We are back from a nice vacation all around. Beth and I got to go on a second honeymoon for our 25th anniversary, without the kids. Which was weird but wonderful. Last Saturday we all loaded up the van and headed to Pittsburgh. We got there in time for a nice dinner along the riverfront at Joe's Crab Shack with Laura and Thomas and Ben, who is living with them again as of late. We did a minimal amount of walking around the shopping center before heading back to Indiana (PA), where we spent the night. Anyway, the following day Laura and Thomas, Ben and the kids headed off to a water park while Beth and I went off by ourselves. It was pretty cloudy when we left, and we drove through a lot of rain, so we were afraid that the water park day would be rained out but apparently it never rained on them. Beth and I made a brief side trip to Deer Creek Township PA, an ancestral home of the Jewell family (Beth's grandmother). We found Ralph Jewell's (1808-1887) home church and grave site, and a road named Old Perry Highway (unlikely to be named for Perry Jewell, but you never know). However, Beth's great-great-great grandmother's grave is now on private property(a campground) and they were not willing to let us in to see it. Someone is in the site, you know, can't disturb them. After the side trip we hit the road again and headed straight to Canada eh? I had a momentary panic attack looking at my passport and thinking I had grabbed the expired one but it was all good. We had a really cool hotel called the Stone Mill Inn, built into an old textile mill.We spent the week exploring St. Catharines (there is less than we thought. The ads made the place look like Saugatuck, but actually the village by the lake part was quite small, and not very beach-y, and what beach there is was all closed due to high water, as was most of the village. Lake Ontario is so high now, most of the beach is actually gone and the lake is in the parking lot in places). But there are very nice restaurants, cool walking trails, and that Inn. We did stay in the hotel for large chunks of time. And on our 25th anniversary, I gave Beth and very sparkly present. But we also went to Niagara-On-The-Lake for shopping (there is a soap store that sells the most expensive soap on the planet, and triggered a crazy allergy attack in me that was ok because I was looking for a way out), stopped a couple times in a cool old antiques store (the big crammed full building that goes on and on kind), watched some ships transiting the locks in the Welland Canal, and also did a bunch of geocaching on the walkway along the canal. Also, Niagara is apparently a big wine country...I didn't know...but there are a million wineries all throughout the peninsula, and we found one to have a nice lunch at where we had some of the best burgers we've ever had while we sat outside on the deck by the frog pond. And an all-day trip to the House of Industry and Refuge, where we got some really good information about Huldah Myers (Beth's g-g-grandmother), and about the place in general, but what really blew us away was the revelation that she had another daughter (Mary) that we didn't know about, who also lived at the House with Huldah and Edith for a while. Still no indication how she got to Canada from Iowa though. Anyway, after we had our fun in Canada without the kids, we headed back to Indiana (PA) to pick them up again. We took Thomas and Laura and Ben out to a nice dinner in town and stayed overnight again (playing Superfight with the kids until pretty late. It seems that A being that is half Miley Cyrus and (bottom) half Conan, riding a broomstick, is unstoppable). Then the return trip again, back to Canada with the kids this time. We got to Niagara Falls in plenty of time to ride the Maid of the Mist, although it was absolutely pouring when we got there (with lightning) and I wasn't sure we were going to get to ride at all. But it cleared up and only rained a bit as we waited in line. We did the boat ride, then crossed into Canada and did the shopping and viewing the colored lights on the Falls. Sunday we did the brunch at Skylon Tower, and did more shopping at the touristy places. I took Monday off and was back to work on Tuesday.