Trip to Pennsylvania – Part 1

We are back from our long weekend to PA, and I’m exhausted! I did take a bunch of pictures, but it will probably be a few weeks before I get any up - sorry, that's just how I roll. We had to get up around 5am on Friday to get to the airport for our flight. We did get our seats straightened out for the flight up, but, no surprise, they could not help us for the return flight. Liam fell asleep pretty much as soon as the wheels left the ground, and he slept for the next 45 minutes. He did OK the rest of the flight – no screaming or anything…just lots of back & forth between Mommy & Daddy. Zachary did great – sat in his seat the whole time and kept his seatbelt on. We had Zachary in the middle, but we promised him the window seat on the way back.

When we arrived at Josh’s parents house in Langhorne (about 40 minutes from the airport), we had lunch & just sort of hung around the rest of the day. Later in the afternoon our nephew Jacob arrived, and he & Zachary were soon off & running. They don’t get to see each other all that often, but when they do, they are like 2 peas in a pod. Liam was always about 3 steps behind them, just trying to keep up. It was early to bed for all of us – traveling with 2 kids just kind of wipes you out, not to mention our super early wake-up call.

On Saturday morning, we headed into Philadelphia for the Please Touch Museum after another early wake-up call. Because PA is so much farther east than GA, it gets lighter a lot earlier in the morning (it was light by 6am). So by 6am Liam was up & out of his little bed, walking around the room, rummaging through stuff, and then coming to tell us about it. Anyway, Please Touch Museum is their version of ImagineIt (for those who have been to that here in Atlanta), only it is WAY better. If you watch Jon & Kate Plus Eight, you may recall seeing an episode where they went there (as soon as I saw the episode, I knew I wanted to take them there on our trip). The one & only time we took Zachary to ImagineIt, I was not impressed at all. Maybe he was too young, I don’t know, but I think we had seen everything in an hour. But the Please Touch Museum in Philly was so much fun. They had a ton of different areas – I think the boys’ favorite was the little grocery store setup. They had little carts, and all kinds of plastic fruits, veggies, and breads, as well as (empty) cans & boxes of different food items. After a brief tussle with the cart, we got them each their own cart. It was interesting to see their different approaches to shopping. Zachary nearly filled his cart with different fruits & veggies, and then topped it off with a carton of OJ, a container of dip (for all of his veggies), a brownie mix, a can of carrots, and a box of crackers. Liam filled his cart half-full with plastic bread, and then topped off with about a dozen lemons, and 3 boxes of oatmeal. We ended up spending about 2 hours there. We probably could have spent longer there, except that the boys were getting hungry, and we could tell that things were about to start breaking down. So we left the museum and headed further into downtown Philly for an authentic cheesesteak. Josh had 2 places in mind – Pat’s or Geno’s. Pat’s claims to be the original, while Geno’s claims to be the best. They are pretty much across the street from each other, and when I asked Josh what the difference is between Pat’s & Geno’s, he had no clue. Since Josh’s brother Ryan said he prefers Pat’s, that was where we went. They had a sign on the wall with the ordering instructions. It even said that if you mess up, don’t worry – you can just go to the back of the line & start over. It reminded me of the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld. The cheeseteaks were quite tasty. After lunch we headed back to Josh’s parents house for an open-house party with family & friends of the family. It was nice to get to see everyone. It was another early to bed for us.

More tomorrow on the rest of our trip!