Hembree Family Vacation 2005

I'm home! And ain't ya'll happy. Don't get me wrong, I had an absolute blast with my family this vacation, but it is good to be home! Alright, so now I guess this is the time when I tell you all about it, so here goes:

We left Saturday morning around 9 I think for Niagara Falls. We drove for approximatly 5 hours up to the hotel in Canada. Let's just say it felt like a lot longer. Unfortunatly, my family of 5 does not own a mini van so it was somewhat cramped in the backseat with two teenagers and a soon-to-be ten year old. Anyhow, we managed. We unpacked and settled in. It was a really nice room. Philip discovered the television had N64 on it and tried to play until he realized it would cost him $6.99 for one hour of game play. When we found out he couldn't play Mario, he got us all to head down to the swimming pool. Wow, that water had a lot of chlorine. The nice part about it was to hottub in it, in which I stayed in the majority of the time. Then we went back to the room, showered, and went out on the town. There is is this awesome place in Niagara Falls called Clifton Hill. It looks like a miniture N.Y.C. and Vegas combined. There were wax museums, fun houses, resturants, and LIGHTS LIGHTS LIGHTS! We found a nice little resturant called Mama Mia's in which we ate. Dad ordered mussles for us to taste. Wow, they were actually not that bad! I'll even attempt to say they were good!! And as many people know, I am not that fond with trying new foods. LOL. After dinner we headed over to the Skylon Tower. This place was taaall! When we got up to the observation deck, we could see all three falls (American Falls, Bridal Falls, and Horseshoe Falls. Until this trip, I thought there was just one big waterfall!!) It was absolutly beautiful.

Sunday we got up at 7:00 and went downstairs for the Continental breakfast. We had to eat fast because our tour bus would be coming at 9:30. This was without a doubt the best day in Canada we had. Well, we ate our toast and muffins and drank our coffee. The bus pulled up right when we got to the lobby. "Hey, I'm Sean!" was probably the first English greeting we heard since arriving in Canada. "Do you have your I.D.?" Uh..I.D.? We were supposed to have somesort of identification telling that we were citizens of the U.S.A. since we would be crossing the border on on our tour. Well, we found somekind of I.D. for all of us and then we headed off to pick up the other tourists, one of which was a nice German family. The only other children on the bus besides "senior citizens". Well, our first stop was the Cave of the Winds, my personnal favorite. We checked in, got our sweet yellow ponchos and oh-so-stylish- sandals for the tour. We went down 17.5 stories in a little elevator. We walked along this deck up to the falls. We were litterally standing right infront of Niagara Falls. There was this one spot called Hurricane Deck where I guess it felt just as if you were in a hurricane. After that we went to lunch at the Sheraton Hotel for the buffet. I felt find of akward in my little sandals and wet hair, but I just thought "I'm never going to see these people again, so who cares!" LOL After that we went to the Maid of the Mist. Wow, that was so amazing. We went into the mist of the HorseshoeFalls and I was just surrounded by millons of gallons of falling water, wind, and noise. At that time, I felt so aware of God's might. He made all of this amazingly powerfully things that I am blessed to see! It was awesome!! Then we continued to rest of the tour and went back to the hotel and then went to dinner at this sweet diner called the Flying Saucer Resturaunt.

Now Monday: We packed our things, loaded up the old Chevy and headed over for one last look at the Floral Clock. It was really beautiful!! All of those flowers...
Well, after we left, we began our long journey to Massachusetts. We had to pass aaaall the way through New York state, and that is a big state! We finally arrived in Cape Cod at around 11:00 PM and went to bed!!!!

Monday we pretty much just relaxed.

Tuesday we went to the beach with killer waves dude. (Yeah, beach lingo) It was really fun to get in the water with Audrey and Philip. I haven't been to the ocean in years and I think I overcame my fear of the ocean and all of it's freaky creatures within 2 1/2 minutes. We then went back to Uncle Fred and Aunt Diane's house (they went away for the night to a hotel for their 35th anniversary)

The rest of the week was just fabulous. Being able to see my relatives whom I only see at Christmas was a really good time. We went seal watching which was so much fun. There was like 30 of them around our little boat. They were so cute! Well, the females any ways. The males were ugly because they had what was called a horse nose. We went to the beach numerous times. Friday night was Lobster Night. My cousin Jane stopped by and had dinner with us too. I actually ate one this time and didn't cry! They were ugly things, which made it all the more fun to crack it open and chow down. It was pretty good, though I am glad that we had butter!! After we ate them, we stayed and talked for hours before that time we Hembree's call "picture time".

We left Saturday moring towards our even longer, 14 hour drive home. An upside to the long ride was that me and Audrey finally learned to lyrics to the Beverly Hillbilly them song! LOL. We got in late last night at 10ish.

Altogether, it was a very nice to see my family. I think this was the most relaxing, fun, best vacation I could remember. I hope we can visit them next year and have just as much fun!

P.S. Pictures to be posted to my album soon!