Our NY vacation - Mohonk Mountain House

We headed to this place: This was a treat. This was a gift from Jason's dad to us, as we all mourned his loss. It was a great time to spend as a family (with Jason's mom, brother, sister-in-law and our family). We went to a place that he would have loved with fishing, hiking, swimming, fishing, fishing...8-). A time to build new memories, and remember old ones. A time for fun, but to relax too. It was a treat. Thank you Wes.

A paddle boat ride across the lake for the girls and I.
But, I am getting a little bit ahead of myself. Before anything, and what we started with was a Sunday brunch. It all begins with food.

All the meals were included. They had a great service staff that we at your beckon call. If you wanted OJ, it was there. Water too. There. As you can tell Karli is telling us all to back off from her delicious food!

Here is a picture of Jason's brunch...well part of it anyway. I think this was plate three...j/k.

One of the options they gave us was the choice between the buffet inside or lunch cookout buffet outside. We chose outside one of the days. It was great! This is all of us at one of our meals. Again, the food was wonderful!

At night you could choose the dinner buffet or the formal dinner. So, the first night our family at at the buffet while Jason's mom, brother and wife went to the formal dinner. The next night they took our kids and we got to go...just the two of us! It was wonderful!

There was a lot to do around there. At night they had activities like campfires, magicians, Broadway singers...other things we did included:

Relaxing in our room!

They had a Kid's Club that you could send your kids to if you wanted some alone time. We only made the kids go for one session on one of the days and they had a blast. So, the four of us snuck off and played some tennis. Yeah, it has been a while for me. It was obvious. I am glad they gave us the court furthest from everyone. It would have been quite embarrassing! We also got to play shuffleboard with Jason's mom.

We also took the kids on rides around the lake.

Our favorite thing by far was the water. We had some fun time at the beach.

There was even a time every morning when they opened up the whole lake and you could swim across it. So, we swam across it. When I had reached the other side we rest for a moment on a big rock that was there. A woman was talking to another gentleman about the snakes in the lake. You have to understand I did not grow up swimming in many lakes, so I knew they were there I had just forgotten about them. Until she mentioned the "S" word. But, then I realized there was no other way back. So, I took the plunge and headed back across...although I think I made better time than before! 8-)

This is kind of out of order, but one of the small gazebos around the lake was named "The Twins", so we had to get this shot:

But, we loved the beach.

They had a log attached in the water and you could try over and over to stand up on it.

And of course, the pool.

If you notice in this picture (and a few of ours that aren't on here) I am floating on my stomach. This is a common find at this pool. They have relaxing music playing UNDER the water.
Yes, under the water. So, as you were gliding through the pool you could hear this peaceful music playing under water. So, each of us adults would take turns just relaxing by the speakers. It was so peaceful and you were just floating.

There was actually a lady that brought this older blind gentleman into the pool. He was having a hard time adjusting to the water. Then my sister-in-law informed her of the music under the water, that it might relax him. We helped her find the speaker and the gentleman just wanted to lay on his back and feel the music. And that is what he did for the next half hour. You could tell he was so peaceful and relax. It was a beautiful sight to see.

The sign above is the directions for the the Labyrinth, this rocky terrain and climbing hill. We were all excited to climb it, we had heard so much about it. As I was reading the above sign I noticed at the bottom it mentioned that those 8 and up were probably the only ones that could do it. The girls, depending on the day, can be strong or wanting to drop at any second. Since, it mentioned that once you were in it there was not a way out I decided to walk with the girls up the side path and meet them at the top. The last thing I wanted for the relaxing afternoon was to be stuck in the middle of a rock climb and have to push the girls through. On our way to the other path I stopped by the Kid's Club to fill out some paperwork for the kids to enjoy an afternoon there. I asked them their thoughts about it. They said they wouldn't take my girls, but I know them better. They said they have only taken one 5 year old before. The girls were begging and so I told them there was no turning back. Jason, John, Eric and Elisabeth had already gone, so I started the adventure on my own with the three girls. Crazy, yes, impossible...no...didn't you know that ALL things are possible with God. He was there. It was fun.

I was amazed.

I was impressed.

I think the climb from Chimney Mountain a couple of days before helped them realize they could do more than they thought they could. John ended up climbing this a second time with dad and found an even harder part to finish at the end that went further up the mountain. He LOVED it! It was a great climb for them! Father-son bonding time.

In light of the previous note above, I have to say I was so impressed by the girls determination to complete this. It was difficult in some places and they pressed on...ahead of me. There were some scary parts, but they did it. I think I was most shocked and amazed at Kiley. She is our worrier. And she took the challenge and lead us on our exhibition. She crossed places by herself that had deep crevices. She lead the way. This was a HUGE thing for her. And the girls followed her. Usually Emily is the leader of the pack...but today was Kiley's day and she did GREAT!

This is tea time. I find this picture funny as the boys were the only ones of us that enjoyed tea time. They have it every afternoon on the veranda with cookies. This is the last thing we did before we left that day. Here are my boys having tea and crumpets. It was one of the highlights of our trip. I don't know that we will ever be able to go back, but are thankful for the time we had. This will definitely be on our family wish list when the kids get older.

From here we headed to New York City and Brooklyn...here we come.

Our NY vacation - West Point

On our way to Mohonk Mountain house (that is my next blog) we stopped by West Point for a tour. A few years back when John was 2 and the twins were 9 months old we went on a trip to Colorado and went to the Air Force Base there. So now, all we need to visit is Annapolis and then we will be set. That will be cool anyway because Jason's cousin Billy just graduated from there. Anyway, on to this trip! 8-) It was amazing to see all the different places where the people train.

Here is a common thing you find around the cemetery at West Point:

There are rocks on top of the graves. They do this for a lasting reminder that they are remembered. Instead of flowers that will die and be lost forever, they put rocks on top of the stones so that it will last forever and will show that they were caring and thinking and praying for them. I thought it was a great sight to see all over the place.

We were able to go to the Chapel and see its beauty. We could only go this far as a substitute organ player was practicing. You can tell in the picture, but it made the place look even more magnificent.

During the tour, this plaque, placed in the older chapel, made the most impression on me. As you can tell the name is scratched out. This is the plaque honoring Benedict Arnold. They have scratched out his name due to his later traitor status to the United States, but they still wanted to honor him for what he did before his betrayal. I thought it was interesting. And of course, it was in the back of the chapel.

This was a sphinx, yes, a sphinx. They now have a size limit on how big a tombstone could be. There is literally a pyramid behind us. I honestly can't remember who is buried there right now, sad I know, but he and is wife are in sarcophagus inside the pyramid. you can look through iron bars and see them. After this and another tombstone they now have limits on how big they could be. I did not think I would be seeing a sphinx when we went to West Point. 8-)

We had to get our picture at the end with this gargantuan tank. 8-) It was a good day. We then headed to a hotel, at dinner at Denny's and played Phase 10 and the kids watch the Disney Channel. Then the next morning onto Mohonk Mountain house...

Our NY vacation -- On to Indian Lake, NY

So we headed off from Niagara Falls and went to the Adirondack Mountains...Indian Lake, NY. Here we stayed at family's house. Here are Paul and Shirley, with whom we stayed. On the way to their house though we came across this great pizza place and bar found in Poland, NY. It is such a small town and it was such a great place I wanted to mention it. Here is where you can find out more about it (apparently it is the "nightclub" of Poland, NY). Anyway, I had to put a note about it. Jason's cousin, Sam, works at Adventure Sports as a white water rafting guide. So, he was able to get Jason, John and I on an all day white water rafting trip that starts on the Hudson River and then continues on to Indian River. This was John's first rafting trip, and he did a great job. We weren't sure if we were going so we forgot to bring our camera with us. Here is a picture of some other people on the same river. But, you get the exciting ride we had! It was a great thing to experience with John and we were so proud of him for doing it. He was paddling along with everyone else during the rapids, he loved jumping out and swimming at all the slow parts and he even jumped off a 14 foot rock into the river during one of those parts. He didn't want to at first, but he got over his fear and did it. It was great!

We stayed in Paul and Shirley's extra house out in the woods. The first night Paul was so excited telling them of the bears that were in the woods around the house and he threw out cookies to get the bears to come so the kids could see them in the middle of the night. And then let them know that they had recently found a lot of mice were running around Campo (their camp) at night. So below is a picture of how I slept for the next two nights. John and Jason took the bed in the other room. It was a very bonding experience! 8-)

Love, pure love.

Just to let you know, we never saw mice (although there were lots of traps out) and we never encountered a bear (I think it was because we left the security light on all night). But, at least they felt safe! 8-) I was tired, but they felt loved...that is all that matters, right??? 8-) Here is a picture of the beautiful house, that they have built themselves. It is amazing all the work they have done on it, and it was a blessing for us to be able to stay there and they had breakfast food waiting for us so we didn't have to rush back to their main house (16 miles away). We were very thankful.

They also had raspberry bushes and black berry bushes around their house that we got to pick. Then Shirley made a great berry pie from all of our pickings. Yum!

Here is a closer look at those yummy berries!

This is Peppy, their dog...that Emily LOVED!!! We couldn't get her away from him.

The mountain that Jason use to climb up when he was a kid was Chimney Mountain. So, we took the kids there to climb it too!

The kids did a great job! No complaining...we were amazed!!! John even volunteered to take the bag (that held lunch and water) for me. What a gentleman! If you notice, Karli...yes, Karli, is the one leading the pack. She made sure the whole time that she was the one leading everyone. She would get so frustrated if she couldn't be the on in charge. And boy was she a trooper...she amazed everyone on the trail that day.

Our view from the top! There were lots of little caves and stuff to go through. We didn't even do all the caves Jason did when he was younger, but we will have to make a return trip to finish those.

The view we enjoyed while we at lunch. It was worth the climb!

I love this family! We are truly blessed!

Another great view!

Here are my boys on top of their mountain! Here them roar!!

Now it is on to West Point and NY City!!

Our NY vacation - Our last day in Niagra Falls

So as we were coming home from our Canada we arrived at our hotel to find this praying mantis. John was so excited to find it! We found it in the parking lot and it was about to be stepped on by the people going in and out. So John picked it up and then we placed it in the grass away from the traffic of people. Here is John and his praying mantis: The girls were so proud of their brother for holding it for them to see.

The next day, because of our delay the day before (click here)
and because we had purchased this pass we had to finish what we started and were excited to extend our stay in Niagra Falls for a few extra hours. We got to see the aquarium, ride the tour trolley and see the discovery center. The day before we had seen the IMAX movie.

The girls were having fun taking their own pictures.

I love this picture Jason took of both the American and Canadian falls. It is beautiful!

Watch out John, Jaws is going to get you!

After we saw all the attractions we missed we headed to Indian Lake, where Jason's uncle and aunt live. More about that in my next post. It is beautiful!