Sunday, February 24, 2013

The Purple Nurple Tour - Buffalo Edition

We left on Valentine's Day to go on a road trip similar to the one we took this summer.  Our loop is much smaller this time (sadly we had to cut St. Louis, Louisiana, and Florida), and our purpose is much different.  We are looking at colleges to figure out what might be a good fit for Nicholas.  He wants to attend a smaller school that is reasonably close to some family.  One of the great things about this trip is that we will get to see a lot of people that we love.

The first stop was Buffalo, NY.  We have already visited Canisius and Niagara University.  So far, Canisius is still Nick's top choice. We came through Buffalo because we wanted to look at Niagara County Community College (NCCC), we wanted to avoid the PA Turnpike on our way out to Louisville, and we wanted to visit my Dad and Arleen. We got in pretty late on Thursday night, we basically unpacked and tried to get some sleep, although Jack and Vivi were wired and had other plans.

On Friday Vivi and I took Nick over to NCCC to tour the facilities and meet with an admissions counselor. I wanted him to see at least one junior college to get an idea of a lot of different options. Canisius is very expensive, so it might make sense to start at a place like NCCC and then transfer for his last two years. NCCC offers many things you would find at a four year school, including dormitories. It is exactly 6 miles from my Dad and Arleen's house. The only real down side I saw was that the dorms are really apartments with full kitchens, so they don't offer a traditional meal plan.  I think that is a great option maybe your third or fourth year in college, but I can't picture Nick grocery shopping and cooking his own meals his first year away from home.  Maybe he will surprise me.  Here he is in the admissions office:

NCCC offers a ton of different programs, one of which is "Winery Operations." I think I missed my calling in life. Why didn't they offer this when I was in college?  Is it too late to go back to school? LOL

Speaking of wineries, my Dad lives on the Niagara Wine Trail.  Our favorite vineyard is Niagara Landing. When we were visiting my Dad and Arleen in May of 2010, they had just gotten a Saturn Sky and my Dad was giving everyone rides in the new car. He took Bernie down to Niagara Landing. Prior to going to the vineyard, Bernie and I were talking with my grandparents on the back deck and drinking wine.  My grandfather kept refilling our glasses and neither of us seemed to notice. Bernie did a wine tasting at Niagara Landing and purchased six bottles of wine before returning to the house.  My Dad then then took me to the winery, where I did a tasting and decided to purchase six different bottles of wine than what Bernie had purchased.  They give you a 5% discount when you purchase six bottles and a 10% discount when you purchase a case.  I mentioned that my husband had just purchased six bottles, and was wondering if I could get the case discount since I was purchasing six more.  The vinter said, "oh, the drunk guy?" Because of that, Bernie will forever be known in the Greater Buffalo Area (or at least to my family) as "the drunk guy."

While we were at NCCC, Bernie took Jack sledding.  I really wanted to take him last weekend, but it doesn't work so well when you are 3'6" tall and the snow is 3'.  My dad has a good slope for sledding, and while there was only about an inch of snow on the ground, they still had fun.  Bernie took this picture while they were out there.

We all went to Johnston's for lunch with my Dad and Arleen. Bernie saw a program on the Food Network last week and they featured a hot dog wrapped in bacon.  This is apparently native to the Buffalo area and known as a "Whistle Pig." Johnston's has excellent food and their menu includes a whistle pig.  Bernie definitely enjoyed his lunch:

After lunch we picked up our traditional case of wine at Niagara Landing and then headed over to Meredith and Chris' house so that Vivi and Jack could play with Regan. At 16 months, Regan is tall, walking and cute as a button.  She loved "the baby," aka Vivi.  Arleen made Vivi and Regan both the same hat, in slightly different colors.  I got them little dresses to match, hoping we could get some cute pictures of them together.  Trying to get two little girls under two to wear their hats at the same time, sit next to each other, and smile at the camera is nearly impossible, and we had three people taking pictures.  They were cute nonetheless.  Here are a few of the better ones:




Here is my Dad and Arleen with the girls:

At some point in the night we were talking about the schools we were visiting and Bernie was commenting that deciding on a school seems so random that Nick should pick the school based on colors.  A few years ago when they were picking uniform colors for a baseball team, Nick wanted purple uniforms.  Bernie veteod that request saying that purple was a "girly" color.  Meredith is a Niagara University alumni and their colors are purple.  At least one of the other schools we are visiting has purple as one of its official colors. Bernie thinks Nick will attend a school where at least one of the colors is purple since he never had a purple baseball uniform, so Bernie has affectionately dubbed this road trip as "The Purple Nurple Tour."  It's funny, so it stuck.  I'm not in any way advocating any form of bullying that might involve a purple nurple, nor is this an intent to advertise a drink by the same name.  I thought about trying to name the trip something else, like the "every little thing is gonna be alright" trip for the Bob Marley song that seems to get Vivi to sleep when nothing else will, but it just doesn't have the same appeal. Purple Nurple it is.

We ended a great evening with the first of Nick's birthday celebrations.

On Saturday we headed for Louisville to visit Gary and Katie (Bernie's brother and his girlfriend). We stopped at the Hard Rock Cafe in Cleveland so Jack could add to his pin collection. We also stopped at the Cincinnati Outlets. There are lots of great stores there, but it was just too cold to do much exploring.

It was a nine hour drive from Buffalo to Louisville. Nick was recently awarded the role of the King of Hearts in the play "Alice in Wonderland." He spent much of the car ride practicing his lines with a Sean Connery accent. Never a dull moment with this group - LOL.

As I was putting Jack to bed he said, "I'm sad we didn't go back to Pepa and Nana's house." It is hard to leave, but he is also looking forward to celebrating Nick's birthday with Gary and Katie. Despite us correcting him numerous times, Jack is convinced Gary and Katie are his cousins.

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