3,200 mile drive: kirtland to niagara falls

tuesday morning we met up with some new friends, the t family, whose dad will also be attending tuck with ryan this year. our path from california and their path from arizona crossed in cleveland and we made most of the remainder of the trek by their side. 

our first stop was kirtland, ohio to see some of the sites of our church's history. we watched a quick video at the visitor's center and then took a tour of the newel k. whitney store. can i just say that i'm in love with that store? so much history. it was amazing. 

we walked around the quiet, calm grounds as the rain drizzled on and off. it was breathtakingly beautiful. 

and leah, in true leah style, stopped to smell all the roses...and every other type of flower. it's her favorite pastime.

and was in awe at the grandeur of the temple doors. they were big. 

and we were in awe of how incredible this sweet little girl was STILL being after four days in the car. 

after kirtland, we grabbed some lunch and headed to niagara falls. after texting back and forth with the t family, we decided to stay at a particular hotel where they had made reservations that had a nice outdoor pool, a great continental breakfast and pretty nice rooms for a great deal. we called and they quoted us a higher price so ryan negotiated them down and when we arrived in a sketchy area of town and i walked down the musty hallways, i had the thought, "i don't think we're staying in the same hotel." sure enough, i was right. same name. different hotel. not so nice room. not so nice continental breakfast. tiny indoor pool. we did take advantage of the t's pool and cooled off at their hotel before we all headed to eat dinner at an overpriced food court with strange decor near niagara falls. 

leah, again, stopped to smell the flowers. this time they happened to be purple, her favorite.

and ryan stopped to smell leah.

niagara falls at night is beautiful! since the falls are on the united states side, they shine lights from the canada side to illuminate them in the night sky. it was hard to get a decent picture that really does them justice without our tripod, but they were really incredible.

 

the four kiddos were quite restless by the evening's end so we had to keep them within arm's reach. we walked back to our cars, hand in hand, and headed back to our not-so-amazing hotel and crashed for the night.