Oh, Buffalo

A month or so ago, Dan and I took a 5th Anniversary trip to Buffalo, NY to go to Niagara Falls.  We had planned a trip to Niagara the first year we were married but ended up not being able to make it so we thought this would be a fun year to go.  We also thought we would take Ben along since he was only eight months old and he's pretty easy to be around.  Well, it ended up being one of the most hectic weekends and was anything but a relaxing getaway!  The day before we left, we decided we better get online and look up some fun things to do besides going to the falls.  Naturally, this meant looking for places to eat.  We found a couple of places that were featured on some of the Food Network shows and thought those were a safe bet.  We attempted to go to Mulberry Italian Ristorante but we didn't make reservations and the wait was over two hours.  Not happening!  The place was in the middle of an old neighborhood and had a great atmosphere.  Maybe next time.  We also decided to go on a tour of one of Frank Lloyd Wright's homes.  I should also mention that we received the offer on our house the night before we were planning to go out of town.  We spent most of the weekend driving our rental car all over Buffalo trying to find a place to fax/scan the offers back and forth.  It was crazy!  Ben enjoyed his first flight and he ate about a pound of puffs between the flight there and back and jumped in our laps for the entire time.  We felt like we had been in an exhausting wrestling match by the time we landed.  More details on the weekend can be found below.

Ben was worn out from jumping the entire flight so he missed our first stop at Charlie The Butcher's.

It was a great local restaurant and a fun way to start the trip.  Two Beef on Wecks, onion rings and our own jar of horseradish.  Yum!

Old fashion sundae with Spanish peanuts.  We licked it clean.

Dan and Ben had plenty of bonding time on our trip and it was really good for them.  This also is the trip when Ben started crawling.  He chased the remote, just like his sister did when she was learning to crawl.

The day before our trip, we decided to go on a tour of one of Frank Lloyd Wright's homes that was located in downtown Buffalo.  The weather when we arrived on Friday was gorgeous and in the 70's.  By Saturday morning, it had dropped to the 40's and was raining.  We persevered though and really enjoyed the tour.

Dan was texting with our buyer's real estate agent trying to buy us more time since we had such a hard time finding a place to send in our counter offer.  Our tour was about to start at this point.  Stressful!

This may surprise you but people going on tours of architectural homes are not necessarily "baby friendly" folks.  Ben was a perfect gentleman but he occasionally talked out of turn and caused some nasty looks to fly our way.  We didn't care though, we were just glad to be inside where it wasn't raining.

After our tour, we headed over to Anchor Bar, the place that founded chicken wings (Dan was so excited), and helped ourselves to a greasy meal.  It was delicious!

Our little cutie getting bundled up in our rental car before we went to the falls.  He was such a trooper and had to take short naps in between stops.

It was freezing and we tried to keep the little guy warm!

We took turns keeping him warm in the kangaroo pouch.

I love this one of my boys!  You can see the spray from the Canadian side of the falls behind them.

We felt like terrible parents dragging our baby out into the freezing cold, rainy weather.  The advantage to going in this weather is that we had the place to ourselves.  The deck behind us is located at the bottom of the American Falls and is rebuilt every year due to the ice and rough conditions it goes through.  They were almost finished with the deck but we were not allowed to go up to the top but you can see the spray from the falls.

I would love to go back in the summer some time.

American falls from the top.

This little gem of a picture was taken in the middle of the night on Saturday.  If our trip wasn't stressful and hectic enough, the fire alarm went off in the middle of the night and a loud voice came over the intercom demanding everyone to evacuate.  We were on the top floor, naturally, and had to wake up a sleeping baby which we all know is a huge no no!  By this point, it was raining and in the 30's.  I was really glad that I had packed his bunny suit and warm blankets.  People felt so sorry for us and I appreciated the sympathy.

Once again though, this little guy was a trooper and he went right back to sleep in the hotel room.  I was amazed!  I however was up the rest of the night with all of the excitement.  Oh Buffalo, you did not disappoint!