A trip to remember

 My dad has always liked to try and take us kids on a big trip every year. Until recently I hadn't realized what a blessing that has been. As sad as it is to admit up until this last trip of ours I was usually one of the ones with the worst attitude. One thing changed about this trip. My dad let me plan the majority of it, and I ended up having a lot of fun. There were months of planning that went into this. 

We went to New York and Canada on this family excursion. We were gone for 11 days. We stayed in 4 hotels, visited 3 major cities, crossed the border between 2 countries, and had 1 long night in an airport.

Day One:

We started out in Times Square. Things there really are as big and flashy as they look on tv. It was a little overwhelming because there is so much to take in.

There are people dressed up everywhere. We had to tip him to take a picture!

See us on the screen there?? This was one of our favorite things about Times Square. We learned that 18% of all billboards have to be advertisements. Crazy right?

After a little bit of exploring around Times Square we made our way over to the 9/11 memorial. It was very different than I had pictured, but it was still stunning. They have two huge pools of water in place of where the Twin Towers once stood. I hadn't realized it, but they are actually rebuilding the Twin Towers. I thought that was pretty neat. 

I thought this tattoo was pretty touching. This is a picture of a picture that hangs in a small museum you can walk through before seeing the memorial.

Next, we made our way over to Yankee Stadium for America's favorite pastime. The main way we traveled for the first few days was by the subway. Ever since I was young I have had an idea of what the subway was like, so it was really cool to actually get to ride on it. 

Now just to get things straight, I am not a Yankee's fan, but being at their stadium was awesome!

Unfortunately, this was the muggiest day we were there. I felt like I had jumped into a pool that's how sweaty I was. Gross! 

 The atmosphere at baseball games is always a fun one. I love looking down on the nearly perfectly manicured lawn. It stirs a strange feeling of excitement.

It got to the point where we were so miserable sitting in the unbearable heat that we decided to leave after the 7th inning stretch. Right when we got up to leave it started pouring rain! It was unlike anything I have ever seen before. By the time we were back to our hotel we were drenched. 

Day 2:

We had a bit of a late start to our day, but boy did we start it out right. We went to a pizza place and I'm not kidding you, I had the best piece of pizza I've ever had in my life! If you will be finding yourself in New York anytime soon make sure you go to Ray's Pizza. We liked it so much we went there twice! 

Our day consisted of Water Taxi's, a cruise along the Hudson river, Statue of Liberty sightings, and exploring on the pier. Double Decker buses are seriously the best way to see New York!

Batman came out while we were gone. The posters, if you could call them that, were all huge! 

The beginning of our cruise down the Hudson River

If you know about my weird love for clocks, then you ought to know I was pretty excited when we saw this one! It is 15 feet tall. So cool!

Playing with a water pump like thing on the pier.

While we were on the water Taxi (which is really just a bus) we were close enough to the stoplights that we could reach our hands out and touch them!

 We enjoyed this part. Can you tell?:)

Once we were done with that we made our way over to Central Park. That was one thing that was so different from the way I pictured it that it was hard to take in. We rented bikes to ride around. 

Back in Times Square along the streets there were all sorts of talented people. One person we saw that stood out was a guy who created a painting using only spray paint. It was one of the coolest things I have ever watched. 

To finish this night off we went and saw Phantom of the Opera. I had worked Broadway up in my mind to be way bigger deal than it really is. Don't get me wrong the play was still good, but I had this grand picture in my mind that it didn't quite live up to.

We were supposed to spend the night in New Jersey [staying in New York is crazy expensive!] But by the time we got back to our hotel we were basically out of options for transportation. Our last resort was to take a limo. Yep a limo! Let me tell ya it was quite an experience for us Thompson children. We had fun. It was one of the most comfortable rides of my life. Woot woot.

You know how some gems are caught on film? Well, this is one of them. Ashley made me promise I wouldn't delete it. Here's your proof Ash!

Day 3:

We drove all the day long to Niagara Falls, Canada. I didn't think crossing the border into Canada would be any big deal, but boy was it intimidating. When you are under 16 you don't have to have a passport, just a birth certificate. Seeing as to how 4 of my 5 siblings were under 16 this was the case for them. In order to be able to go across the border they underwent what I would imagine would be similar to the spanish inquisition. Having a passport was worth not getting asked any questions!

Day 4:

We drove into Palmyra, New York. We visited the place where the Book Of Mormon was first printed, The Smith Family farm house, and my personal favorite the Sacred Grove.

This is the original copy of the Book of Mormon!

 The Sacred Grove was different than I had pictured it my whole life, but it was neat.

We ended the evening with the Hill Cumorah Pageant. I absolutely loved that! 

Day 5:

We found a church in Toronto. As I'm sure you can imagine, the ward was rather small, but the Church is still true even in Canada. 

Day 6:

This was our first real day to spend in Canada. Unfortunately, our phones had no sort of international plan whatsoever, so we were a little bit lost (sad I know!). 

My dad has a thing for signs...

We had the opportunity to ride up an outside elevator to eat dinner up in the Skylon tower. The view of the falls from there is incredible!

We then made our way to Clifton hills. That's what could be deemed the tourist street. We saw a 4D movie where it felt like spiders were crawling up the back of my legs!! I was not a fan. 

My favorite part of the day was going to the Guinness Book of World Records museum. It was so cool!

This is a replica of the chair of the
tallest man in the world!

The waist size of the largest man in the world. He has a ways to go if you ask me.

He was REALLY tall

 The speed at which some people can eat is down right disgusting.

Try saying this 3 times fast

In the gift shop we found these descriptions of what people who are born on a certain day are like. I think mine is eerily correct.

Day 7:

This was our day to really explore the falls. We bought Adventure passes. They let us do 4 of the main attractions around the falls. We basically spent the whole day in ponchos. 

The first thing we did was called the Maid of the Mist. It's a double deck boat that takes you right up to the falls. Thank heavens for the ponchos or else we would have been soaked!

We were way close to the falls!

After that we took an elevator down to a boardwalk along the rapids. These are the most dangerous rapids in the world. Who knew?

In between activities there was a lot of waiting in lines...

Our third activity was going to see a movie called Niagara's Fury. When we got in line we saw that the employees were handing out ponchos. At that point I became concerned, I didn't want another bad movie experience. It turned out to be one of my favorite things of the day!

Poncho set #2

Our last and final activity of the day was called Journey Behind the Falls. We took an elevator down to some tunnels behind the falls. It was pretty cool to get that close to them.

Poncho set #3

Theses falls take your breath away that is for sure!

One of the coolest things was seeing the rainbows. Biggest rainbows I've ever seen.

 Things in Canada are a little different... Construction cones make me think of Halloween. I was missing American smarties.

Day 8:

We were ready to leave Canada behind. We wanted to be able to use our phones again. We drove for what felt like forever. On our way back to New York we stopped at the baseball hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York. I didn't understand much of anything, but it was fun watching my brothers get excited over a player or team.

Hank Aaron is my dad's hero. He is a phenomenal person. 

This is how a replica of how tall the tallest and shortest baseball players were.

The Blue Jays won the world series the day I was born:)

I thought this was a pretty cool picture. 

Day 9:

This was our final day to spend in the city. We stopped to use the bathrooms and happened to find the ball that drops every New Years Eve. One of the funniest people I have ever met took our pictures. It was a grand old time. We actually touched it!

We spent the day shopping down Canal street. That's where you haggle with people to get the lowest price possible. A few of the kids got really into it. It was lots of fun.

We ate dinner in Little Italy. We took a suggestion from a man off the street and without realizing it we went to dinner in a Pub. I was so hot that I only ordered Ice Cream. Healthy, I know. We tried some duck fat fries they were less than stellar, I wouldn't recommend them. 

Day 10:

We were up, packed, and ready to go by 10:30. It took us over 5 hours to get to our gate for our plane.  We missed it by 10 minutes. My brother saw them close the door. We were devastated. We ended up sleeping in the airport. Let's just say that is not an experience I want to repeat. To keep ourselves occupied we rode the standing escalators back and fourth for a long time. I read a book and tried to sleep.

Emily was a good sport. She found ways to keep herself entertained.

Pigeons walked around like they owned the place!

We slept on this cement slab, the ground, and even on the benches of the nearest fast food place. We were past the point of caring. 

Day 11:

The day we arrived back in Utah. 

Never have I been so glad to be back in my home state. This trip was definitely fun, but all good things must come to an end. And congratulations if you made it to the end of this marathon post you're a trooper!