What we've been up to (aka our trip to Philly)

So, I'm obviously behind on blogging...again.
I should just save a template in my Blogger that starts every post out like that because it's just so darn true every time I sit down to write a post.

We just got back home from our awesome vacation to Philadelphia to visit David's brother Michael, and I've got a lot of heavily edited phone pictures to prove it.

Ready for a photo dump?

Since I'm a really mean/strict mom, I hardly ever get to see Kate sleeping. Once we put her to bed, for the last year I've resisted the temptation to sneak into her room to see her sleep, even though her sleeping is just freaking a.dor.a.ble.

On the trip, we stayed in a suite-type hotel room so we moved her pack n' play from one room to the other when it was time for the rest of us to go to bed. So my SIL Jenn and I took a picture of Kate adorably sleeping every single night.

It was theeeee best.

Kate took her first dip in a pool during the trip! She was a little nervous originally but soon warmed up...to a luckily pretty warm pool.

We took a tour of the Philadelphia Art Museum, which was my favorite part of the trip. (Insert sarcastic comment by the Gokie clan about me being too cultured for the rest of them.) It was absolutely incredible - I could have spent days in a row in there.

One of the other days we took a tour of the Eastern State Penitentiary. It was the first actual "penitentiary" in the world - a prison designed to reform prisoners rather than just punish them (and/or execute them, you know).

David says this was his favorite part of the trip and it was admittedly really cool. Al Capone was there for awhile, and the audio tour was narrated by Steve Buscemi. It was neat!

More pictures of Kate sleeping. Poor girl was so unused to the weird schedule and the lack of quiet, restful nap places that she fell asleep pretty much anywhere and everywhere. It was pretty awesome.

We took a quick stop to tour the Cathedral and I remembered how much I love this image of Our Lady of Guadalupe from a side chapel there. The whole cathedral is absolutely incredible.

We spent half a day at the Franklin Institute, which, if I'm being honest, was pretty much a let-down. None of us knew going in what to expect, but it was definitely a children's museum - hands-on exhibits, tons (and I mean TONS) of kids running around, messes everywhere...not exactly what we had pictured.

But if you have kids and you don't go on a crazy busy day like we did, I would totally recommend it! It was huge and pretty impressive for a kids' museum.

One of the few pictures we took together!

We took a day walking in the Wissahickon park near Philadelphia, and I made this awesome tower of stones (what's the technical term for these things? I have no idea). And five minutes later some group of hooligan 12-year-olds knocked it down.

Stupid kids.

Kate, slathered with sunscreen visible on her forehead, enjoying her millionth stroller ride (right before it broke...luckily at the end of our trip, thank the Lord!) with her new favorite toy.

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All in all it was a really great trip. I will say that I don't think I need to take another vacation to a big city, unless we go somewhere in Europe. Philadelphia was a nice place and all but I'd rather see mountains or oceans when I spent time away rather than in a crowded, smelly city. (Obviously we had a good reason to go there since David's brother lives there so that was totally valid!)

Til later, y'all. Hopefully a little sooner next time.
HG