Philadelphia part 1

Long time no talk. It would be an understatement if I told you the last couple of weeks have been busy! For one, I was determined to get all my Christmas shopping done early. Then Josh's mom was coming to town so I made her arrival my deadline for tons of tasks on my to do list (I totally didn't even come close to finishing it all!) Lastly, we all went to Philadelphia for Josh's science conference. Two words: SO FUN! Here are pics from the trip:

First order of business: get pampered in the hotel. Presley was anxious to try all the free shampoo and lotion.

Josh was attending various talks during the day, so TK and I took the kids out to see some sights. Grandma's number one rule was "Have Fun!" We walked everywhere since our hotel was right in the middle of everything.

Our first stop was the National Constitution Center. We looked at some artwork done by soldiers and saw a presentation on the forming of our country. I was so inspired. I was touched by the displays of the Women's Suffrage movement and felt a little ashamed at my lack of enthusiasm for voting. I'll work on that one. :)

You can't even tell I got my haircut in these pics!

I so loved watching my kids have such a blast with grandma. They were so spoiled. Presley was stuck to her like glue, saying, "I love you, gramma, I'm going to miss you when you go, are we coming with you to New-ta?"

Mmm, popsicles after lunch. Thanks Grandma! Noah's showing off his Cowboys pennant he made at a craft station. They were supposed to be making an Army or Navy flag. Noah had other plans...

 The big Army-Navy football rival game was held in Philly the weekend we were there. It was fun to see all the military people around. Justin's buddy in the Naval Academy got to meet up with us since the students are required to travel to all the games. 

 Charlie loved the football guys!  Then he got reprimanded for getting too close. Hence the frown in the first pic. :(

 We got to a room with all these statues of people signing the Bill of Rights. A worker told us we could touch the statues so of course, the kids went nuts with it!

Then we hit up the Liberty Bell. I loved seeing Noah read all the placards of information. It was fun for him to learn about how old everything was. I'm so glad I got a nice shot of that OTHER guy getting his pic taken. Doesn't he look pleasant??

More to come. I didn't want to overwhelm anyone :).