Philadelphia Trip - Part 3 (last one)

(Part One)
(Part Two)

Okay, I'm finally going to finish up with our Philadelphia trip posts.

On Saturday (our last full day before we came home), we rented a car to do an "explore the states near Pennsylvania" day (kind of like our Maine-New Hampshire-Vermont day that we did last year while staying in Boston). 

We started out by driving southwest to Wilmington, Delaware.  We got out and walked along the river for a little while, and then bought some fresh berries at a little food market. 

We continued heading south until we got to Rehoboth Beach.  We ate lunch at a little pizza place, and then walked along the boardwalk and thought about going swimming (it was really hot).  I found a perfect little shell to bring home as a souvenir for Oliver - ever since he was a little kid and started studying maps (which began at age 2), Ollie has had a fascination with Delaware, and has always wished he could go there.  I think he would love this beach!

Our next adventure was boarding the Cape May-Lewes Ferry that goes back and forth from Lewes, Delaware (which is right by Rehoboth Beach) to Cape May, New Jersey.  It was about an hour and a half ferry ride, and very relaxing (but windy).

Before we left on the ferry, we called our kids back at home and told them what we were doing.  They were so excited to go find Lewes and Cape May on the map on our kitchen table and see the little stretch of ocean we would be crossing.  They thought it was soo crazy that we could just drive our car right onto the boat, so I took a picture to show them (that's our rental car in the bottom left):

Coming up on New Jersey in the distance:

Once we got to New Jersey, we drove up to Atlantic City, where we spent the evening.  We walked out on the beach and dipped our feet in the Atlantic Ocean (this time I didn't wish we were swimming - it was much chillier in New Jersey than it had been in Delaware that day).

Walking along the boardwalk in Atlantic City (that's Daniel on the left, looking for a place to sit down and put on his shoes):

We found a really good view of the city as the sun went down and all the lights started coming on:

We ate dinner at an awesome restaurant that Daniel found, called The Continental.  It had really cool interior design, with funky lighting, water running through it, and a fire pit.  I didn't take any pictures, but here are some that I found online:

This is the room that we ate in:

As cool as the atmosphere was, the food was even better.  The menu theme was "global tapas", which our server told us meant appetizers/entrees from all over the world that are meant to be shared.  We ordered the roasted red pepper and feta cheese dip, served with grilled pita, the Shanghai vegetable dumplings, and grilled Thai chicken skewers with jasmine rice and peanut sauce.  Everything was so good!  I think it was our favorite meal of the trip.

After finishing up our dinner, we left Atlantic City around 10:00 and headed back to Philadelphia (this time driving northwest and crossing the bridge over the Delaware River to get back into Philly).

Here's a map of what our day looked like:

I'm glad we explored and were able to see Delaware and New Jersey - states that we probably won't have a chance to see again.  It was a really fun day.

The next morning we hung out in Philadelphia for awhile before heading to the airport.  When we got there we were informed that our flight had been canceled (due to bad weather in Tennessee).  Luckily we were able to get things sorted out, and after flying to Chicago and waiting there for quite a while, we eventually got home to Austin that night (although much, much later than had been scheduled). 

I wish I had gotten a picture of my mom with all of the kids together, but after everyone coming to the airport with her to pick us up at such a late hour, Henry was the only one wide awake and wanting to party when we finally all pulled in.  He was happy to see us (and oh, were we happy to see him!), but this kid definitely had a great time with his grandma while we were gone (thanks again, Mom, for making our trip possible!).

In fact, all the kids had a great time with grandma.  She made them cinnamon rolls with lemon icing during her stay, and the first thing I noticed when I walked in the kitchen was this note from Tristan on the fridge:

Also, the whole first week after my mom left and I was back in charge, I kept getting comments about my mom's superior mothering skills:

Rachel (when I was cutting apples):  "Mom, I hate to tell you this, but Grandma Orva is a waaay better cutter than you are.  When she cuts apples, she doesn't waste any of it, and she only has to throw away a teensy, tiny piece."

All the kids (when I'm pulling into our driveway):  "Mom, can you please just park it like Grandma Orva?  She turns around and drives in backward."

Henry (when I'm reading to him before nap):  "Two books!  Just read two books!" (I usually only read one, but my mom read him two, and he knows which system he likes better)

I guess I've still got a ways to go.

Three of Each

I was going to post the last part of our Philly trip today, but I decided to instead post this news that we found out yesterday:

We're having a girl!

I've always liked having our pairs (boy, boy, girl, girl), so I was picturing having another boy to go with Henry, but I guess it makes sense to have 3 of each, right?

Here she is:

And here I am, 19 weeks along:

Texas, Our Texas: Oliver's Solo

Last night was Oliver's 1st grade music program at school.  About a month ago, his music teacher sent home a note explaining that she wanted Oliver to sing a solo in the program - they've been working on learning the state song, "Texas, our Texas", and she wanted him to sing the 3rd verse all by himself. 

I asked him if he needed to learn it or practice it at home, and he said he already knew the whole thing, so that was the last I heard of it (meaning, he got no help from me).

We took the whole family to the school last night to watch the performance.  He did such a good job!  I have to admit I got a little teary-eyed while I was filming him - I was just so proud of him.  I guess I'm one of those embarrassing moms now.

After the show - goofing around with Henry.

We let Oliver pick a place to get a little treat to celebrate.  He chose ice-cream cones at McDonalds. 

Five happy kids:

And the silly picture (requested by Ollie again; he's on a big "silly picture" kick.)  I think Rachel's eyes are my favorite. 

We love this Texan!

Philadelphia Trip - Part Two

For our second day in Philadelphia, we had three main activities planned:  the Philadelphia Zoo, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and a Phillies game at Citizens Bank Park. 

Philadelphia Zoo

I'm sure some people think it's kind of weird to go to a zoo without your kids (and maybe it is), but Daniel and I like zoos a lot and we were excited - we had looked it up before our trip as a possible activity, and found out that it was the first zoo in the United States, so what's not exciting about that? It was actually really nice to be able to walk around at our own pace and not have to worry about little people getting tired/hungry/lost, etc. (not that we didn't keep thinking about them and how much they would love it there.  And maybe we called them a few times to tell them about neat animals we saw).

We didn't have a car, so we took a bus north to the stop nearest the zoo, and then walked the rest of the way (it was the start to another big walking day).

The weather was gorgeous (it was perfect the whole trip) and we had a lot of fun walking around and seeing all the cool animals. 

This little Asiatic bear was so funny - it kept running around the bush really fast, over and over again, stopping in between to show off to all the people watching it.  Plus, it had the craziest hair of any bear I've seen.

I think our favorite animals were the giant otters, though.  They were so fun!  There were about 10-12 in an enclosed swimming area with rocks, waterfalls, and slides, and they were chasing each other all over the place.  They kept wrestling, dunking each other, diving off rocks, etc.  We sat and watched them for a long time.  I have a video clip of some of the otter action that the kids love watching, and I thought about posting it, but then I thought better of it (because unless my blog readers are beween the ages of 1 and 9 it might not be appreciated).  So here's just a little picture of one of the otters swimming and you can just skip right over it if otters are not interesting to you:

Another awesome thing about the Philadelphia Zoo were exhibits like this:

Can you tell those monkeys are all made out of Legos?

It really was amazing.  I thought of Oliver right away, because he is always making up random animals out of Legos.  I guess the zoo has connections with a Lego Artist (I had no idea such a career existed; we found out there are only 9 certified Lego Professionals in the world).  He has made several Lego creations of endangered animals for the zoo.

This polar bear is life-sized and took over 1000 hours to build.  I wonder how many Legos he used.

Here we are after spending about 3 hours walking around the whole zoo. 

Philadelphia Museum of Art

When we were done with the zoo, we walked along the Schuylkill River down to the art museum, which was about 1.5-2 miles away.  This was the view before we started our walk, looking down toward the city:

When we got to the museum we walked out to a little overlook place they had outside:

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is huge!  It took us 3 hours to walk through and see everything, and we were going as fast as we could, and not even stopping to read all of the descriptions or anything (unfortunately, "as fast as we could" by this time was kind of a slow and painful waddle, because we were so sore from all of our walking.  At one point while we were walking through, Daniel started singing "Pioneer children sang as they walked, and walked, and walked" under his breath.  I promise, it was very funny.  We really did enjoy all of the art, but there was also an "endure to the end" feeling to it. 

They had a big Picasso exhibit going on, so we were able to see that while we were there. 

One of our favorite exhibits was one that had tons of authentic Medieval armor and weaponry.  We took lots of pictures to show Tristan and Oliver when we got home - they love drawing knights with crazy weapons and stuff, so this was right up their alley.

Some of the art they had displayed was just crazy.  Our kids could not believe it when we showed them pictures (sorry if this is your favorite style):

Awesome view of the city from outside the museum:

I didn't know before that the Philadelphia Museum of Art is where the Rocky steps are.  They even have his footprints at the top and everything.

Baseball Game

The next thing on our agenda was the Phillies game.  It didn't start until 7:00, but we wanted to get there early for batting practice, and we didn't have anywhere else to be, so we took a taxi straight from the art museum (no more walking for us - it was 30 minutes away on the other side of town).

I love the way baseball fields look.

Here's Daniel eating an authentic Philly cheesesteak (from Tony Luke's, even - another Man v. Food challenge spot!).

We had great seats on the 10th row, and I couldn't believe what a difference it made to be so close to all the action.

Actually, the thing that made the game the most exciting for me is kind of embarrassing to admit; Daniel introduced me to scoring cards!  He had a feeling that would be the kind of thing I would like (I guess after 10+ years he thinks he knows me pretty well), so he bought a program and then explained how to keep track of every play. I had no idea such a fabulous/complex system existed.  I dutifully kept track the whole nine innings (I know, I'm such a nerd!):

As you can see, the Phillies lost, but we weren't too concerned with the outcome, so it was okay.  The game didn't get over until pretty late, so we walked to the subway station and took the subway back to our hotel.

End of day two - we were worn out, but having a great time.

So much like a butterfly (except you don't have wings)

Happy Mother's Day to everyone yesterday (I'm still planning on finishing the Philly posts, but I thought I should do this one as close to Mother's Day as I could).

I was greeted nice and early yesterday morning by a bunch of pirates bursting into my room and yelling "Happy Mother's Day!" to me. I'm not sure whose idea it was to dress up before giving me the nice greeting, but it was a nice surprise.  They looked wonderful.

Right after church we managed to get some non-pirate Mother's Day pictures taken before everyone changed out of their church clothes.  I think everyone is in the middle of saying "Happy Mother's Day!" in this picture, which is why they're all making funny faces instead of smiling.

Then of course we had to do the intentional silly picture (because we didn't know that most of our attempts at serious ones had turned out silly).

One of my biggest surprises this year was the beautiful cake that Tristan and Oliver brought me home from school on Friday.  They were so proud of it!  I guess the school was doing a fund-raiser, and after getting Daniel's permission, the boys took some of their own money and bought and decorated a cake for me. They've been waiting for weeks and almost couldn't contain their excitement for the "mystery present" they had gotten me.  They were also relieved that I decided to share it with everyone, although they said they had guessed that I would. 

I also got several cards.  My favorite one from Tristan was this math worksheet that he gave me - he had made up lots of tricky math problems that I had to solve without using a calculator in order to crack the code.  Very fun!

Oliver (inspired by all of the butterflies that have been hanging around on the bushes by our house lately) drew me a beautiful butterfly card.  I love his self-taught cursive on the front:

But I mostly love the message he wrote inside:

All the kids (except Henry) sang a special Mother's Day song in church, but I didn't get to see them because I was accompanying them on the piano and behind all the kids (I'm the primary pianist).  When we got home I had them sing it again for the camera (this unfortunately was after they had changed out of their church clothes and were dressed in all sorts of random things, but at least not pirate gear.  Although now that I think of it, pirates singing a Mother's Day song would be pretty cute).  Anyway, we were planning on sending the video clip to grandmas, so that's why they changed the words at the end to "Grandma dear" instead of "Mother dear."

I love my kids, and I'm so thankful that I get to be their mom.  I was thinking yesterday that it's always extra fun to be pregnant on Mother's Day, and then I figured out that of the eleven Mother's Days since I got married, I have been pregnant for six of them.  Kind of funny.