Walking to the falls......

Starting out on our trek. We had to walk along the road as the sidewalks were too full of snow to walk on let alone push the pram on! See if you can even tell where the sidewalk is.....

It was hard work walking the few blocks from the hotel to the falls. The streets were very quiet, which was a good thing seeing as how we had to walk along the road itself to get there. It was just overwhelmingly amazing to see so much snow and to know that it had all pretty much fallen since our arrival two days before.

One of the bars along the way......business was pretty slow that day I think.

Frozen yogurt anyone??

Cold drink?

I am always fascinated by the way that the snow falls on certain things like trees, rooftops and cars. This is a bushy little tree across the road from the falls.

The trek was a bit of hard going so some little legs needed a little rest.....

Icicles anyone??

Some bigger legs needed a rest too.....believe it or not there is a bench under here....

Going......going.........

GONE! Can you believe that two days before this (which would be the day before we arrived) there was NO snow here???

Riley's turn.....

Check out that indent!!

Yep, the snow was really THIS deep!!

Rainforest Cafe - VOLCANO!!!!!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVE!!!

YUMMY!!!! Thanks for Sharing Dave.

We couldn't let Dave's 28th birthday go uncelebrated (even if we were a little early) and so whilst we were in Niagara we stopped off and one of our fav theme restaurants The Rainforest Cafe. We all enjoyed watching the wildlife come to life every 20 minutes with the storm and we all had yummy dinners. After dinner we decided it would be nice to share in a Rainforest Cafe specialty dessert to celebrate Dave's birthday. We informed the server that it was Dave's birthday and she obligingly let the ENTIRE restaurant know but coming out of the kitchen carrying the volcano cake with a lit cracker on top yelling (VERY loudly) V-O-L-C-A-N-O!!!!! and then stopping at our table and, still using her outside voice, announced that it was Dave's 28th birthday and asked everyone in the restaurant to wish him a happy birthday and of course they did. Even though Dave was a 'little' embarrassed it was still a lot of fun and between the 6 of us we finished off the volcano and rolled ourselves out of there.

Chocolate Brownies, layers of caramel, cream, ice-cream and caramel sauce! What is not to love??

And for those of you that weren't there see if you can find what doesn't belong in this pic........LOL

CHEERS Uncle Dave.

Some of the local wildlife as photographed by Dave.

These guys 'came to life' every 20 minutes when there was a storm in the rainforest.

Another wildlife shot by Dave.

"Hi, I'm Dave, Pleased to meet you"

When in Rome???? Sorry Dave but I had to include this one, it is one of my all time fav pics of you!

Stopping off at the bar for a few drinks on the way out......

Ever the poser....

and the littlest of our group on the tallest of the animals legs.......

New Years 2010!! TORONTO!!

Hitting the road!!

After packing and preparing for our trip for most of the day and driving for the entire afternoon and into the evening we finally made it to the big smoke TORONTO!! It was snowing and freezing cold, we quickly checked into our rooms and broke open the bubbly and turned on the countdown on the telly. Pretty tame New Years Eve but I guess when you have two little ones and it is freezing cold out then that is the best we could do. At least that way most of us were not hung over in the morning. We spent the next day exploring a rather quiet Toronto inner city with most shops being closed due to it being New Years Day and those that were open were very quiet as it was very cold and snowy outside and not many people were not crazy enough to be out walking around the streets. All in all a quiet evening and New Years Day.

The Crosby Clan on New Years Eve 2009/2010

The whole gang sharing some bubbles on New Years Eve 2009/2010

The day after New Years Day we headed back out onto the streets and headed to Eggspectations for brekky, a neat little restaurant that specialises in eggs (as you may have guessed) they basically do eggs anyway you can imagine them and they serve the whole menu all day!

Cheers! Here's to BIG lattes. Check out little Miss Emmy there with her eyes on the foam.....

We ordered our lattes BIG (and Dave got his black coffee - the server, seeing Dave's disappointment, even apologised to Dave for the size difference and assured him that his coffee was bottomless......)

Always with her eyes on the foam Emmy worked her way round the table under the guise of needing an "Aunty Mandy cuddle"

After a yummy and filling brunch we hit the streets again and taking rides on the subway and the streetcars (trams) to make our way round to the CN Tower.

Street Car. It was exciting and challenging getting on and off essentially in the middle of traffic with a pram!

Dave and Mandy posing with a model of the CN Tower whilst we were in line to actually make our way up to the top.

Me, Brad and Riley doing the same, Emily was happily sleeping in her pram at the time.

Riley standing on the glass bottom floor very very high up in the tower (ok so I didn't listen to just how high up we were.......). Was fun to look down at the sreet below. So many people were so nervous stepping out on the glass was funny to watch.

The view from the top of the tower in two different directions.

BIG thanks again to Mandy as all bar one of these pics are hers (oh and yes there is one that Dave took too...... guess which one??? YEP the one showing his little coffee LOL!!)

Fun in the snow.

For Christmas we got the kids snow tubes for having some fun around home with. Brad and the kids along with big kids Dave and Mandy took the tubes to a hill up the back of our estate and had some fun.

Riley heading up the hill.

Riley about to go down with Uncle Dave waiting in the wings with Emily's Dora tube......

Riley zooming down the hill.......

Riley looking pretty pleased at the bottom of the hill.

Brad on his way down the hill on Riley's Marvel Heros tube.

Dave getting set to hit the hill on the Dora tube.

Dave at the bottom of the hill.

And again no pics of Mandy, mmmm hard when you are the official photographer I suppose. I had some video clips of the fun but seems blogger is not allowing video uploads anymore. Everyone had an awesome time and both kids just loved screaming down the little hill. I think I see some more tubing in our near futures.......

Harder than it looks!! First time Skiing.

The gang all suited up right before our lesson. In hindsight we should have got a group shot of us afterwards all looking rather pooped.

The slopes and skilift.

Between Christmas and New Year we all decided to try our hands at skiing. All bar one of us have never been skiing before and so it was a new experience for us to all try together. We were all super excited and got up extra early to get ourselves ready and to drop Emmy off at daycare for the day. We headed out and had ourselves a quick brekky and coffee at Tim Hortons on the way out. We arrived at the slopes and had ourselves fitted for ski boots, skis and poles. Riley was most upset about not being allowed to have poles but it was explained that he was low enough to the ground that balance wouldn't be such an issue. We headed out with our instructor, Lindsay, for our lesson. First she taught us how to put our skis on and how to move slowly down a very small slope. We all did pretty well but I managed to have my poles confiscated on my first try because Lindsay feared I would impale myself. Riley of course was happy with this as he was now not the only one without poles.  Not long into the lesson my right foot started to really ache and I was seriously considering packing it in and becoming the official photographer. I sat down and worked out that my boots were too tight and restricting so I loosened them and problem solved I was back in the game. We headed up the skilift and all of a sudden it stopped. We knew (seeing as how it wasn't me that fell off the lift) that it must have been either Riley or Dave and Mandy. It was Dave & Mandy, they had somehow slipped off the lift and could not get back on. They ended up having to take their skis off and walk up the slope. A very long and hard trek up. They eventually made it up, quite pooped and a little pissed (the stupid skilift operator, not realising that they were first timers and obviously either unable to hear Brad & I yelling it at him or just ignoring us, was yelling at them to get out of the way because they were holding everyone up.) So we took off down the slope, well some of us took off and some of us started our journey of skiing, falling and flailing about down the slope. Mandy and I spent considerable time on our butts laughing til it hurt and having an awesome time doing it. I think the whole lean foward whilst you are careering down the slope thing was not sinking in for us. Luckily one of the other skiers took pity on us and managed to always be not too far away when we needed a hand back up and he helped us down the slope. At the bottom was the end of our lesson and so we broke for lunch before hitting the slope again to try out what we had learned. The boys got straight back  into it going up and down and trying out different runs. Mandy, Riley and I hung out around the bottom where we had our lesson and tried to perfect the little things, like stopping. At one point I was reminding Rilely of how to stop using your legs without falling over. Seems I was a little too green to be instructing just yet and before I knew it my legs were sliding fast in different directions, I leant forward and had both my hands on the ground, my feet were still running away from me in different directions and my butt was sticking straight up in the air. I was almost breathless from laughing and so was my sympathetic sister-in-law. Mandy thought for a minute about pulling out the camera but decided against it, she says out of sympathy but I think she was just laughing too hard to have been able to get a good shot. We managed eventually to get me off my skis and back upright when Brad came down telling us that Dave had just had a spill. We waited at the bottom of the slope for what seemed like ages (really was only about 10mins) when Dave finally reappeared. Turns out he was going a little fast and when he tried to slow down he lost his balance and took a tumble, he was lucky though kindly tree broke his fall. A ski patrol was not far behind him and he came and assessed Dave and helped him get back on track and Dave (after just one more tumble) made it to the bottom in one piece. We were all feeling pretty exhausted and so decided to make our way home. All in all it was a very fun day and one that I am sure we are all keen to try again. Although I think Mandy and I both agree we would probably be better snowboarders than skiers.......I wonder.......

Me coming down the hill the same way most people do...............upright and not the way I mostly made it down.......................on my butt!!

Our littlest skiing star! Riley had a blast and was really getting the hang of it too. I think even he beat Mummy and Aunty Mandy down the hill but to be fair (to Mummy & Aunty Mandy) he DID have the help of the instructor to get him there.

Dave giving a thumbs up! As I expected Dave picked up skiing rather quickly and was racing down the slopes in no time. I believe he was also the first of all of us to experience crash landing into a tree.....

Brad the Pro coming down the slope. Drawing on his experiences skiing in New Zealand many years ago.

BIG thanks to Mandy for the use of her pics, once again she was the official photographer and so there are no pics of Mandy to post. If only I had the hang of staying upright earlier I would have been able to take a few shots of my fellow awesome skier.....