Philadelphia

For our fall break, we took the opportunity to find some "real" fall weather, and went to Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. In Philadelphia, it was rainy the whole time, but it was amazing to walk in the footsteps of our founding fathers.

Our first stop was the Liberty Bell. There is something about seeing this to really make you appreciate the age of our country and how far we have come. They really emphasized how the slaves and women embraced this symbol to fight for their freedoms.

One of our country's national treasures is the hall that is named Independence Hall, in this building both the Constitution and Declaration of Independence were formulated and signed. You can't help but feel the thrill of the history that was made is the square.

We were able to see original copies of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Amazing. It was so interesting, the one that we saw, had editing marks on it. Can you imagine life without XEROX?

The leaves in Philadelphia were beginning to change -- the were BEEE-UTIFUL!!

One of the things in my life that I am attempting to do is visit all 50 states. This does not include flying through the airport, but really being in the state -- insert location of Philadelphia -- Philadelphia is very close to New Jersey and Delaware. We were carless, or we probably would have hit both states on this visit, but we traveled across the Delaware river and went to New Jersey. It was kind of an adventure, as we couldn't find a taxi on the way home, and it got a little exciting, walking in the rain and it getting dark. Fortunately, we were blessed and a taxi drove by and took us home. The driver was so nice and made the comment that he couldn't believe we were walking in the murder capital of the world in the evening!!!! So, yes, ignorance is bliss when you are on vacation :).

We took the opportunity to visit the Franklin Institute, which is an amazing science museum (think Science Center but on steroids) -- it was so fun. The kids were engrossed with all of the stations they could tinker at. Spencer loved watching in the health room a little video on the blood system -- I think actually he loved the idea of army guys in his bodies. Jacob loved the mission control area and figuring out some of the solutions to the "problems" they were having. Ryan and Spencer and Jacob, actually all loved the airplane section and them getting to figure out how planes fly.
On Saturday we went to New Hampshire, but that will have to be a separate post!