“Family quarrels have a total bitterness unmatched by others. Yet it sometimes happens that they also have a kind of tang, a pleasantness beneath the unpleasantness, based on the tacit understanding that this is not for keeps; that any limb you climb out on will still be there later for you to climb back.”~ Mignon McLaughlin

aaaaahhh togetherness. ;)  i love my family. we are a bunch of strange individuals, who appear to be pretty normal on the surface. i love spending time with us all together. really. i do.  i often wish that my sisters lived much closer to me... that being said, i can't wait to get home. HAH. 


my nieces are soo adorable. they are also polar opposites, so having them together has been very entertaining. one is quiet, the other loud; one pretty sedentary, the other always on the move; one is pale and blonde, the other is tan and darker haired; one speaks clearly, the other clearly speaks gibberish...the list goes on. they found a common ground with puppies and kitties-every child i have ever known has had a fondness for puppies and kitties. :)


what a whirlwind of a few days! traveling...lots of driving, with more coming up tomorrow for the trip home. i am getting pretty tired of the inside of my car! the first leg of the journey was an awful, long, boring drive. we were starting to go a little batty the last hour or so. warren, the town my sister lives in, is so cute. i always tell her that i wish we could just lift up the whole town and move it a little further south and it would be an awesome place to live. i am all about living in the middle of nowhere, but when you have to drive through nowhere for 2 solid hours to get to the middle of nowhere...i think that is a little far out, even for me! i also don't like the idea of winter lasting from mid october until mid april, i like my seasons a little more equally distributed. but i do really love the town, it's full of quaint old houses and interesting buildings, huge trees, and brick lined streets. a.dorable. 


the drive up to niagara was really beautiful, rolling farmland interspersed with mountains and lakes..a nice drive. the falls were amazing. it's crazy how you can stand there and feel the power of the water. truly a wonder. i'd like to go back again some time when i can stay a little longer and explore some of the things some of my family weren't interested in. the house we stayed in was really nice..the wild acres were beautiful pastures and some woods, which hannah and i got to explore a little. unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate a whole lot of the time. the babbling brook was sweet, and had lots of songbirds and bunnies hanging around. the "fire pit" left a bit to be desired, but we made it work. all in all, a very enjoyable stay. 


we drove through jamestown, ny on our way back to jenny's..they are having huge celebrations there to commemorate what would have been lucille ball's 100th birth year. 
tomorrow we head back home..hopefully it won't take us as long to get there as it did to get here. this is one drive that i never look forward to. but hopefully it won't be bad tomorrow. 


this is what makes me smile:
being touristy.