Brotherly Love

Yesterday the kids and I spent the day with my brother (whom we love) in the City of Brotherly Love. Maurice is working on his PhD in Archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania. Originally I had offered to pick him up in Philly and bring him to our house for Christmas. He told me he'd be staying in Philadelphia for Christmas and asked that we come and visit him around Thanksgiving instead. He gives tours at the Penn Museum. We definitely would like to visit that museum while he's a doctoral student, but since we're studying the Revolutionary War right now, we visited the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, Congress Hall, Carpenter's Hall, and the Museum of the American Revolution. The kids each earned a Junior Ranger's badge at the Independence National Park. That was at least the third badge they earned this year.

The kids and I left Paul's parents' house at 7am, and we arrived at Maurice's apartment at 9:15. According to my phone we walked about 3 miles altogether yesterday (compared to 9 miles in DC on Wednesday). We left

the Independence National Park around 4pm, and Maurice picked Longhorn Steakhouse as where we would eat dinner. He loves steak! Unfortunately we took a wrong turn so our drive was much longer than it should have been. The service was also very slow at the restaurant, but the good news is that we encountered VERY little traffic the entire day, which is generally unheard of for Philadelphia. I guess Black Friday is a great day to be a tourist in Philadelphia! We got home at 9pm. It was a lot of driving to do by myself this week. Next November I'm hoping we will take an about four day trip in November to Antietam, Manassas, Petersburg, Appomattox, and the Natural Bridge (we'll be studying the Civil War next year). I'm fairly certain Paul will want to join us for that trip!

After doing so much driving this week, we didn't leave the house at all today. Paul went to work and also to the library, but the kids and I stayed at home sweet home. The only place I am planning to go tomorrow is church. I also plan to stay at

home on Monday. Over the next two months we have only three more destinations that are more than one hour from our house - glass museum next Saturday (about 90 minutes one way), Great Wolf Lodge (also 90 minutes away) on December 4-5 as an early Birthday celebration for Ian, and one day in Baltimore on December 8 (3 hours one way).  From December 9 through January 27 I believe the kids and I will have a break from drives that exceed an hour one way.

Maurice was in NYC on Wednesday with our Aunt Janet and had a delicious meal with her on Thursday. Next year I'd like to take our kids to NYC sometime in November or December to see the Christmas lights and take them to see the show at Radio City Music Hall.