Day three

April 24, 2011:




Happy Easter! It’s Easter Sunday today. We don’t have plans to go to church with Dave’s Grandpa and Grandma today (they are Catholic and we aren’t comfortable attending that service). I bought an Easter book just for David so we’ll read the Easter story together then go out sightseeing. Today’s agenda is Philadelphia. I can’t wait. I want to see the Rocky steps and the Liberty Bell and eat a real Philly cheese steak. I’ve never had one so this will be a real treat!

Today is getting off to a much better start than yesterday. It’s now 7am and the only ones up are my MIL and me. I just peeked at my sleeping babies. They look like little angels. I’m now sitting here in bed, typing away on my laptop, listening to the hubs snore and the birds chirp out my open bedroom window, eating Pepper Ridge Farms cookies for breakfast. THIS is vacation!!! The boys didn’t wake at all last night so we are going on 9-10 hours of solid sleep for them. I really hope they wake in better moods than yesterday!

Oh what a difference a little sleep can make! Our whole family woke in better moods than yesterday. We are settling into vacation very nicely now and we are really enjoying ourselves. We leisurely wandered the house getting ourselves ready this morning. Just before leaving we packed some sandwiches in a cooler for a snack later. Then we piled in the van and made the hour and 15 minute trek to Philly. Great memories were made on that toll road (You guys remember that really confusing toll where we got out of paying $3.25?). Getting to Philly was a breeze. Getting into Philly proved to be a challenge. The roads are very narrow and close together because it’s such an old city and our GPS often got confused thinking we were on a different road than we were. We finally did get ourselves straightened out and headed in the right direction.

Our first stop in the city was the visitor center to pick up tickets for touring Independence Hall. We had about a half hour before security check-in so we saw the Liberty Bell first (or as David calls it “the Bliberty Bell”). So very cool. We weren’t able to read any of the history about it because of impatient little boys, but it was still cool nonetheless. It’s fun to make history real. We were able to tour Independence Hall after that. It’s still the original building from the 1700s, but nearly all the furniture inside is replicas. Just a few original pieces remain.

When that tour was over we were starving so we hit up a street corner cheesesteak stand for my first ever cheesesteak. There wasn’t much of a place to sit so we perched ourselves on a window sill behind the stand and ate our lunch. Lunch was so delicious. Like for real.

It was a blazing hot 87 degrees and very sunny in Philly so we tried to find indoor stuff to do after lunch. We toured the Ben Franklin museum and saw the remains of his house. We saw Betsy Ross’s house and walked around in the courtyard, but didn’t go inside. And we got some Frappichinos from a local Starbucks. Yum.

The very best thing for Dave and I in Philly was just walking around and enjoy the vibe and atmosphere of the city. It’s got an older and more historic vibe than other big cities, but it’s still very exciting. It’s not nearly as artsy fartsy or modern as other large cities. It was just great. The cobblestone streets are just about too much. I mean how adorable are cobblestone streets and brick buildings?? The Rocky steps are a bit too far away for us to want to walk to with the boys and we don’t want to pack sleepy boys up in the car just to get them out in 10 minutes so we have to skip that. Oh well. I got everything else I wanted to see.

After 4 hours in the hot Philly sun, the boys were ready for air conditioning and a nap. On our way back to the visitor center and gift shop Max fell asleep. We quickly bought ourselves some souvenirs and smashed pennies and got back to the underground parking ramp. Max’s nap only ended up being an hour, but it was enough to keep him happy the rest of the day.

We got a pleasant surprise when we got back to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Dave’s aunt and her family were there to visit with us for a while. Dave’s 3 teenage cousins loved David and Max and David and Max loved the attention. They ran around showing off the rest of the night. David never did get a nap so we called in a night early and did the bath and bed routine. They were asleep almost instantly. David and I went back down stairs to chat with Grandma and Mom for a while. A few hours later we got ourselves upstairs for showers and bed.