2010 Family Vacation

We just got back from our vacation to PA.  I had meant to blog along the way, but we were so busy.  So this entry will be long!  Pictures will come soon!

Friday, June 25 - We left early to head up to Aaron's family reunion in NE Pennsylvania.  It's an 8 hour drive and the kids did pretty well for the most part.  They each had a couple of times where they really wanted to get out. We arrived at the campsite around 6 pm.  Our plan was to camp with Aaron's parents, brother, sister-in-law, and nephew.  Aaron's family has property, so we camped there.  His aunt and uncle had rented a large tent with a table and chairs and a port-a-potty for the weekend.

Luke slept in his Grammy and Grampy's camper with them and the rest of us slept in the pop-up camper.  Oh, and we also brought our crazy dog with us!  She did really well with all the new people.  Luke caught a cold while we were camping, but he bounced back pretty quickly.  Jacinda did not sleep well at all ..... once she fell asleep, she was fine, though.

Saturday, June 26 - We went to see Aaron's Aunt Diane.  The kids and I had never met her, so that was good.  We also saw his grandma and grandpa.  That evening, we went to his cousin, Lisa's, farm.  We had fun hanging out with all the cousins and kids.  The kids LOVED seeing the horses and the 3 baby cows.  Lisa even let the kids take horse rides!

One of Aaron's cousins has 3 kids, ages 4, 2, and 9 months, so our kiddos had plenty of playmates!

Sunday, June 27 - This was the day everyone was coming to the campsite for the reunion.  We spent the morning getting all the food ready and everyone started coming around lunchtime.  We all had a great time!

The kids spent some time in the river, mostly throwing rocks in the water!

Monday, June 28 - We headed out of the campsite in the morning.  We went to Allentown to have lunch with some friends of ours who had moved up there to start a church.  Some of them had not yet met Jacinda, so it was fun to see them and spend some time talking.

Next up, Philadelphia!  We were actually staying in New Jersey and we arrived at our hotel late in the afternoon.  That night, we spent some time deciding what to do the next day, we cooked spaghetti for dinner, and we went to IKEA!

Tuesday, June 29 - Tuesday was supposed to be the hottest day of the week, so we decided to go to the Adventure Aquarium.  We loved the hippos!  We got to see them up close and they were fascinating!

We cooked burritos at our hotel that night and then went swimming at the hotel pool.  We did some shopping that night to find the kids floaties for the pool, but we were unsuccessful!

Wednesday, June 30 - The weather was gorgeous today!!!!  We went to the zoo and it was HUGE!!!  It made our zoo in Norfolk look like a neighborhood park!  We were SO exhausted by the time we were done.  Plus, I was starting to come down with Luke's cold.

After the zoo, we ate a late lunch at Baja Fresh and finally found the floaties we wanted.  We went back to the hotel and used the new floaties in the pool.  Jacinda freaked OUT this time in the pool.  We think she was just overtired.

We went to a local park that was really nice and then decided to find some dessert.  We ended up eating a quick dinner at A&W and then dessert at Dairy Queen.

Thursday, July 1 - We needed a low-key day, so we slept in and went to the Children's Museum in Fairmount Park.  The kids LOVED playing there.  We ended up staying there for around 5 hours!

Aaron wanted a real Philly cheesesteak, so we picked Tony Luke's since they had other things for the rest of us to eat.  So we get there and they're "out" of everything but cheesesteaks.  Convenient.  Aaron got his cheesesteak and then we went to Chick-fil-A for the rest of us!!!  Aaron did eat his cheesesteak in Chick-fil-A!!!

After that fiasco, we went back to the park for a while.

Friday, July 2 - Our last day in Philly.  We did SO much today!!!!!  First, we went to the US Mint.  It was a bit disappointing because it seemed like they hadn't started operations for the day.  But at least we got to go there.

Then we got on the double decker bus tour and rode it to the Academy of Natural Sciences.  We sat on the top of the bus and the weather was just perfect!!!  The ANS was fun.  We saw dinosaurs, or as Luke says, "They're actually just dinosaur bones, not real dinosaurs.", real butterflies, and the kids got to touch a few live animals (rat, hissing cockroach).

Then we went across the street to the Franklin Institute, which is a science museum.  Most of the stuff there was too advanced for our kiddos, but they had fun.

Then we rode the trolley back to the start and walked over to see the Liberty Bell.  We didn't stand in the huge, long line to go inside and see it.  We found a window, stood on our tiptoes, and saw it just fine!

By then we were exhausted!!!  We drove back to our hotel for a little downtime.  Then we went to dinner at a great Italian place my friend has told us about.

Saturday, July 3 - We drove to Annapolis, MD and met our friends for lunch at Chevy's.  We always have to get a Chevy's fix when we are anywhere near one! 

Then we drove home.  Even though it is a 4 hour trip, we can never make it in anywhere close to 4 hours.  This time, it was close to 6 hours.  We got off 295 onto 64 Eastbound in Richmond and traffic was just stopped.  It was still over 60 miles home, and I cannot sit in traffic for that long.  So we used our GPS to figure out another way home.  It still took a while, but at least we were driving and not sitting.  During that drive, we came up with our plan for our next few family vacations .... we'll share it when we figure it out a little more.  It was SOOOOO nice to be home!!!!!

Pictures coming soon!