Philly 2010

We have been blessed to be able to travel each summer to the NATA (National Athletic Trainers Association) conference. In the years we've been married, we've gone to Indianapolis, IN; Atlanta, GA; St. Louis, MO; San Antonio, TX; and this year we traveled to Philadelphia, PA. We were brave this year and brought along both girls for a week in a hotel...maybe brave isn't the right word...crazy??!! Actually, it turned out a lot better than I was expecting:) We had some nap issues, mainly a lot of boycotting of naps going on, but we survived! We got to do some sight-seeing as well as take in some good philly food. The first full day that we had in Philly, we decided to visit the Liberty Bell. I will confess, I didn't get to read ANY of the history on the bell or find out what most of the historic buildings were, but it was good to expose Alley to new places that had some history. I did try and give her a small history lesson...and I will let you take a wild guess on how well that went with a 2.5 year old;) I decided that since the NATA can only be held in 7 locations (due to the size of the conference - HUGE!!!), we'll be back in a few years when the girls are bigger and can learn a little bit more...that's what homeschooling is for, right?;) Here are some pictures from the bell and the historic buildings around the bell:

little Miss Kendall enjoying her ride in the stroller - such a content little girl

The bell and the historic building behind...maybe the old congress building??! It was important because people were getting tours of it:)

Alley posing in front of the bell - she insisted on kneeling down...crazy thing

that building again...man we sure took a lot of pictures of it;)

Andy and Alley in the garden

Me and Alley

the smiley one just hanging out in the heat

Alley having fun in a wall that had a cove in it...she kept trying to sit in it and prop her feet up...silly girl kept falling and cracking herself up

Alley on a statue with that building again;)

We also spent some time at the hotel pool. I honestly thought we'd spend a lot more time in the pool but amazingly we only went one afternoon.

Alley sunbathing

Kendall's form of sunbathing;)

We got to meet up with Andy's roommate from graduate school, Aaron Tomlinson (who lives in Maine, 15 miles from Canada!). We were sad that his wife and their 9 month old daughter couldn't make it down, but we loved getting to catch up with Aaron!

Kendall and Aaron loving on each other

the roomies and Kendall

We have never taken Alley to a zoo, partly because of our crazy schedules and the fact one isn't close by. So, when we saw Philly had a zoo we decided it was time to take Alley. Side note, zoo's are EXPENSIVE!!! Anyway, we found out that this was the oldest zoo in America, kind of cool. So we got there when the zoo opened and Alley just couldn't stop talking about the animals she wanted to see. On the top of the list were turtles, monkey's/gorilla's and daddy long legs (sorry Alley, the zoo doesn't have daddy long legs!! bummer!). We saw the turtles in a section with snakes...yuck...Alley kept telling us she didn't want to touch the snakes. Me either Alley, I'll pass on that! A little bit later on we visited the monkey house. Okay, they kind of creep me out. There was an exhibit of gorilla's...lots of them. They were all walking around and staring at us out of the corner of their eyes (creepy!!). We happen to be the only one's there, thanks to getting there early:). All of a sudden, a gorilla charged the glass and threw herself into the glass right in front of us!!! It freaked us out!!!!! I think we all needed a diaper change after that one. Alley then decided she didn't need to see the monkey's anymore, so we decided to leave that exhibit. Yikes! Wow, what an experience...

Here we are visiting the "nice" animals...

she hung out like this for most of the zoo trip

checking out the rhino

wanting to go see the Polar bears

Later that day we had a horrible storm blow through. We were lucky that we had just gotten into our hotel room so we missed that disaster. We decided to have a movie afternoon since the cable had blown out as well. Alley was so excited!

My girls enjoying an evening watching Mickey Mouse:)

Here's Kendall trying to sit up. I put up pillows around her so she wouldn't fall all the way over:) Side note - she hasn't rolled over since the first time she did...she just had to prove she could and is now like, been there, done that;)

We had a great trip as a family and really enjoyed getting to visit with old friends and seeing a new area of the country. I look forward to next year - New Orleans, here we come;)