We had a wonderful vacation this fall! The four of us traveled up to Pennsylvania earlier this month. We stayed in Philadelphia at the Homewood Suites (which was great to have a kitchen for the kids) and found that we were pretty central to everywhere we wanted to go. The week was completely filled and we did something different every day.
- After our flight in, Wednesday, we settled into our suite and did some grocery shopping.
- Thursday we explored historic Philadelphia. We saw the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, Christ Church cemetery (where Ben Franklin is buried) and ate lunch in the Reading Terminal Market at the Dutch Eating Place. That evening we ate dinner at Eric's brother's house in NJ. Taylor got to play with her cousin Zach and Jacob got to meet his Aunt Megan & Uncle Chris.
- We decided Thursday night that the weather Friday would be better in DC than in Philly so we drove to the nation's capital Friday morning. We walked all over the place! We saw the White House (just the outside), some of the monuments (Washington monument, WWII, Vietnam memorial, Lincoln, & the reflecting pool.) Then we walked over the the Smithsonian and went through the American History museum. It was neat to see the flag that Francis Scott Key was looking at that inspired our national anthem! After all that walking around we drove to Arlington, VA and met up with some friends of ours, the Freeze family, who moved there from Texas recently. We walked over to a restaurant with them and enjoyed a visit over dinner.
- Saturday was a little rainy but we made the best of it at Sesame Place. I don't have many pictures because of the rain. Chris, Megan, and Zach met up with us there and Zach & Taylor had so much fun riding all of the rides. It was a great amusement park for kids because they can actually ride all of the rides as long as an adult is with them. There was only one ride in the whole place that Taylor couldn't ride and it's requirement was that you had to be 3 or older! There was one ride that Taylor loved - it was a giant Elmo that was basically like the "Tower of Terror" at adult theme parks. It takes to straight up and drops you back down a zillion times. Now, this is a ride that I normally wouldn't go on but Taylor really wanted to try it. I was so worried that it would scare her but she giggled the whole time because of how it made her tummy feel! At the end of the day they had a parade that Taylor tried to sleep through. She finally woke up at the very end of it, long enough to see her Sesame Street friends dancing in front of her for a few minutes.
- Sunday we rested in the morning and then went to Megan's brother's house for a birthday party for his kids. We visited with her family and enjoyed watching all the kids play together.
- Monday we drove through the Pennsylvania countryside to a farm. We drove through Amish country and saw some beautiful scenery. It was really neat to see clothes hanging to dry, horses pulling buggies and farm equipment, and all the rolling hills and trees. After a two hour drive we ended up at Maple Hill Farms and the Maize Quest corn maze. Maple Hill Farm is an orchard where you can "pick your own". I had planned on us doing some apple picking, but the pumpkin patch and mazes took most of our time and we really couldn't have taken home many apples. We started with the BIG corn maze. It was fun for about 10 minutes. After that, Taylor was tired, Eric had given up and we had made it back to the entrance of the maze 3 times but not once to the end! So we ate lunch in the car and then I went with Jacob back to the maze while Eric and Taylor played in the smaller mazes and the corn trough. After I completed the maze (yes, with the help of a picture of the map taken on my cell phone - and it still took me 35 minutes!) we took a hay ride to the pumpkin patch. This was really cool because they had planted the pumpkins in the middle of a corn field. The vines were all running wild with tons of different sizes & colors. We found a small "Taylor sized" aka "carry-on a plane sized" pumpkin that we picked off the vine and then found another small albino pumpkin for Jacob. On the drive back to Philadelphia we took a different route and found ourselves driving through Maryland and then back up to Pennsylvania. We drove for several miles right along the Mason-Dixon line. It was interesting to see a Confederate flag flying in Maryland at a house whose neighbor across the street was in Pennsylvania! Very strange :) When we got back to Philly we headed to the south side for some cheesesteaks. Pat's King of Steaks and Geno's Steaks are facing each other on a corner. They've both been there for a long time. So we ate at Geno's first. Then we crossed the street and got another cheese steak from Pat's to go. There's also a code you have to know when ordering the sandwich: how many you want, what kind of cheese you want, and whether you want onions or not. So for me to order one cheese steak with provolone, without onions I would say "I want one provolone, without". Luckily I learned about this before we went, so I ordered like a pro...and it worked! I will say that I like the Pat's sandwich better than Geno's. It was a little greasier, in a good way. This was a very long day and I think my favorite of the whole trip :)
- Then on Tuesday we explored the Please Touch Children's Museum in Philadelphia. It was only a few minutes from our hotel, in the Fairmont Park area. It was, by far, the best children's museum I've ever been to. Taylor had so much fun with all of the exhibits. We had a great time... until she fell off her chair at lunch and we left with a huge goose egg. So we napped at the hotel that afternoon and ended the day with dinner at Max Brenner's in the Rittenhouse Row area of town. Max Brenner's is a chocolate lover's restaurant. I am a chocolate lover, so I was right at home. If you ever get a chance to go to one of these - do. It was so good! After dinner we ordered the "sharing" dessert. This was a bunch of samples of their desserts. We had waffles with bananas, chocolate, and toffee, Fondue that we could dip bananas, strawberries, and marshmallows in, and several other little chocolate things. The marshmallows even came with a fire to roast them on before you dipped them. It was soooo good! Taylor's dinner was a peanut butter and banana sandwich that was dusted with powdered sugar and had gummy bears on top. It also came with a cup of chocolate to dip it in. Is that a kid's dream come true or what??
So, we had lots of fun! Here are the pictures to prove it:
