Thursday, March 19, 2009

philadelphia freedom



last weekend, we drove to philadelphia for a memorial service for grabbie.
while a 10 hour car trip is not ideal, it gave the three ericksons a good amount of time to just "hang out" with each other. there hasn't been a whole lot of that going on this year.



jack has entered a new phase in his life: he is a reader!! he spent the majority of this trip cruising through the "Wimpy Kid" journals.



we slipped away one evening for "authentic" pizza. jack had a table all to himself, and from that vantage point, he watched his pizza being made from scratch, complete with a heavily-accented pizza tossing man! as we packaged up our leftovers, jack was heard to exclaim, "Gosh, that pizza was GOOD!"



aside from the memorial service and reception, there was plenty of time for socializing with extended family. here is a quick photo of three "anne" relatives (my cousin, megan, my niece, allison and i all have the middle name Anne. sorry, elizabeth, don't know why you weren't in this photo!) Grabbie's name was Anna, and she was later known as Anne (my mother is named for her.)



most of the family flew home on Sunday, but we three had planned an extra day to *see* philadelphia. we knew we didn't have a lot of time in the city, so we focused on three things: City Hall, the Liberty Bell, and standing in line for cheesesteaks!(we opted for Pat's instead of Geno's... the line was not *quite* as long.)



what is up with my son's goofy smile? he needs to grow into his teeth already!



and, look! we "stumbled" upon the Philadelphia St. Patrick's Day Parade. there were dozens of Irish Dance groups like this one making their way through the city. it was quite festive, and almost made us forget about the cold wind that accompanied us on our journey through the City of Brotherly Love.

8 comments:

Crystal said...

I'm so jealous of all your *journeys* this year...and we're only in March.

I'm glad that you had a great time. The pictures are lovely.

michelle said...

Oh my gosh, what I wouldn't give for a Philly cheesesteak right now!!

I love that Jack is a reader now, that is a huge milestone.

Becky said...

It looks like so much fun!

Emmanuelle said...

Look's like you had a fun trip.
Philadélphia seems to be a nice city and the pizza looks so good...

Marie said...

Did you ever see National Treasure with Nicholas Cage? It totally made me want to go to Phlli.

Kim Sue said...

Carly blew through all 3 of the Wimpy Kid books and likes to pick them back up and read sections which is unusual for her. She even likes to read parts outloud to me :o)

wende said...

i love philadelphia! how fun that you stumbled on to the parade while you were there.

i'm so glad that you got some family time together. and i'm so glad jack is a reader! that is such a great moment in the life of the child AND the parent!

Mrs. Match said...

Have you ever watched How I Met Your Mother? There's an episode where they lick the liberty bell. I can't help but think about that everytime I see a picture of it. Looks like you had fun, even if you didn't get to lick the bell. :-)