Niagara...again!

TripAdvisor told us that this breakfast spot was topnotch so we decided to check it out. Sunset Grill did not disappoint. The service was quick, the restaurant was busy, but clean and the food was amazing.

 

Breakfast with this babe! 

My date was pretty cute, too. :)

The dog was the navigator!

From there we decided to walk down to the waterfront to see what was going on. Toronto was bustling and we loved all of the people watching.

Jackson loves to watch sailboats

The handsome young man accompanying me

The city from the water...GORGEOUS!

We walked all around T-town and even got caught in a Jewish Canadian pride parade complete with a motorcycle gang. It was...fascinating. We felt a little out of place being American Christians and all, but no one was too hard on us.

Jackson's "selfie"

 

Our hotel had a pool where you could swim from the inside to the outside. Being children at heart we thought that was the coolest thing ever. We found our inner adults and laid by the pool for a bit, too. Jackson listened to the Indy500 and I read. It was lovely.

When the sun finally slipped behind an adjacent building, Jackson ripped me away from the city I never wanted to leave. We drove the two hours over to Niagara Falls. We were again making up for Jackson's airport birthday (a costly cancelation that was!) and ate at The Keg overlooking the falls. The Keg is Jackson's favorite steakhouse. We had one in Denver so now whenever we see them we try to go. The Keg isn't cheap friends. At all. (Neither was the 360 restaurant. Note to self: never have Jackson travel on his birthday so that there is no chance of it being ruined by delays. Those delays are far too costly later. HA!) Anyway, our dinner was expensive delicious and the view was unbeatable.

I kept accidentally ignoring the waiter and just staring outside

Niagara's skyline...all of that for the falls!

Jackson insisted that we fight the absolute masses of people and go down to the viewing platforms. I was highly annoyed, but acquiesced.

WOW!

I must admit that the views from down there were pretty impressive, too.

He didn't make me get on a boat...thankfully!

Jackson being Jackson and not smiling well for the camera

A sequence of Jackson taking my photo...

Jackson thought this trio was a perfect way to show "what he goes through" to get photos for the blog. He makes me laugh, I try to calm myself, then I am ready for a photo. What does he do? He takes all three photos. Typical. Love that man.

More Falls photos

Last one for good measure

Usually getting a Hard Rock Café pin for my Mom isn't tough. This time, though, the Café was hidden inside a casino. I, thankfully, kept getting carded as I made my way to the Café. At one point security wanted to remove me because they thought my i.d. was fake. They wouldn't even let me near the free drink stations for fear that I'd drink illegally. The legal drinking age in Canada is 18. I wanted to strangle these folks at first. Then I loved them for not believing that I was almost 30 27.

No trip is complete without one of these

We left the Falls and headed for Indiana. We just did not want to make that long of a drive so we stopped in a little town near the U.S./Canadian border called Chatam-Kent. Jackson had enough IHG points (I'll post later about his obsession with hotel points these days) to get us a free room at a huge (why? Why was it huge? We cannot figure out why they had a 17 floor Holiday Inn Express in this town the size of Gas City. We'll never know.)

Jackson singing along in the car...we love to do that

We got on the road early the next morning and headed for home. The security at the border was far less than we expected. It was actually harder to get into Canada than it was to come home. So weird!

We stopped in Upland to grab my car and say hello to everyone there before stopping to pick up little Miss MacKenzie. We missed that little girl!

She took advantage of the sheets being in the washer and slept in Dad's
 spot upon coming home. Some things never change!

It was a great, quick trip. I really enjoyed Canada far more than I expected to and certainly look forward to returning!