philadelphia...part 2: the historic tour

sorry for the delay in our trip details. a hospital stay for my baby and and another of my children having a plethora of symptoms (urinary tract infection, double ear infection and double case of pink eye, ew ew ew) has left me feeling like i can't remember what day it is let alone wrap my head around EVERYTHING i have to get done before leaving for my next trip! (more on that later)

independence hall visitor's center

SO, day 2 of our trip to philadelphia started out having a lovely stuffing breakfast and a shopping trip in the wonderful stores of old navy and kmart since my mothering instincts apparently weren't working when i packed my childrens clothes for the trip. for some reason i was expecting warmer weather than we got. after much hunting (most stores are selling swimming gear now in this 30 degree weather, oh yeah that makes perfect sense.) i was able to purchase some much warmer clothes for my children at a quarter of the original price! score!
we walked on to the independence hall visitor center, got maps, directions, suggestions, and souvenirs and marched on to the liberty bell.

it wasn't all it's cracked up to be.
(get it, cracked up? yeah, i'm here all week.)

we then got bombarded by carriage ride vendors all promising up the most amazing ride of historic philly. of course the girls got sucked in by the horses. oh well, it was my first carriage ride and it was pretty fun. our tour guide was a bit rough for the wear but he did give us a good over view of the buildings and goings ons in the world at that time. he even let the girls sit up front for a while and steer the horse during our journey. the girls LOVED that.

george washinton statue

constitution hall was our next destination. with a screaming baby and frozen children, we opted out of waiting in a line that was wrapped around the building. in seems that they only allow 80 people in at a time every 20 minutes. judging by the line, we figured an hour wait in the freezing cold just wasn't worth it. we ended up in the kmart food court to eat our packed lunches and warm up a bit before heading off again.

we made it over to the very first post office opened by benjamin franklin. (he opened the first of a lot of things. post office, fire house, library etc.) elise got a post card and had it stamped with ben franklin's signature to mail to her teacher. extra credit anyone?

besty ross's house was one of my favorite places to visit. all you really ever hear about her is that she made the first american flag. she was so much more than that. for that time she was a self made woman. she was a widow twice over by the time she was 24 and had her own business in upholstery. i never realized that by making the american flag she could have been killed for treason by the british, so she had to do it in secret. there is too much to write about, but i truly was humbled by this tour and felt the spirit strongly about how wonderfully guided these early americans were by our heavenly father.
the girls enjoyed listening to the woman playing besty ross. she was very good at her job to say the least. we also made our way over to the quaker church that besty ross attended while in america. it's still a working church to this day.

benjamin franklin's grave was nice. apparently people like to throw pennies on his grave. it is because when he opened the first library it required two pennies to check out a book. ben franklin said that if you brought back a book in two weeks, he would give a penny back. thus, the saying: a penny saved, is a penny earned.

my favorite of all was visiting elfreth's alley. it was just like stepping back in time. the houses have remained the same since the 1700's making them the oldest houses still in residential use in the country. i just wish that i could have gone inside and looked around a bit.

our last stop before thawing out was a christ's church. we really only ended up here because michelle needed the restroom. but, it was a lovely church and it is the oldest still in use in the country.
by this point the girls were whining, i couldn't feel my hands and wesley just stared at me like i was the worst mother in the world. so we made our way back to the hotel for some dinner and wesley's birthday celebration. more on that in the next post.