Philly with Katie

I don't know how many pictures our family will have at the liberty bell, but as time goes on, our family will grow and the kids will get older.  I guess you can't really have too many pictures of the same thing.  Besides, Eliza is cute enough that any pictures of her are fun to look at. 

Katie and I managed to find a parking spot at the train station that cost only $1.00 for 15 hours of parking - almost unheard of around here.  We took the train down into the city. 

 

 

Upon arriving in the city, Katie spotted the biggest Ross store she has ever seen.  Of course, we had to stop.  An hour later (after only looking through a small portion of the store), we headed towards the Independence Hall visitors center.  We watched a few movies on the history of the area, Katie posed with a Patriot, and signed her name to pledge independence. 

Then we headed over to the liberty bell. 

 

We simply couldn't leave the city without first enjoying a Philadelphia cheesesteak.  Our tour of Independence Hall wasn't until the close to closing time, so we hopped on the Phlash bus to see the other side of the city.  Eliza was our navigator. 

We jumped in the love fountain to cool off.  Eliza wasn't too sure about getting in at first...

But... she eventually warmed up to the idea

And enjoyed the cool effect of the water (It was sooooo HOT!)

We can't leave the city of brotherly love without taking a picture by the Love statue

We also signed our names on the gigantic ball.  Unfortunately at this time I can't remember what the ball was for. 

Kiddie corner from the love statue is a tall building.  The name of the building is escaping me right now, but they have a lot of unique statues out in front.  Where else can you find over sized Sorry and Monopoly pieces??

We snagged a glance at the Holocaust memorial.

Then, it was back on the Phlash bus and over to Independence Hall for our tour.  Eliza's only nap for the day was the 30 minutes we waited for the bus to pick us up at the stop and drop us off in front of Independence Hall.  I think she may have normally slept through the tour, but our tour guide had the loudest speaking voice I have ever heard.  It was like he was yelling into a microphone, except he wasn't.  He didn't even have a microphone, and I still had to cover my ears.  Although he spoke with little expression, you can't complain that you couldn't hear him.  Needless to say, it woke Eliza up.  It's a good thing she is so cooperative most of the time - I tend to push her to her limits, especially when we have guests in town. 

 Inside Independence Hall

It was a quick day trip, but we saw what we needed to see.  Sometimes it's nice living so close to a big city that is so full of history.  I'm sure Eliza will visit many more times in her lifetime. 



Chocolate World - Hershey with Katie

On July 18, Eliza, Katie, and I headed an hour and a half east to the birth place of milk chocolate - Hershey, PA.  No, we didn't got to Hershey Park (the popular amusement park).  Eliza can't ride any rides, I couldn't ride any rides, and Katie definitely doesn't want to ride by herself.  Instead, we hung out at Chocolate World, and hit the outlets. 

We started out our time at Chocolate World by securing jobs as factory workers and packaged some Hershey Kisses. 

First, we got official worker hats...

Then, we pushed the button and watched the kisses fill up our container

Next, we carefully shook the kisses until they were perfectly settled

Finally, we put them on the conveyor belt, and watched our packaged kisses head out for shipping

After our packaging was complete, we headed to the chocolate world boat tour to see how Hershey makes his chocolate.

Although it's hard to see, we are sitting on the chocolate boat waiting for the tour to start.

Eliza is snacking on goldfish, not chocolate. 

Katie, I'm pretty sure if you ate that much chocolate, you would be sick - 5 pounds worth.

We stopped for a moment to take a snap shot with the original chocolate characters.

It's a good thing that we are not made of chocolate.  The 114 degree weather (factoring in the 90% humidity) would have been enough to melt us into a puddle of gooey mess.  We felt like we were melting as it was.

We headed to Friendly's for lunch, where Eliza enjoyed ordering off the menu herself.

We waited a long time for our food - longer than I have ever waited at a sit-down fast food type restaurant.  It's a good thing we had a kids menu to complete all the puzzles and coloring pages to keep us occupied. 

After lunch, we headed to the outlets.  I managed to buy Eliza 7 shirts and me a pair of comfortable maternity pants for a grand total of $10.50.

I've posted about this before, but I love Hershey.  It seems like the ideal town, the perfect amount of traffic (even with the touristy stuff, it's not that bad), and some great scenery.  Maybe someday I'll live in Hershey. 

Sadly, our day in Hershey had to end.  After stopping for dinner, we headed home to "cool" off.  Who doesn't love red robin??

Eliza was gracious enough to offer to pay.

On second thought....

That extra guacamole on my chicken burger must have been a little too much.

What a fun day - you can't ask for anything better than hanging out with 2 of my favorite girls.

New York - Day 2

After our magical night on Broadway, we returned to the big apple (later in the morning) with Bruce and Eliza to see what other mishaps we might find ourselves in.  

I forgot to mention in my last post that when we were headed back to our hotel, we found a subway stop directly below the Mary Poppins theater.  Had we known, we could have avoided the crazy rush through the streets of NY to get there on time.  Unfortunately, I am still not very good at directions, so we ended up getting on the subway headed for the Bronx.  Not exactly where I want to be around 1:00 in the morning.  Once we realized it, we got off the subway before we actually made it to the Bronx.  We had to ask a subway attendant where to go, but we eventually made it back to the train station in Secacus where my car was parked. 


The next morning, which was July 13, we headed towards the other side of the city to see the Empire State Building.  We didn't pay to go to the top, but settled for some pictures by the sign. 

 

 

 

This is me standing in front of it. 

 

After visiting a few tourists shops to get T-shirts and sunglasses, we headed to Central Park for some lunch. 

 

Eliza had a couple bites of a turkey sandwich and half a hot dog.  She was pretty distracted by the squirrels and people.

 I am still in awe at how big Central Park is.  I've been there before, but this time we walked around a completely different area than last time.  We saw some beautiful scenery. 

In one of the tunnel bridges, a man was playing a saxophone.  Eliza couldn't help but dance to his music.  After each song, she clapped and cheered for him.  When he saw who his audience was, he quickly changed from playing Jazz and the Blues to playing children's songs like The Itsy Bitsy Spider.  I had to throw some money in his hat just because he did such a good job entertaining my little girl. 

 Bruce and I in front of the love bridge

 

We stopped at the huge playground to the pure delight of Eliza.  We were fortunate to be able to find a open baby swing.  We weren't sure we would since there were so many people there.  Close to the swings was a splash park.  Most of the other children were either in swimsuits or underwear.  We started by just putting Eliza's feet in.  

 

With more bravery, she put her hands in. 

 By the time we decided to move on 20 minutes later, she was pretty wet - HAPPY!, but wet. 
After hours of strolling through the center of central park, and witnessing part of a lesbian wedding (my sister jumped in close enough to snap a picture), we headed towards the 9-11 memorial and ground zero. 

These are the best pictures we got.  We didn't know that you have to schedule a specific tour time and get tickets in advance to get into the 9-11 memorial.  Tickets are free, but you can only get them online a couple of days before you want to go in.  Next time we will know, and hopefully we'll get to see it.  We did go into the visitors center where they have some cool artifacts from some of the people who were in the tower when the planes went through.  There are also some neat stories to read. 

From what I understand, they are rebuilding the twin towers.  One of them is finished already. 

We walked down a few more streets before we decided to call our visit to the big apple complete and head back to Pennsylvania.  After all, Eliza's birthday was the next day, and I still had to get some things ready. 

As I've mentioned before, New York is a fun city to visit every once in while, but I wouldn't ever want to live there. 

On the other hand, where else would you find a giant skunk and chicken playing the cello and xylophone????   Only in a New York subway station.  

Happy Birthday Eliza!!

I feel like a big slacker considering Eliza is now 15 months old, and I am now just getting around to writing about her first birthday.  There won't be a whole lot of commentary - I'll let the pictures do the talking. 

I can't believe my baby is a year old already.  She is slowly turning into a cute little toddler.  At this point, Eliza still didn't walk or crawl.  She would get around by spinning in circles on the floor.  I find it funny how "grown up" she acts; yet she doesn't crawl. 

I'm glad my sister was here for her birthday party - she did a great job decorating.  We had a small party at our new house (before we moved in) with some friends from our ward.  Ironically, all Eliza's little church friends couldn't come, so we didn't have many other kids there. 


We had a lite lunch of finger sandwiches, chips, and veggies.  Then we moved on to the cake!!  Eliza was slightly confused when everyone started singing to her. When I put the cake in front of her, she was a little hesitant at first.  When I told her to go ahead and eat as much cake as she wants, she looked at me like, "are you sure I can do this."  It didn't take long for her to dig right in . 

This miniature cake she is enjoying wasn't made or decorated by me. The bakery at one of the grocery stores I shop at gives a free cake on a child's first birthday. If you look closely at the bottom right picture of the last collage, you will see the cake I made from scratch for her party guests.  Although the decoration is terrible, the cake tasted great.  Picking up my free cake was an adventure.  I called a week in advance asking if I needed to special order her a cake.  The lady at the bakery told me that I am just supposed to come the day of her birthday with her birth certificate and pick out one of the 7 inch round cakes on display.  Then, they will write her name on it with icing before they give it to me.  When I showed up at the bakery to pick up the cake 1 hour before the party, the cake decorator told me that I should have pre-ordered it because they custom make them.   I told the cake decorator what the other bakery lady had told me on the phone.  She felt so bad that I didn't get to order the kind of cake I wanted.  I, on the other hand, was excited that I could get a fancy bakery made cake for free; no matter what it actually looked like.  Because of my limited time, I said the cute little  bee 5 inch round cake was perfect for the occasion.  They quickly, yet apologetically wrote "Happy Birthday Eliza" on the side in pink, frilly icing, and I was out the door.  Next time I will know to ask for the cake decorator on the phone to preorder all future free cakes. 

 

I think the black frosting makes it seem even more messy.  For great photos, I recommend black frosting. 

 

 

Enjoying some cake!

 

 

Getting washed up!

 

 The table after the birthday girl was done demolishing her cake. 

 

 

 

 

After a quick outfit change, it was time to open presents.  I should have specified on the party invitation that no presents were necessary - she ended up getting more presents than I intended for her to get.  However, the girl had a ball opening the gifts, and was super fun to watch.  She got excited about each one, and wanted to play with each one before moving onto the next one. 

 

Eliza really is an expressive girl.  These next 2 photos are the epitome of Eliza.

I want to always remember this cute little face.  She looks up at me with this expression countless times a day. 


Bruce and I got her this rocking horse. 

As you can tell, she loves it. 

After being on it for seconds, she figured out exactly what to do.

She doesn't ride it long, but I think she will ride it more and more the older she gets.  It is worth the few minutes she does enjoy it. 


Our Realtor gave Eliza a new car seat.  I personally would have chosen a more gender neutral color, but I'm grateful that Eliza was given one.  We call it her princess chair because she sure feels like a princess when she sits in it.  The first time we put her in it to go for a ride, she couldn't stop smiling.  She even got upset when we took her out. 

Another classic Eliza face....

Happy Birthday baby girl!!  You are such a delight to our family.  I love that our house is full of giggles, smiles, and cuddles all day.  You seriously are such a sweet, good little girl.  We love you to pieces.  You will always be my special Baby Cakes.