Outside the Box

Jul. 1, 2009

Filling in the Gaps

After we finished working on the house in Pittsburgh we went to visit my dh's family. The previous week they found an old sled in the garage with wheels, steering apparatus just like a sled and brakes by pushing the steering bar forward. Really weird.

The kids had a great time taking turns. Oh wait Heather isn't a kid. It was good to see her laugh and have a great time.

We spent a couple days with Brian's Family. What a fantastic time.

Three days later, we headed off to spend some time in Philadelphia for a field trip and fun.

Our first day we headed straight for the Benjamin Franklin Postal Museum and Print shop. See this post Benjamin Franklin - Renaissance Man

We happened to be at the Mulberry tree just behind the framework of his old house to see none other than Benjamin Franklin. Samuel was so excited to meet Benjamin Franklin.

From Benjamin Franklin

There are story tellers all over historical Philadelphia. If you go to the visitor's center, they will provide you with a map. Each person will tell you a few things but if you ask the right questions you will hear so much more. We didn't know the right questions to ask Benjamin Franklin but a tour guide did. As him about his favorite inventions or his grandchildren.

Our next stop was the BF museum. We just read about this particular invention today in Now & Ben by Gene Barretta.

From Benjamin Franklin

After that we went to visit Betsy Ross sitting just outside her home. She was busy working on the flag commissioned by George Washington. She hoped that things turned out well she would be making many flags to supplement her meager income. She invited us to walk through her home which was just to her left. (a fee was charged)

Lunch shortly thereafter at Old City Pizza Restaurant was Heavenly you can read about it here.

It was off to the Independence Hall for our next tour. You can read more about it in my post Drawn to the Light - Our Constitution

From Independence Hall

The kids were exhausted and begged for a break. We took one then for a couple hours as we knew that fireworks were on the schedule for that evening.

The wharf had lots of treats as there was a huge tasting event. Ummm we were tooo late. No worries we carried our GPS with us so asked it to take us to the nearest Mexican restaurant - straight ahead. We were walking so it kept reminding us to walk straight ahead. It was worth a laugh.

Can't remember the name of the restaurant but it was straight over the bridge from the wharf and wow oh wow was it good. We took take away to those at the hotel who had been too tired to walk the distance. It was a fantastic Saturday.

We stayed Sunday night and then Monday morning. Saturday was absolutely the best and worth the stay but IMHO it wasn't worth staying over Sunday/Monday. Things were all closed (we were at church) so that was fine but Monday the Carpenter Hall didn't open until later in the day. Too late for us as we had to check out by noon.

Then we headed up to Allentown for Dorney Park and the Kutztown fair. We spent the afternoon at the fair. We spent the afternoon checking that out. The kids and men were going to Dorney Park the next day so it seemed like a good time to get a preview of what was available.

Samuel's favorites were the old farm equipment run on steam and water fountains. He wanted to take the frog and swirling circles around the blue globe home with us. Good or bad our suitcases aren't big enough.

My favorite was all the quilts. Sad they had them on poles strung around the room so if you wanted to see the whole quilt you had to ask someone to open it up for you, which they gladly did. Since I was not purchasing it didn't seem right. We did get a wonderful suggestion on a local quilt shop to visit though - Tomorrow. Go to Kutztown Favorites