Friday, April 12, 2002

Ah.....now that Spring is here, there is SO much I want to do....everywhere.....but I am so confused as to where to start, that I end up doing nothing. On to Friday in Philadelphia......

We woke up and went down to breakfast, and my kids were in hog heaven......Johnny ate 2 eggs, 2 pancakes, 2 sausages and 2 pieces of bacon.....Steffi had the same dish, but didn't finish her pancakes.....Tommy had 4 pieces of French Toast. I had 2 eggs, potatoes and bacon and couldn't even finish. How the heck can my kids eat SO much, LOL. From there, we went back upstairs to check on Amy's status, and she needed to work and didn't have a car, anyway, so I told her no problem...we'd make plans for later.

We trekked on over to the Liberty Bell. The line was HUGE as their were several school groups in Philadelphia that day. The group in front of us decided that the 90-105 minute wait was too long, so they decided to get something to eat and come back in an hour. Thank goodness they did that, as the line moved 1/2 block up and around the corner. I thought they were a small group, but when I saw about 100 people get off line, we were stoked. When we first got there, I was nervous because there were news vans and cars all over, but then I realized we were across from CBS's Philly station and all there fleet was all parked on the streets, LOL. I'd have to say that my 3 children did VERY well waiting on an hour line to get in to look at a bell. We had to pass through metal detectors, and get ourselves and our stuff searched before entering the bell area. From there, we listened to a brief lecture, and to my surprise Stephanie knew almost all the answers to various questions. I later asked her how she knew all the stuff and she just shrugged her shoulders, LOL.

The line for Independence Hall was just as long, and there was NO way my kids could go another hour just waiting, so we headed over to Ben Franklin's grave. This is right across from the US Mint, which unfortunately is closed for public tours now. Damn terrorists...

From there we decided to hit Betsy Ross' House, as we were already on the northern most part of the historic area. The house was so narrow and tiny......we couldn't imagine having to negogiate that place on a dark and stormy night. We headed back down south to our hotel for lunch and swimming. As we were walking, we came across Christ's Church. We wanted to go in and look around, but there was a HUGE funeral going on. So neat to see such a historic structure, still being used by the masses.

We got back to the hotel and met up with John. He was on a break, so he showed us the pool and the kids wanted to go NOW, forget about lunch, so we went swimming. We came back, took showers, went out to get a hot dog on the streets and then packed up the van for Amy's.

We got there and Steffi headed for the cats, and the boys headed for PS2. I think the kids all had a GREAT time, as did I. We ordered Chinese, Rob came home from work, and we had dinner. After dinner, the kids played more, and Rob showed us his equipment, LMAO...seriously, he has this music program and he was fooling around with the guitar and keyboards, and the computer. After sitting in traffic, in and out of the city, we got back to the hotel, but on our jammies and went to bed.

Saturday, we woke up, had basically the same breakfast, and decided to tour little houses and sites interspersed throught the historic section of town. We probably could have done a tour of Independence Hall, but we wanted to make sure we got to the Franklin Institute on time to meet Amy and the boys, again. We all boarded the Philly Phlash, which is a little bus/van, that transports people on a *loop* and the whole family got an unlimited day pass for $10. Not bad....

We had a wonderful time at the Institute, and again, pictures are on Amy's blog, LOL, so you've probably already seen them. We headed back around 5pm and were so hungry. We really wanted to go to Morimoto's, but decided to walk 1/2 a block to the Pagoda Noodle Cafe, and that was just fine. Close and quick!! Had we had no kids, we would have gone into Center City, but this was just fine.

After dinner, John decided to get a in room movie for the kids.....we decided on Jimmy Neutron, after various go rounds of what we could watch. I fell asleep around 7:10, and I was DONE!! The kids, however, loved the movie. We were scheduled to see that movie with the Cub Scouts, back in December, but that was the weekend that my dad died, so I'm glad the kids got to see it in this *special* way.

Sunday, we woke up, packed, got in the van, and drove home and RESTED the remainder of the day.

All in all, a GREAT trip, and there is nothing I would have changed :-)

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