My Awesome Vacation

This vacation was a blast. I learned that Jason and I can navigate anywhere and our kids are troopers (most of the time). To start out our week and a half vacation we flew into Philadelphia at 3:00 a.m. then took a bus to NYC the next morning. Don't let me forget to mention that the airline lost our luggage that had all our clothes in it. We didn't have our clothes, i.e. garments and other essentials, our whole trip. In fact they just fed-ex'd my bag today (a month later, but at least they found it). So the fact that we didn't have any change of clothes made our trip a little more adventuresome than we had expected.

NYC

New York was so fun to be in and it made it even better to meet our good friends there. The day we got there on the bus was rainy and cold, so we had to cancel our Statue of Liberty trip and find something else to do. We ended up going shopping for Broadway appropriate attire and sweaters for our freezing children. Then just on a whim we decided to go up to the Empire State Building because there was no line, it was well worth it.

--warning--- Jason and I are the biggest "tourist" around and we are proud of it-


So these are the same clothes we wore on the plane. Comfy but not what I would prefer to wear around New York

This is how Zack got his naps almost the whole trip, poor kid.

The Natural History Museum with the Montoya's. It was worth being there just because they were with us.

Time Square. I wish I had more pictures with the Montoya's in them but it was Steve taking the picture so just picture him on the other side of this picture.
Then that night we went to the Lion King on Broadway (those pictures are on another camera). That made the whole trip worth it. We had Stephen Montoya's sister watch our five kids (two babies included) in a tiny hotel room, she performed flawlessly, and the night was a blast.



On Sunday we went to sacrament mtg inside the Manhattan Temple, that was nice to slow down for a minute. We looked like hobos though because we were so dirty and obviously not dressed for church.

The last thing that I wanted to do in NY was see the Statue of Liberty. That ended up being an adventure in itself because we took a 2 1/2 hour detour to Staten Island instead of Liberty Island. We will never make that mistake again. We made it onto the last boat going to the right island so everything turned out perfect.



We ended leaving NY way later than we thought we would so we didn't even get into Philadelphia until 12:00 a.m. I worried my family to death because our cell phone was dead and they couldn't get a hold of us, my mom actually thought "thugs had gotten us"-her exact words.


Hershey, PA
We finally made it to my sisters house at 4:oo a.m. They had our bed all made with king size Hershey's bars on our pillow and tons of candy on the bed side table. It was like going to the best 5 star hotel ever.

We experienced Hershey to the fullest. We went to Hershey World one day and then to Hershey Amusement Park the next two days.
The best part of being in Hershey was getting our clothes washed and going on a Target shopping spree for new clothes. Ok maybe the best, best part was finding out I was pregnant.

The air actually smells like chocolate!! It was so Yummy to just breath in.

On our way out of Hershey to Philadelphia we stopped by Valley Forge. It really felt like sacred ground and it is the most beautiful place on earth.

Philadelphia, PA

Liberty Bell

Liberty Hall, where they signed the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. That was way cool to be where so many great men had been
Of course we couldn't be in Philadelphia without running up the Rocky stairs at the Art institute and posing with Rocky.
Our last day was spent with my sister and her family at the Franklyn Institute of Science. That was way cool to see all of his inventions. That one is worth going to if you ever go to Philadelphia because it is so hands on for kids.

Ok so that is my trip. You now know way more than you ever wanted to know about our vacation.