Hi guys, so we've finally got round to the blog after 5 super busy days in Canada! Unfortunately at the end of the day when we get a choice between beer and blog, alcohol always wins

We've done loads of different things since we got here on Saturday and are looking forward to going skiing just over the US border in Ellicottville next weekend.

So on first leg of our trip we landed at Toronto airport on Saturday and drove straight down to Niagara Falls for a weekend of big waterfalls and indoor waterpark action with my Uncle Des, Auntie Trish all the kids and their friends Lori and Johnny. This was all for my little cousin Finns 6th birthday.

We stayed in the Sheraton hotel overlooking Niagara Falls themselves with amazing views from the hotel straight onto the American side of the falls. It was a cool -2 degrees and most of the falls and the pool below where frozen which made it even more impressive. After an enormous buffet dinner we hit the waterpark with my little cousins which thankfully was attached to the hotel because with all the snow I was not walking outside in my swimwear. After a quick change we hit the casino for a nightcap, hoping to double our holiday budget, inevitably losing about $10 - I blame being up for about 30 hours for the loss of concentration

After a well deserved sleep we had enough pancakes and bacon for 10 people then hit the waterpark one last time before driving down to have a closer look at the falls.The river was almost completely frozen as it'd been as low as -20C the week before we went but the falls, particularly on the Canadian side (Horseshoe Falls) were as spectacular as we'd hoped.After yet more food (not that we were complaining!) we had a quick trip to the candy factory next to the falls for the kids to stock up on sugar for the ride home.They had possibly the biggest pick-and-mix we've ever seen and you can see them making the sweets there sometimes, although it was quite quiet while we were there.

Sunday afternoon we travelled back towards Toronto to stay at my Uncles but took the scenic tour back through Canada (currently rather snowy) wine region, that runs along the side of Lake Ontario, stopping for a quick look around Niagara on the Lake, a rather quaint cross between Windsor and Austria and extremely different to most of South Ontario, which is actually quite industrial in parts. Once back we were quickly given the tour by my cousins and beaten several times at pool/cards/wii etc etc (a recurring theme throughout the week!)

On Monday it was Finn's birthday, so we woke up early and had breakfast with everyone before school and tried out a few new toys for size We went for a walk down to the local town of Oakville for a walk around the town and lake Ontario that runs down one side of it.In typical Martin/Katie style we decided to grab some beers on the way back home - it turns out that not many Canadians buy beer at 10:30am and then walk 2 miles home with it in the snow so we got a few strange looks - dedication to the cause I say!

Tuesday we woke up early again and got the (double decker super cool) train into Toronto.Luckily we had a amazingly sunny day so got some great pics, although this, coupled with the large lake that runs along one side of the city meant for a cool -5C before the wind-chill.Needless to say we had a fair few indoor stops on our city tour! First we hit St Laurence Market, which is a massive indoor food market, similar to Borough Market in London.We then wandered up, via a few shopping malls to Chinatown where we had some amazing dim-sum for lunch.The Chinatown in Toronto is actually really massive, running for about 5 or 6 streets - might go back and sample some more food there later in the week! We then wandered through Kensington Market, which is a bit more of a hippie kind of market before having a peak into the Roger's Stadium, the enormous home of the Toronto baseball and American football teams.Unfortunately with it being off-season we couldn't go into the stadium - it's supposed to be one of the largest in North America so that was a shame but we got a good enough peak from the shop above!

Feeling more than a little cold by the afternoon we holed up in a sports bar for a couple of hours to get Martin's weekly fix of footy before going to the CN tower for dinner.The restaurant is ¾ of the way up the tower (about 350m or 114 stories) and it revolves around so we had a fantastic view! Luckily we managed to get a reservation at 5pm so we got a daylight and a night time revolution over the 4 courses!

After yet another enormous dinner we met up with Martin's cousin Paddy and his girlfriend for a drink in the sports bar next to the Maple Leaf's Ice Hockey stadium, to watch the hockey game - the bar was actually immense, probably about 200 or so 42" screens plus a 50 foot screen just in case that wasn't enough! Unsurprisingly quite a popular place seeing as tickets to watch the hockey live start at about $100!

So back to today! We've hired skis here for the weekso we decided to make the most of them and went up to a local ski club for the day with Trish.Being mid-week the place was almost completely empty so we had prime choice of runs in really good conditions - a great warm up for the weekend!

We're off to the zoo tomorrow to check in with the polar bears before heading down to the US on Friday night for a weekend of skiing.

We're really enjoying Canada so far, although its different to we expected - possibly because we're so close the border but it is a lot more similar to America here than we thought it would be.Also found an amazing chain of donut and coffee shops that seem to be a Canadian institution (Tim Horton's) - donut count to date is around 4 each with Canadian Maple Cream being the current favourite but they probably won't be the last! Having a great time with Trish, Des and the kids and we're looking forward to hitting the slopes with everyone this weekend

Hope everyone's well - see you in a week!

Love Martin and Katie