Wrapping Up Vacation

We are all home now, safe and sound. It took us a while to get here ::cough, cough, 3 hours at the border, cough, cough:: but we are happy to be home. One of the things about vacation is how good it feels to come home; that's how I know we are doing a good job of making our home a good one.

But before I get back to the usual grind and posting about that, I wanted to wrap up our vacation here too.

Our time with Karen, Bill and Braeden ended with a great night out at a nice Italian place. We had a bit of a wait before going in (nothing unreasonable), so the kids played outside on the sidewalk.

And once we got in, sat down, and started our meal:
We had a fantastic time. The food and company were fantastic! We can't thank Karen and Bill enough for their hospitality and the good times we had with them.

On our way home we made our way up to Philly to visit another friend and her family.

Jamie and Xander watching television together:
Rick teaching Xander how to roast a marshmallow over an open fire:

More fun with marshmallows (he looks like such a big boy to me):
I was sneaky enough to get a shot of Kristen with her mouth full of marshmallow!
Rick and Jamie roasting. Jamie is a pro!
Ray and Xander:
We had a fantastic time with Kristen, Rick and Jamie. And our time to leave came very quickly!

Our trip home was pretty uneventful. Xander has discovered the miracles of Scooby and Shaggy and spend the entire trip home plugged into the DVD player (bless the person who invented headphones!). We laughed a lot, because at regular intervals he would shout "Scooby-dooby DO!" and giggle. Liam was a rockstar of a traveller. So all in all, it was a good trip...

Until the border. Oh yes, I have yet another complaint about Buffalo, NY. We went to the Lewiston bridge, as it is the one we use most of the time. And the line was ridiculously long. It took us 3 hours to get over the bridge and cross the border. THREE. Seriously. Sheer volume. The nice guard we had actually told us that the Fort Erie bridge has 17 lanes (versus the 6 at Lewiston) and zero wait times. I wish we'd known that beforehand.

We're home now and getting back into the groove. We miss our friends, but had a good time and we are looking forward to our next visit.