5 Years

Last Saturday, September 27th, was our 5th wedding anniversary. We decided to take an impromptu trip up to Niagara Falls to celebrate. The plan was to go to Niagara-on-the-Lake, check out the falls, and take Annie swimming in the hotel pool. We had to keep her out of the sun all summer because she's too young to wear sunscreen, and I couldn't wait to take her for her first swim. I took 488 pictures over the weekend! I whittled it down to 88 good ones though. Man, I love digital cameras. :) On our way up to find Niagara-on-the-Lake, we saw a sign for the butterfly conservatory and decided to check it out. I'm glad we did, we really enjoyed ourselves. Plus, it was fitting that we visit there: we released butterflies at our wedding as a tribute to my grandmother (the one Annie is named for). She loved butterflies. The butterfly house was huge and had a million butterflies (I don't really know how many they have, it just seemed like a whole lot), and the Niagara botanical gardens surrounded the house. Gorgeous. We saw lots of flowers and trees that we want for our yard. Annie was enthralled with the butterflies when we first walked in. So cute!

Butterfly Conservatory from porkchop on Vimeo.

On our way out of the conservatory, I got a phone call from my sister Megan. I didn't answer right away because we were packing up the car, so when we got in the car to start driving to the falls, I listened to her message. She said to call her back when I got a chance, she had exciting news. I said, "She is so engaged." Paul got all excited. I haven't been wondering when they were going to get engaged or anything, so I don't know why I thought that right away. She and Tim have been together for 7 years and there was no doubt in my mind that they would be married someday. He is wonderful to her, and they are perfect for each other. They are both in grad school, and have a lot going on, so it made sense for them to wait a few years before getting married. But as soon as I heard that message I was so excited. I'm glad I turned out to be right, I might have been disappointed! ;) Paul was like, "call her back, call her back!!" Sure enough, Tim proposed that morning at a cider mill near their apartment in Michigan. Yay!! And too cool that they got engaged on our 5-year anniversary. Tim had no idea, but was pretty pleased with himself when Meg told him. How perfect is that?? So now we're all thrilled and excited for their wedding, which should be the summer after next. Can't wait! So after that excitement, we checked into our hotel right around the corner from Clifton Hill, and took a walk down to the falls. It was getting dark, the falls were beautiful. After our walk, we stopped by the restaurant that shares a parking lot with our hotel. We ate on the patio because it was beautiful out. I had spinach gnocchi and Paul had some sort of meat (I'm pretty sure it was steak). :) Their bread was fabulous. The staff was really nice and loved Annie. We got free dessert to go because they screwed up our ticket in the kitchen so it took a while for our food to arrive. Which figured because Annie was happy for the amount of time it would have taken us to get our dinner if they had brought it out on time. She got cranky when we were waiting and I had to hold her while I was eating. Which is what we end up doing at home a lot of the time anyway! She has a knack for getting fussy right when we want to eat. She's such a good baby otherwise though, I really can't complain about that one thing!

Since dinner was so late, we only had about 20 minutes in the pool before it closed. Which turned out to be just the right amount of time. The pool was a bit cold, and I didn't feed her before going for fear that she would puke in the pool. ;) So she seemed to not mind it for a few minutes, and then let out a little scream, probably because it was cold. It was pretty cute anyway.

The next day I tried the hotel breakfast and decided it was gross, so we found a breakfast buffet at a restaurant on Lundy's Lane and pigged out. Yum. We walked down to the falls in a drizzling rain, but it cleared up and the sun came out a while later. It turned into a beautiful weekend, which was great because they said it was supposed to rain all weekend. We never did end up going to Niagara-on-the-Lake, we spent too much time walking along the falls. We wanted to go down to the barge stuck at the top of the falls to read the plaque about it because Paul had never seen it, and all I could remember was that two guys were stuck there overnight. I told him I thought it happened in the 30's, but he couldn't believe that it would be stuck there that long. Turns out it happened in 1918! They saved themselves by opening the bottom doors which wedged into the rocks. It's amazing that they survived. Plus they probably had no idea how close they were since it was dark. Terrifying!Anyway, it was a really long walk, but we enjoyed it. I fed Annie in the little park by the barge and Paul took a little nap on our blanket. On our walk back the sun came out full force and we saw rainbows over the falls. Overall, a wonderful way to celebrate 5 years of marriage, and the next phase of our marriage as parents. Yesterday a woman at the outlet mall was telling me how cute Annie is, and then said, "you are so lucky." She was so right.