New York Trip Day 6: Cedar Point Amusement Park

 We had heard a lot of things about Cedar Point and decided that we would be close enough to include a visit as part of our trip. Our kids love roller coasters, especially Tyler, and Cedar Point has 3 of the top ten rated coasters in the World. Tyler had been watching videos about all of the roller coasters in the months leading up to the trip, so we let him be our guide that day. The beginning of the day excitement was the best! 

Tyler said that we definitely needed to go to Top Thrill 2 first. It was one of the most popular coasters in the park and it breaks down all of the time. In fact, it had been closed down all weekend before we got there, so we didn't think we would even get to ride it. We barely made it into the line before they said it had broken down. We decided to wait for them to fix it. We were in the line for about an hour and a half and Camden had to pee for the last half of the wait so we felt pretty bad for him. We were also rained on by white stuff from a nearby tree while we were in line. We laughed when we noticed that it had stuck to Danny's leg hairs. We could not take a picture though because we had to leave all of our phones in a locker at the beginning of the line. Here are some of the facts about the coaster, which basically shoots you forward, then shoots you backwards a little higher and faster, and then shoots you forward again really fast so that you can go up and over a really tall hump before dropping and then slowing to a stop. 

The hump was really tall.

The other coaster we knew we needed to ride in the park was the number 1 rated coaster in the world, Steel Vengeance. But it was located in the back of the park, so we decided to ride all of the rides as we came to them rather than jumping around the park. There were so many good, fast thrill rides in the park. Big coaster after big coaster, including another big wooden racing roller coaster near Steel Vengeance. We were excited to finally get to the one we had been anticipating.

The reason that it is top rated is because it has this killer first drop. It also has multiple upside down twists throughout the ride and it is a somewhat long ride, too.

I thought it was pretty cool, but Tyler didn't think it was as cool as Top Thrill 2.

We finally stopped for lunch around 2 or 3.

We were going nonstop all day and we still did not make it on all of the rides. We played a lot of games while waiting in line.

When we had about an hour at the end of the day and we had made the full loop around the park, we asked the kids if they wanted to go back and ride something we skipped, or ride something again. Tyler really wanted to go on Top Thrill 2 again, so that is what we did. We wished we could had seen into the future before we made that decision. The ride broke down 3 times while we were in line. But we eventually made it on the ride. Unfortunately for the exhausted parents, we didn't get on until an hour after the rest of the park closed. Oh, and even though we checked with Camden about having to go potty before getting in line, he still ended up having to go again before we got through the line. We were all so exhausted as we walked out, but that last ride on Top Thrill 2 in the dark was totally worth it (except for Ashley who put her hands in the air and ended up with dead bugs all over them, LOL).

The moon was really red as we walked out to the car. We learned the next night when it was red again that this must be normal in Ohio. In fact, the sky wasn't ever blue while we were there, either. We think the haze must be the cause for the white sky and the red moon. We staggered up to our hotel room around 11pm and fell asleep quickly and slept in the next morning.

New York Trip Day 5: Kirtland and a move to Ohio

We packed our bags and left our hotel in Buffalo on Monday morning. We worried a bit as we drove through a downpour on our way to Kirtland. Our luggage was in the bed of our rental truck and we were imagining all of our clean clothes being soaked. We stopped at a gas station out side of Kirtland to check on the bags and buy some sodas. Amazingly, the bags were dry. I guess we were going fast enough that the falling water landed past the bed of the truck. Our first stop in Kirtland was the temple visitors center and tour. We debated on whether or not to move our bags inside while we did the tour, but decided against it because that would be annoying to do over and over all day. We regretted that decision when it started raining again while we were in the temple. The tour was really cool. We had seen pictures of the inside of the temple, but it was cool to be inside and see it in person.

This was one of the original windows of the temple. It was on the 3rd floor in the classroom space.

We rushed back to our truck after the tour and I grabbed a quick pic of the temple without the family since it was still raining and we wanted to save our luggage from the rain.

After the temple tour, we stopped at the Joseph and Emma Smith home. We got to tour it with the best tour guide of the whole trip. This senior missionary was so knowledgeable and so fun to listen to. He told us stories about Joseph and Emma Smith during their time in Kirtland. He also told us about a meteor shower that hit the area during that time period.
 The home

The view of the temple from their home.

An original table

Stenciled walls in the parlor

After the Smith home, we went over to the historic Kirtland area. We toured the Newel K. Whitney Store

We also got to see the living space on the second story of the store. 

We also got to tour another home and the Ashery and sawmill. I don't think I took any pictures there, though. By this point, I think we were all kind of toured out. We headed to our hotel in Cleveland after this. It was actually in a really nice part of town with a top golf right next to it. We stayed at an Embassy Suites. After unpacking the car and getting settled, we went to Bob's Big Boy for dinner.

The food was good and we were all pretty hungry. We had the most amazing waiter here and ended up telling the manager how good he was on our way out. We couldn't swim that night, even though we had a lot of time to do so because the pool was closed for cleaning. We relaxed and watched American Ninja Warrior that night. We tried switching up the bed arrangements that night since Danny and I are not used to sleeping in full sized beds together. We tried putting a boy with each of us and I even volunteered to take the craziest sleeper, Tyler. Unfortunately, it didn't go well. Tyler fell out of the bed and Camden was kicking Danny all night, so he did not sleep well. Anyways, we switched back the next night.

New York Trip Day 4 - Palmyra

On Sunday, we decided to attend church in Palmyra and then spend the afternoon seeing the sites. We knew that they were only open from 1-5pm, but we figured that would be plenty of time to see what there was to see there and that it would be a good place to spend our Sunday away from home. Church went from 10am to noon. We stayed for both hours since we didn't have anywhere else to go. We had bought food to eat somewhere in between church and when the sites opened, but we accidentally forgot it in the hotel that morning Danny showed me a paper that one of the senior missionaries had given him with the schedule of all of the tour buses that were in town that day. What!?! He said that we would not be able to get into the tours when those buses were there because there would not be room. And it was pretty much every site and on the hour for the entire afternoon. 

We headed to the sacred grove first and walked through in our church clothes. 

Then we all changed our clothes. We were hoping to sneak into a tour ahead of the first bus to see the Smith homestead. As the boys were finishing changing, that same senior missionary came out of the visitor center and proceeded to tell me that they had a tour bus arriving at 1 and he had already told my husband that we wouldn't be able to get in. It irked me a little bit that they would book out an entire day with tour buses and not have any way for families traveling on their own to know that. And because that missionary stopped us, another family walked into the visitor center ahead of us and were told that they could join in the first tour to go through. We got into the second tour, so it ended up working out. But not before I totally embarrassed myself by expressing my feelings to that senior missionary. 

The tour included the inside of the Smith home

We were even able to go in the upstairs area and see the place where Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith.

We also got to walk across the land that they farmed.

We got a little peak at the temple through the trees as we walked.

Next, we got to go inside the Alvin Smith home.

They had a replica of the golden plates there 

They also pointed out one of the hiding places that Joseph Smith used to hide the plates.

Each of the kids got a chance to try picking up the plates and feeling how heavy they were.

Not part of the tour, but we peaked inside of this barn, another hiding spot for the plates at one time.

Another picture in front of the Smith home on the way back without all of the other people in the way.

After the Smith homestead, we drove into town to see the Grandin Print shop. We managed to sneak in there between 2 different tour groups. We found the Book of Mormon in Tagalog in the waiting area. They actually had the Book of Mormon in every language lined up next to each other.

We grabbed lunch at a pizza place in town since we were all pretty hungry by this point and we had forgotten our food. Then we went over to the Martin Harris farm. There was no tour there, just a plaque that told us about the land. 

In the center of palmyra, we thought it was interesting that the main intersection had a different christian denomination on each corner plus a couple more right behind those churches. I tried to get a picture as we drove through, but none of them captured it.

The funniest one was the Church of St. Anne (sounds a lot like Satan if you ask me. LOL)

After the Harris Farm, we drove back to the temple and walked around the grounds. An interesting fact that we learned during the tour of the Smith home was that this temple was specifically designed to have a non, stained glass window (one that you can see through) facing the sacred grove. The kids are looking at that window in this picture with the sacred grove behind them between the close trees.

Our last stop was the Hill Cumorah, including the visitor center. We walked through the visitor center first and then we walked to the top of the hill afterwards. There were different pathways you could take to the top. We chose the longer but less steep one and we regretted it. It was actually quite a bit longer (like a mile instead of less than a quarter of a mile). There was a monument at the top.

 After the Hill Cumorah, we headed back to our hotel. We decided it wasn't worth the extra driving to see the Whitmer Home in Fayette, or to take the detour down to Harmony to see the Hale Home. We relaxed in our hotel that night and enjoyed our lunch food for dinner.

New York Trip Day 3 - Toronto

 On Saturday, we drove up to Toronto. We started the day at the Toronto Temple to give Ashley and Tyler the chance to do baptisms in a different country. Danny went in with them and I hung out with Camden on the temple grounds.

After they got done in the temple (which only took about 40 minutes) we went into the church building that was next to the temple so they could change their clothing. We decided to buy the City Pass for Toronto that day. It gave us the option to see 5 different tourist attractions in the City. We knew we wanted to visit 2 of them, Casa Loma and the CN Tower. We decided to start with those 2 and then see what else we would have time for.

Casa Loma is the only Castle in North America. It was big, 4 stories plus towers, and stables located at the end of an underground tunnel. We walked through almost all of it and used the online self-guided tour to learn a little bit about some of the rooms. 

This hawk was just chilling up there while we were up on one of the towers. We ended up climbing up both towers because the first one we went up was not in the open air, so we had to try the one with the open air, too. The staircase up was skinny, steep, and windy. It made me kind of dizzy.

There was this random wax museum of different celebrities above the stables. We found this wax figure of Paul Walker, which I thought was funny and so random since he isn't that big of a celebrity.

After Casa Loma, we got directions to "Nom, Nom, Nom Poutine." Before we even researched things to do in Toronto, we knew that we wanted to get some poutine while we were there. I researched where to find the best poutine in Toronto and this is the place that got the best reviews. What I didn't know was that it was a permanent food truck right across the street from a homeless encampment. We got 3 different kinds for 4 of us to eat and Tyler got something from another food truck. We ordered one with pulled pork on it, an extra cheese, and one with bacon. Ashley was super excited about the extra cheese.

Tyler is our pickiest eater, so as we started to investigate the other food trucks around to see which one he would be willing to eat from, he ended up choosing the Filipino food truck that was right next to the poutine food truck. He ordered Lumpia with pork. Alyssa was excited that he tried them and liked them when we told her about it.

On a side note, the drive over to the poutine food truck was insane. We had no idea that Toronto would be like driving through lower Manhattan. The traffic was crazy, the drivers were rude, and we had a scary moment when we realized that the cable train ahead of us would be sharing the road with us. One of the 2 lanes on our side of the road had train tracks on it and the other lane would randomly have parked cars in it. So you can imagine how fun that was for Danny to navigate. And then as we got close to the CN Tower, the buildings became super tall around us and there were pedestrians on every corner. Finding parking was also a struggle because our rental car was an F150 and it didn't fit in most of the parking garages. When we eventually found a parking garage that would work and parked, we headed over to the CN Tower. We had an appointment to enter at a time that we thought would be easy to make, but we ended up being a little late. It wasn't a problem; they still let us in. Danny, Camden, and Ashley loved the tower. Tyler and I were pretty anxious the whole time we were up there. The elevator ride up had two glass walls so we could see ourselves shoot 1500 ft in the air. The floor also had glass panels. But there were so many people shoved in the elevator that it was hard to see that. And I had a prime spot next to the window but kept my back to it. I really didn't care to see how high we were going as we were hanging from elevator cables.

We wished the skies had been a little more clear while we were up there, but we could still see pretty far.

The craziest parts of the tower were these glass bottom areas. Danny, Ashley, and Camden had fun on them. Tyler and I stayed far away from that. I have never done well standing on see through surfaces that are up high. That includes glass bottoms and metal catwalks.

There were some fun designs on the window as you walked around. We liked the maple leaf the best.

LOL, Tylers face here. He did not like standing that close to the window.

I was so disappointed that there were only 3 spots here and I had to be the camerawoman, LOL. 

Tyler and I were happy to be back on the ground again.

We had a little of time still after getting off of the tower, so we went into the Ripley's Believe it or not Aquarium. It was located at the base of the CN tower. The aquarium was super crowded though, so we walked through it pretty quickly, not wanting to wait for crowds. This big fish tank at the center was pretty cool.

Our legs were so tired by this point, and we were all thirsty, so we decided not to use the city pass for any other things. It also had admission to the Toronto Zoo, a ride on a boat tour, and admission into an art museum. We knew the zoo would be too much walking and that the kids would be bored on the boat tour. And we didn't even consider doing the art museum, just not our thing. After the aquarium, we headed back to our car and fought the traffic to get out of the city. Before we crossed over the border, we stopped at a convenience store and got some sodas and Canadian candy. Everyone got to choose one that was different from American candy. I think everyone was happy with their choices. We shared a bit to be able to try multiple kinds. The drive back to our hotel felt long, but Ashley was occupied with a live stream of her favorite you tube channel (it was their birthday that day, so they did a live stream to celebrate). We relaxed at the hotel that night. I think the boys swam again, but I can't remember for sure.