a Girl Scout for 5 years when I was growing up, and I enjoyed every minute of it.  Camping, cookie sales, lock ins, you name it, I loved it!  I dropped out of Girl Scouts when I started Junior High School, but I always looked fondly back upon my Girl Scout experience.

Fast forward 25 years, and my own daughter joined her first Girl Scout Troop, as a Brownie.  I was not the leader, I was a cookie mom.  Several years later, when the girls were teens, and scouting was hard, the old leaders dropped out, and we were left with a choice: Disband the troop or lead a troop?
I opted to lead.

So, now, here it is 2015, and I have finally made it to the birthplace of scouting's founder.  Girl Scouts has always spent time honoring Juliette (Daisy), but I'd never really had a true appreciation for her, and her determination, until I visited her house.

In many ways, she reminds me of myself.  Stubborn.  Determined.  Unfortunately for her, she was born in an era when women were expected to become devoted wives, and dedicate themselves solely to their husbands.  There were very few opportunities for women to receive an education or make a difference in the world.  Oh, if she had been born 100 years later, the things she would have done!

While touring the house, we were shown art work that she had done.  When she and her husband were sent to England for several years, she wanted to take family portraits with her to hang, as was the custom at that time.  Since there were none that the family was willing to take off of the walls to give to her, she took old cast off portraits from the attic and repainted the faces to look like her family.  Honest to goodness, the portraits were very well done.

The china painting that she had on display was beautiful.  Fine, full of detail, and of better quality than most I have seen from that era.

Sculpture.  Oh my heavens, could that woman sculpt! 

Wood Burning.  She had several old, plain pieces of furniture that she wanted to dress up.  She took a stencil and a wood burner and stenciled in a new design on the drawer fronts of a dresser that was on display in the house.

Daisy didn't begin the Girl Scouts until late in life.  Her marriage had ended in divorce.  She'd had no children, and there was nothing for her to do with her time or energy.  Despondent, she sat at dinner one night and poured out her troubles to a man sitting next to her at a dinner party.  His name was Baden Powell, and he had recently started a movement called the Boy Scouts.  He told her of how he'd had girls attempt to join his group, and of the 2 girls who had managed to successfully infiltrate the boy scouts for over a year before being discovered.  The need for an equivalent program for girls was pronounced.

Daisy went home, and called her friend and announced “Come right over!” “I've got something for the girls of Savannah and all America and all the world and we're going to start it tonight!”.  

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Say what you will about the scouting movement, but at that time in history, a distinct organization that focused on educating women, and encouraging women to do more, learn more, and find out more, was a desperately needed jolt.

Determined to make a difference, Daisy began a movement which has continued on for over 100 years and encouraged young girls to grow, learn, explore, and reach out to their full potential.

Pretty awesome legacy, don't you think?

(Wish I could show you pictures of her art work, but photography was prohibited in the home itself, and I am unable to find any images that are freely available on the web.)

National Parks Free Admission

On Monday, Jan. 19, the National Park Service will be waiving admission fees to all of the National Parks!

For more information about the parks closest to you, check out http://www.nps.gov/index.htm.

Enjoy a day in the park!

Snow

It is so beautiful, yet so treacherous.

Yesterday morning, it began snowing just as rush hour started.  Unfortunately for us, the weather was such that the snow hit the pretreated roads, melted, and then flash froze.

Talk about a fun commute!

Most schools around here delayed 2 hours, and then closed.

I attempted to get to work.  It took me half an hour to go two miles.  The main road South was closed.
My alternate route South was closed.  The back, back, back way was closed due to accidents.

I finally gave up and headed home.  I found out once I got back that my place of employment had closed for the day.  *sigh* wish I'd known that before I headed out!

The good news is, I made it safely home, without an accident.  I was able to spend the day with two of my kids.

What about the third one?  He's in Phoenix.  He sent me weather updates and pictures.  Remind me why I told him to text me and let me know how he was doing?

Snow on my Autumn Joy Sedum.

 

 

We really didn't get that much snow, considering how much havoc it caused.

A view down my street.  I took this at 3 pm - still no snow plow!

Berries in the snow.  I tried to capture a picture of the birds flitting around on this bush, but they didn't cooperate with me!

A Week Away

We just spent an amazing week on Maryland's Eastern Shore for our family vacation.  One fabulous and amazing week with no electronics, and no television.  We stayed in a place where, horror of horrors - there was no cell phone reception!  The kids couldn't even text their friends!

Very sadly, I realized that this is the last year that we have as a family for vacation before everything changes.  My oldest child is headed off to college in a little under two weeks.  He'll be living on campus, beginning his own life. 

Anyway, we stayed on the Western Side of the Eastern Shore in a wonderful little house on the water.  We saw Osprey.  We saw Bald Eagles.  We kayaked every night.  We rode bicycles.  We went crabbing.  We watched the most beautiful sunsets every night.  And we did crossword puzzles,  played games, and talked.

We did spend one day down at Assateague Island.  (Where the wild ponies live.)  We were on the beach side of the island, playing in the water.  We looked up on the shore and saw a line of four wild horses come over the dune.  They walked in a line through the beach towels, giving each and every one a good sniff.  The family just in front of us had left a bag of apples on their towel.  The lead pony grabbed the bag, and twirled it around in his mouth until the apples fell out- onto MY beach towel.  They then stood around, eating the apples.  My daughter and I had left a change of clothes in a grocery bag on my towel.  Since the ponies had hit pay dirt with another grocery bag, they then nosed through our bag full of clothes.  Finding nothing, they moved on to the next beach towel. 

When we got back up to my beach towel, we found an interesting situation.  Our unmentionables had been spread out, but someone had thoughtfully scooped them back into our grocery bag for us.  Thank you mysterious, thoughtful person!  However, my beach towel was covered in horsespit, apple slime, and sand that was thouroughly ground into the wet parts of the apple slime/spit combination.  Easily one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen.  I've washed that towel a couple of times now, but I think it just may be a lost cause.

Now THAT is a priceless vacation memory!

A bald eagle hangs out on top of a telephone pole, looking for his lunch.

A look down our dock and into the river leading to the Chesapeake Bay.