I am back...

Hello all. I have returned from the cold, yet thankfully NOT snowy Buffalo area. Seriously, they are supposed to get snow this Thursday-Saturday... so glad we were not there for that. It was not so bad though, and thanks to the fact that my sister was willing to spend her retirement on keeping her heat jacked up to keep me and Jen warm, we survived!

Let me recap...

Thursday we left at the butt crack of dawn. I was in Jen's driveway at 5:o8 am and she was ready to roll, with her Coke in hand. (it is her morning drug.) I swear it was dark and raining until about 7:45 am. Once it was light out we read the adorable note my DH left for us in the glove box... he had even attached a $10 bill for each of us as "Starbucks cash". Then he told us to look under the seat, saying we would find our reason for leaving, and returning there... Under each of our seats was an 8x10 picture of our 4 kiddos together last Easter. Is this man amazing or what??? I will tell later about his birthday gift.... he got me good.

So, we made it to the outlet mall point of the trip. This is a mere 2.5 hours from my mother's home, and I always want to go. If we do, I am in running shoes and do a mad dash in the Nike and the Gap outlets while Micah is going "Are you done yet? Are you done yet?" I probably look like a shopping spree winner the way I jet throught the stores. This is because men and women are different. Yes, shocking, but true. See, Micah wants to get there. To finish the trip. I want to relax, stop and stroll. Time??? Who cares. Plus I can always deduct the time at the outlets from the actual drive time. So we got there at 1:30 pm. Great time. Then we shopped and ate lunch for 4½ hours!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ah, the joy of a girl's road trip!!

We got to my sister's got settled in and got ready to start scrapping Friday afternoon. That was AFTER I introduced Jen to some of Buffalo's finer points...

Yes, that is me looking adoringly up at the Bakery sign. We don't have bakeries like this here, and this one makes a wedding cake frosting that is out of this world. Really, my family always brings me a cake when they come. My mom even had one as her carry on for the plane once.

Jen was hilarous trying to pronounce the word "Fastnacht". It is a fried type of pastry, very delicious, but still pronounced using the German name.



The Meat Market. Yes, there are no such things as meat markets here, and I really miss them. The guys was clearly getting impatient with us until I explained that Jen had never been in one before and all that... then he was all into the "Help the poor meat-market-less girls out". I made Jen buy a butter lamb too...especially since she first asked, "Why and how would you make butter out of lamb?" It is a lamb shaped butter for Easter!

Making the careful selections... I brought back some Shalen's hot dogs, they are so good, and I don't even eat hot dogs!

And of course... Niagara Falls.Thankfully it wasn't too cold. There was still ice in the Niagara River, which Jen could not believe. She was duly impressed by the rushing waters though... and the fact that the Niagara Falls gift shop can charge $3.50 for a coke. Welcome to the north my friend...

So, all in all, it was a great trip. We had fun, chatted, scrapped, ate lots of bad for you food, and what not... :) I even brough home a cooler full of "Yankee Groceries" as we call them.