Winter Adventures!

a few weeks ago, we headed up to see the falls in "winter" condition. we saw some great stuff! caleb took this photo of some turtles in the flower exhibit house. he named them: "slow" and "turtles", so that together they are "slow turtles"! they were so slow, that all the kids thought they must be statues, but of course they are real, and very slow.


in the flower house, they have some beautiful flowers. i am fairly horrible at remembering flower names, but this one is crazy and fun--just like our cabers!


here are the same 2 pictures of toran, because i uploaded the wrong one, but this looked to be a crazy huge orchid, growing out of the side of some kind of tree. check out the zebra striping on the stalk!

now you can just check out sweet toran--again!


here is ciela with some pretty flowers that she thought nana might like to see--and name!


and here is the fam in front of the poinsettia "tree". the flower house is really small, but with lots of pretty flowers--and totally free! there are also some exotic birds flying around in there-but we only saw or heard a few of them. there were so many beautiful orchids! i love those flowers! and it reminded me of home--we used to give orchids as gifts often, because they are gorgeous and so inexpensive at trader joe's. however, i went to check out getting an orchid for our home a few days ago--holy cow! $35 at the store! umm...i guess i need to take some more pictures!

so the silly boys and i in front of the falls, but you can really only see the mist. we are on the canadian side, so in the background you can see some of the american park.


we did something else we had never done: spent $ on food! well, at the falls, i mean. we had cocoa and muffins, and somehow a random walnut got into my blueberry muffin, which led to a panicked run to the bathroom to scrub my teeth and tongue. then when i returned ciela offered me the rest of her bagel and cream cheese, but a couple bites into it, my throat was feeling very constricted and so i had to pop an emergency benedryl (i have crazy allergies to nuts and carob, which is now used as carob bean gum and a thickener in nearly every non-organic dairy product out there!) and so the drive home and the rest of the day were a bit blurry for me!


the falls looked so green! still mammoth and amazing, but definitely a new site in the winter!


this sign is posted in the women's bathroom in the flower house--why?