Megan is serving her once a month reserve training this weekend so Josh and Matt entertained Dean and I.
Saturday, August 15
Almost four years ago Matt and Megan were married (Sept 4, 2011) here on Grand Island. The last day of that trip, son Brett, our daughter-in-law Renae, their children Dacy & Tucker and Dean and I found this great little restaurant in North Tonawanda. It was called Country Cottage, although I could not remember the name. I originally found it on Trip Advisor on our first trip so I went looking for it again this morning. I was thrilled when I was reading the reviews and decided yes that was the place so we took out this morning to see if it was as good as we remembered it. As soon as we pulled up, we recognized the building.
Fortunately, even though it was busy, not as much as it was on our last trip, we were seated right away. I immediately recognized the décor was the same - pigs of all kind all over the walls.
We soon ordered and had our food about 20 minutes later. Here's some pictures of our yummy breakfasts:
Josh hoping Dad will keep sharing breakfast with him!
Following breakfast, we decided to check out the hydroplane boat races along the Niagara River that are taking place Saturday & Sunday. You can tell they have been holding this event for some time. It was well thought out, parking was easy ($5) and was also the entrance fee for everyone in the vehicle. There was a great walking lane from the parking area to the viewing area. We parked just outside of the pit area. We walked to the left of the pit area, down to the water and found ourselves right at the west end of the race area so we set our chairs up there. We were immediately adjacent to the pit area where the boats left from.
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| Pit area to our right. |
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| We set in front of these vehicles. |
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| Be sure to enlarge these pictures for the full effect. |
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| The first bunch of boats taking a run around the course. |
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| Josh is having fun watching them! |
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| Finally figured out what they were using the cranes for - yep that is one of the boats. They lowered each one into the water from their trailers. They do look a bit like flying saucers, don't they? |
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| Papa showing Josh the boats! |
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| And the race is on! |
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| Three generations of Peine's. Matt, Josh and Dean. |
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| They are watching us! A drone taking in the scene. |
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| Launching point.
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After watching several races the sun started to come out. Up until now it was pretty overcast and cool. Josh was getting tired of sitting, and we thought this might be a good time to head back to the house. Before we did we took a look around on the other side of the pit area. That's where the action was really at.On this side there were all kinds of vendors, food booths, and an announcer that gives you all of the details of who's racing, who's winning, etc. Here are a few pictures from that end.
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| You can see the vendor and food booths on the right. |
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| This boat was on display. |
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| Looking behind us to the pit area. |
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| You can see how the seating here is on a gradual slope that would provide good seating to everyone. |
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| These were slightly larger boats racing. |
We enjoyed our time but we were not really prepared for a day of racing in the hot sun. A very warm front moved in and finally moved out this morning (Tuesday, August 18). Temperatures were in the upper 80's and hot - not Kansas hot, but hot enough for me.
Tonight I made a couple of pizzas for our dinner. Chicken, artichoke, and spinach alfredo pizza and sausage and cheese. They were both pretty good.
Sunday, August 16
Dean and Matt played golf this morning. They headed out early for a tee time, but when they arrived at the other end of the Island it was raining there. So back they came. Soon after it quit here and they tried again. Yes the rain had moved out. They were able to play 9 holes before they decided to come on back to the house. They stopped for McDonald's on their way home. I declined the food but had them pick me up a mocha frappe which I love. I just ate left over pizza as did Josh. I think they watched a movie and I just fooled around on my Kindle.
Megan got home about mid-afternoon from her training. We left to head that way about 4:30 or so. Megan's parents Mike and Ruth Miner went with us. The first order of business after arriving was to find food. We stopped early in the food booths - probably a bit of a mistake since we ended up missing most of the good food booths. It was okay though.
From there we headed to the kiddie rides for Josh. He tried out a few games and the Merry-go-round. All were firsts for him.
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| This is just like what I do at home, throwing my baseball! |
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| What do you mean, it doesn't count unless I land in one of those bowls? |
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| Not sure who is having more fun here, Josh or Dad! |
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| He got to pick 3 of these fish, but he didn't want to stop. That was fun!
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From there, we checked out the animal barns. We never did find the horses, but we visited the pigs and the llamas. The rabbit barn was closed.
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| Seems like just yesterday we were helping with Kamron's pigs at the Labette County Fair! |
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| It looks like the hair on his forehead had been curled!
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As we left the animal barns there were quite a few tractors on display. Some were quite old but there were several new ones. Megan was amazed at the size of the tractor tires. She could even fit inside of one.
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| Her dad Mike looking on! |
We had to make one more stop for food - desserts! I wasn't leaving without a fried Twinkie. I think all in all three of us tried those and Matt had fried cookie dough. The Twinkies were good. Better than the fried Oreos and Snickers we tried at the Kansas State Fair two years ago. I think now I have tried all of the fried snacks I want to. I ate them too quick - before I could think to take a picture.
Here's a picture of the midway before we left.
I thought the landscaping outside of this building was very nicely done.
As we are leaving and shots of the carnival rides.
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| I should have ran in front of them to take this picture! |
Monday, August 17, 2015
This morning Dean and Matt went back to work putting up the gates for the fence they built last week. They really needed a break, as they put the fence up in some pretty hot weather. They spent most of the day yesterday putting in one gate. It was trial and error, and several trips to the hardware store before finally finishing in the afternoon. They were really glad to be finished for the day. Putting in the double gate tomorrow will go much smoother, I'm sure.
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| Josh and Papa giving High 5's at the window! |
When Megan got home from work about 5:00, we decided to try out a Mexican restaurant in Niagara Falls. It was quite good and we were all stuffed afterwards. But not so much we couldn't make a stop at DQ - well, after we picked up a few groceries. As you know from previous posts if you have been following this blog for long, I love Dairy Queen (DQ). It was a perfect ending to a great day! Dean and Matt have been trying to watch the PGA tournament from the weekend. They watched part of it before working on the fence, during lunch and now they can finish it up. Matt still didn't know who had won, so we completed watching it after we returned from dinner. It was a good tournament!
Saturday night we are having a cookout here at Matt's for all of Megan's family. We've not had the opportunity to spend as much time with Megan's family due to the distance between us so we are looking forward to getting to know all of them a little better. I'll be sure to get pictures to post.
