The Shore

Our friends the Murphys had a residency down on the Jersey Shore and they invited us to come visit them.  This was our first time going to the Shore (#9) and it was a great day!

Nathan was so excited to go to the beach.  Nathan liked watching the water, but did not want to get wet.  He must have enjoyed it more than he let on then because now Nathan asks to go to the beach all the time!

The Murphys also took us to the boardwalk.  We went to the one in Ocean City which was very family friendly. We grabbed some boardwalk foods including some amazing custard.  It was fun just walking down the boardwalk and talking with our friends.  We'll sure miss the Murphys when we move!

Please Touch

Last week our friends invited us to go with them to the Please Touch Museum (#13.)  I've wanted to take Nathan for a while but I've been concerned it might be a little much for him.  I've heard it can get pretty loud and overwhelming.  I didn't want to have to pay for a ticket only to have Nathan go into sensory overload right after we get there.  I was so glad that our friends invited us to go and get us in with their pass.

For the first hour, Nathan loved it.  There were cars, space ships, trains, and motorcycles.  What more could any little boy want?  There was so much to play with and Nathan loved exploring.  Jake liked to show Nathan around to all of his favorite things and Nathan liked having a buddy.

But after that first hour, poor Nathan got so overwhelmed.  There was several school field trips that day and it was loud and crowded.  He was playing in the grocery store and there was so many kids around him that Nathan bolted out of there screaming.  He ran into a less crowded room and when I got to him he said, "I'm sad.  Big tears." I had looked online before going and they said that they had a quiet room set up everyday for kids to go to calm down.  So I asked a staff member and they didn't have one set up yet.  A manager finally had us go to a conference room. Weird.  Once Nathan calmed down Evelyn wanted to eat, but refused to.  So we called it a day.

I'm glad we gave it a try and I think on a less crowded day Nathan would have loved to see the rest of the museum.  It was lots of fun to see our friends and have Nathan and Jake play together!  We'll miss them once we're both done with dental school!

Macy's Christmas Lights

This last week for playgroup we went to see the Christmas Lights at Macy's (#15).  They have a lights show with Christmas music played on the world's largest pipe organ in the world.  And it's narrated by Julie Andrews.  I've been wanting to do this for years and I'm so glad we got to see it before we leave Philly.  Nathan was in awe!  He loved leaning back and watching the lights.  The only bummer was that my phone died as soon as we arrived at Macy's so I wasn't able to connect with the other girls from playgroup, except for one friend as I was wondering around.  It was fun at least to get out of the house for therapy that day since we brought our therapist with us.

Helicopter Museum

We had a free Saturday so we thought we should try something new.  We decided to go check out the American Helicopter Museum (#75).  We've got less than a year before Brad's done with dental school (well, at least this portion) and we still have quite a few things that we would like to do on our list.  The museum wasn't as grand as we thought it would be, but Nathan loved it.  They had several helicopters that you could climb in and play with the buttons.  The museum is also right next to the West Chester Airport so we got to watch the airplanes take off and land.  The museum did have some really cool helicopters that Brad got better pictures of so I'm sure he'll have a post with pictures some time soon.

Going to the Zoo

We decided to get a pass this year to the Philadelphia Zoo (#12).  We went for our first time a few weekends ago and Nathan loved it.  I loved seeing the wonder in Nathan's eyes as he was seeing so many new things.

The lioness came over to snuggle with the lion and everyone let out a collective "Aww!" at seeing them cuddling.

I thought Nathan would love the monkeys most of all.  They're one of the few animals Nathan recognizes and knows the sound for. But as it turns out Nathan loved the turtles.  He picked right up on saying turtle and he says it in such a cute voice and gets both t's in there.

I'm glad we bought the zoo pass because I know this little boy will be asking for more zoo, zoo, zoo!

Downtown Adventures

After being gone for so long during the summer we decided to meet up with some friends downtown.  The plan was to go to the Franklin Fountain and get some ice cream.  However, we ended up having some time to wait and went for a little walk downtown.  We ended up seeing Christ Church (#97,) the church of the founding fathers.  Benjamin Franklin attended services there, as well as George Washington and John Adams.

Sitting in the Presidential box, aka. George Washington's and John Adams's pew

This church is one of the oldest in our nation and yet it's really not that old.  One of the tour guides pointed out that while this church is over 300 years old, it still is no where near as old as buildings in Europe. Our tour guide explained it in another way.  He said that no one is really a natural born American.  What he went on to explain is that everyone in America came from someplace else including Native Americans.  Americans have not been here longer than about 9 or 10 generations.  We really are a new nation.

But as Americans, we still ended the outing with ice cream at the Franklin Fountain (#93.)

River Drive

While on our way to our family photo shoot last month we passed by the most beautiful spot.  Unfortunately, we had places to be so we couldn't stop.  We were telling our friends, the Murphy's, that it made us want to go take photos, but we weren't sure where to go.  They said they knew where some beautiful photography spots were and that they would show us around.  We stopped by Boathouse Row (#53) and a couple cool bridges that cross the Schuyllkill River.  It was the perfect night out.  Thanks Murphy's!

Battleship New Jersey

This last Saturday was Museum Day.  The long and short of it is that you can go see a participating museum for free!  Yes please.  There were quite a few participating in our area, but the Battleship New Jersey (#32) topped our list.  We've wanted to see it, but it was a little out of our sightseeing budget normally.

So we planned it out.  I invited some friends from our church while unbeknownst to me Brad invited his photography club from dental school.  We ended up with quite a few people coming along.

The Photography Club

Anyways, on Saturday we packed up little buddy, took our first trip over the Ben Franklin Bridge into New Jersey, and saw the Battleship.  Before going I didn't know how cool this battleship really was.  It is the most decorated battleship, fought in 17 battles, and served in 4 wars (WWII, Korean, Vietnam, and Gulf.)

Funny story.  The dental group arrived first so they went ahead while I waited about 5 minutes for our friends to arrive.  I thought that with all the photos they would be taking for sure we would catch up to them.  We never did.  Turns out Brad's group accidentally followed a tour group and went on a different route of the boat.  They ended up missing out on about half of the ship.  And it was all the really cool stuff too like the navigation deck, Tomahawk Missiles, museum, and the helicopter.  Their mishap paid off in another way.  They convinced one of the veterans to show them the dental facilities since they were from the dental school.

We're glad so many of our friends could come with us.  We had a great time!

Philly Tour

We are pretty good tour guides if I do say so myself.  We give an awesome, whirlwind Philadelphia in one day tour if you are ever interested.  We had some new friends, the Fontouras, move into our ward and they took us up on our offer to go see the sights.  Reading Market, City Hall, LOVE Park, Chinese Friendship Arch, Independence Hall, Society Hill, Benjamin Franklin Bridge, Rocky, the Art Museum, and Penn Campus all in one day.  We even finished the tour with cheesesteaks.

We did mix this tour up a little bit by adding a stop at Penn's Landing (#31).  Brad's been wanting to take photos of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge since we moved to Phillie and today was a great day for photos.  

So, if you ever come visit us and want the tour it will only cost you a cheesesteak.

Bennett Family Visit

We've had a lot of family in town for Nathan's baby blessing.  We first had our Bennett Family come visit.  We loved having them come and spending time with us.  Little Nathan has never had so much attention at once.

We went out with them one day to the Franklin Institute (#8) and to the Fels Planetarium (#67.)  They had an exhibit with the Dead Sea Scrolls which was very interesting.  They had a lot of artifacts and had fragments of the actual scrolls on display.  One of my favorite parts was that they had a block from the Western Wall in Israel.  You could write a prayer on a slip of paper and leave it on the block.  When the exhibit is done they will have the prayers placed in the actual Western Wall, so we wrote a prayer for Nathan to be put in the wall.

The Franklin Institute itself was a cool science museum.  We saw a giant train, walked through a human heart, made helicopters, completed circuits, and sailed through the stars in the planetarium show.  It was fun that there was so much hands on stuff to try.  My favorite thing to see was the giant tesla coil go off and start sparking.  We ended our day by seeing good old Ben himself.

We also went out to Bobby's Burger Palace one night for dinner.  My sisters were especially excited since it is one of Bobby Flay's restaurants.

Nathan and I also joined my parents in going to Longwood Gardens.  My dad, as the avid gardener that he is, loved it.  He even stopped to chat with one of the gardeners to see if certain plants would grow in Utah.  It was a little hot, but we loved seeing the gardens and being outside.  It even inspired me to start planning what plants should go in our own backyard.

But most of all, we loved spending time at home with my family.  My sisters were wild about Nathan and showered him in love and kisses.  Byron held Nathan, which was his first time holding a newborn.  He was so careful with him and so sweet.  Everyone had to take turns with sharing him.  We had a lot of fun with them here and we miss our Bennett family already!

Ridley Creek State Park

This last week we went for another little adventure to the Ridley Creek State Park (#26.)   There was a mansion surrounded by "gardens" and forest.  I don't think you really could call them gardens.  There were frogs and fish in the fountains.  There was lots of ivy covering everything, including the trees.   The pathways were covered in moss.  I felt like I was walking through a real life version of "The Secret Garden" since everything was overgrown.  In it's own way, it was kind of pretty.  We did enjoy walking through the forest and seeing the beautiful trees.  I can see us coming back in another year or two when Nathan is a little older. Ridley Creek was very mild and would be a fun place for a little boy to go splash about.  For now, Nathan enjoyed just being toted along in the baby carrier.