Us and Philly!

So we decided to rent a car and drive to Philly since it's only 2 hours away and because we have friends and cousins out there to visit, so why not?

To start off, I will say this was my favorite place, Reading Terminal Market,

everything you could imagine eating is there. It was amazing! These pics don't do it justice...

Other than the Philly Cheesesteak, The Liberty Bell is in the running for the Philadelphia mascot..haha

Here's Independence Hall...

In the movie/musical "1776", there was a dancing scene on these steps in Independence Hall, and Josh just had to dance on them, too.

In that head seat, right at the front is where my Great, great, great, relative sat doing something or another with the Declaration of Independence. Yes, it's pretty cool, I'll let you guess who that would be...

We visited Betsy Ross' home...I think it's "haunted", but don't ask how I know that...because that is a entire other post/story!

Oldest residential street in the country, Elfreths Alley...quite a cute little street, actually...

So we posed for a picture.

This is Christ Church where many founding fathers came to worship. In fact, the bells in the tower are the exact same ones that rang the day independence was declared. Pretty cool, right?

Here we are sitting in Mr. First President of the United States, George Washington's pew. Yes, some of the big wigs had their very own pews in this church.

We had to stop at this old fashioned ice cream shop with a huge chocolate brownie sundae...much to his dismay, it wasn't all Josh's dessert, we shared this with 3 and 1/2 persons, Me, Josh, Landon, and Jesse...and we had plenty of ice cream!

Out to dinner with friends at a downtown restaurant...finished up with a huge chocolate dessert...if you didn't notice that would be our second huge dessert of the day.

A trip to Philly wouldn't be complete without eating a, or I should say, THE Philly Cheesesteak sandwich from the famous Pats King of Steaks...

Cheese Whiz and all...mmmm.

Okay, this was another day, not the same day as the "two huge desserts in one day" Day...It probably was, I think...uhh, the next day, maybe? It's vacation, so we're in good standing with the Diet Fairy, wait, we're not on a diet, are you kidding me?

We visited a cool children's museum called the "Please Touch" Museum with our cousins and their little girl.

Mr. Shoe Salesman...making a funny pose

Working the McDonald's counter...

Filling up the tank...

Painting the roses red for her highness, The Queen of Hearts...

I've always wondered what it would be like to be TALL...but it was all too temporary

- just visiting Wonderland wishing I could be Alice...how fun would that be?

As you can see, we had a wonderful time in the city of Philly! Thanks to our friends and family! Please come visit us!

A little taste of Jesse's Christmas!

Pretty much it was a Thomas the Tank Engine theme! Got his Thomas trains, oh, these are just SOME of the trains he got.

Thomas the Train tent

Playing with his Thomas toys in his Thomas tent...Basically his life is complete...according to Jesse.

So overwhelmed by his feeling of completeness from the fact that he had every Thomas the Train toy imaginable thanks to his Grandmas and Grandpas, I mean Santa, he fell asleep while drawing. He was, in fact, still drawing while he was sleeping. His hand would burst into scribbles. It's so Jesse, still trying to play even when he is completely exhausted. Couldn't help but laugh, and I got it on video!

Our Christmas was great! We had a blast with our wonderful families! And we love them all very much! Thank you for an awesome Christmas Break!

Christmas in NYC 2!

A ride in a carriage through Central Park!

A Family pic by the big tree!

Christmas in NYC!

The windows at Saks Fifth, a little creepy with a touch of cute.

Aww, so pretty.

At first I really thought someone had stolen the baby Jesus, but then I realized, ah, yes, they but him in at Christmas. (this was at St. Patrick's Cathedral)

It was freezing, and I considered maybe going into Tiffany's to warm up...

How perfect was that? It was the first real snow for Christmas time.

During December we tried to do everything Christmas in New York that we possibly could. New York is a great Christmas city!

To be continued...Thanksgiving!

Poor Ronald awaiting his release for the Parade

Energizer Bunny, of course!

The Parade from our seats! (Actually, we had no seats, but a pretty good spot)

Mesmerized by the balloons!

Ah, Shrek, He's awaiting his release, too!

And Jesse's favorite character, if you can't tell, Mickey Mouse

Ughh, It's the end of January and finally I am putting up some Thanksgiving pictures! Thanksgiving pictures! I just am not a good blogger! Here is a taste of it!

The day before thanksgiving we went to the Pre-parade Balloon festivities where all the balloons to be used in the parade were being inflated and netted down. It was actually really cool to see how big they are in relation to the buildings and the streets, and hello, they were giving away free Tollhouse Cookies!

The next day we went to the Macey's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Thanks to our good friends who had been saving a spot since the wee hours of the morning, we had an awesome spot to watch the parade from!

We later had Thanksgiving Dinner at a diner with our friends, not exactly the awesomest Thanksgiving dinner we've had (it was good, but I've had better), but most definitely wonderful company!