Winter Weekend Get-Away with Friends

Friends together for a weekend in Niagara Falls, Canada.

We escaped the winter blahs by spending the ML King Jr. weekend in Niagara Falls, Canada. Along with Scott and Sue and family(the N's) and Mary and Paul and family (the K's), we stayed at the new and very beautiful Doubletree Resort Lodge and Spa. The building is gorgeous - it looks like a lodge inside and out, but with the styling of Frank Lloyd Wright. Very natural with wood and stone, decorated with mission style furniture and lamps. Even the lobby was spectacular, with a fireplace and lots of comfy couches for lounging. To top it off, there was a very quaint coffee area that served Starbucks!

The rooms are beautiful and very comfy! The beds really are as awesome as they advertise! Down comforters and many very fluffy pillows. We decided to upgrade to a 2-room suite, which didn't cost that much more per night. Check out the website for all the details on the rooms.

Our days revolved around life at the pool. The pool is awesome, and the kids swam for hours! The setup of the swimming area is ideal; the hot tub is right with the swimming pool, so the parents could soak and still watch the kids swim right next to them. After swimming, the kids would go into the sauna with Mike to dry off.

Saturday night Julianna slept over at our "apartment" and did crafts with Emma. The adults and Austin watched the movie Ladder 49 in our suite. Sue was smart and didn't subject herself to the emotional roller-coaster of watching a movie about her husband's new career choice, and instead headed back to their suite to get the baby ready for bed. Needless to say, I cried like a baby through most of it...for obvious reasons! It's a very good movie, and really captures the behind-the-scenes life of firefighters. The ending is very sad, and hits a little too close to home for me, but I would watch it again. I tried to assure Austin that Uncle Bubba would be fine as he performs his duties as a new firefighter, but one always worries anyway.