The Small Family     

We left Buffalo Tuesday morning (sniff! never enough time there!) for Philly, and so the day was pretty much all spent driving. It took us about 7 1/2 hours, counting one 30-minute lunch stop. We had thought to stop halfway, in Binghamton, for Theo to either play at the children's museum or run around the zoo, but he ended up falling asleep about 45 minutes before we got to Binghamton, so we just kept driving right through. (No one in her right mind wakes that child when he's sleeping!)

The upside to skipping the Binghamton stop was that we reached Philly in time to visit our favorite hoagie place, Lee's, to pick up sandwiches for dinner! I am a big hoagie aficionado, as is Chris. Before I came to Philly, I assumed a hoagie was just a sandwich, but no--it's so much more delicious than a regular sandwich! I don't know whether it's the fresh oregano, the sweet peppers, or the fact that they slice the meat very thin, but it's just a yummy, yummy sandwich. And after we checked into the hotel and devoured said hoagies, there was still time to take Theo across the street to the mall for him to run around a stretch his legs after a long day in the car. And boy, did he go nuts! Usually if we visit a mall, he's in a stroller except for when he gets out at the play area. But this time, since the whole point of the mall trip was for him to get to run around before bed, we just let him race around. We got quite a workout keeping up with him!

We started Wednesday at the Please Touch Museum in Philly. We went there last year and loved it, so we looked forward to going back this year. And this year, it was far less crowded, so it was even MORE fun than last year! Theo raced around for almost two straight hours, exploring all the various mazes and toys and re-created enviroments (a supermarket, a kitchen, a gas station, a river, etc.). He had a ball!!

And tired himself out enough that he fell asleep for 45 minutes as we drove to Phoenixville to visit Mike (Grandpa Tom's cousin) and his wife, Joyce. We spent the afternoon and evening with Mike and Joyce, and it was such a nice visit! Theo kept busy playing with their grandsons' toys and watching lots of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, as well as exploring their backyard.

Mike and Joyce's daughter, Karen, kindly watched Theo so the four of us could go out to dinner toddler-free! I'm told they had a great time together, except that in the middle of their trip to the park, Theo decided he urgently needed to go potty, so they raced the several blocks back to the house. And indeed, he got sick twice in a row when they got home. I can't believe he managed to hold it! I mean, even for an adult it can be hard to make it to the bathroom when you're sick. To be two years old and manage it...wow, I was impressed! (If anyone is curious what set him off, my guess is water. He had some filtered water from Mike and Joyce's refrigerator, which I *thought* would be fine...but you may recall that I mentioned that last year he was sick for our entire nine-day trip back east, and we thought it was probably the change in water. This year, he was fine for the first eight days of the trip...then he had some water that didn't come out of a bottle, and bam! A matter of hours later he got sick. It's pretty suspicious to me. I went back to being a fanatic about only bottled water after that, and all was well for the rest of the trip. Poor kiddo...)

Wednesday morning we paid a visit to the cemetery to leave flowers for Grandmom Dot, after which we headed over to Lansdale to pick up Aunt Bettie and Uncle Russ (Russ is Grandpa Tom's paternal uncle). We had originally intended to drive out to the Amish country for a trip to the Shady Maple smorgasbord (big attraction in the Amish country), but Aunt Bettie and Uncle Russ came up with the idea of driving out to the Jersey shore instead, since we hadn't ever been there. (We went to Shady Maple last year with them.) And so we did, and we had a lovely day (despite Theo being GRUMPY for much of it, for whatever reason!). We spent a little time at the Ocean City boardwalk, which puts our Santa Cruz boardwalk to shame--it's huge! And we took Theo down to the ocean to play for a bit. At the Oregon beach in June, he was a little ambivalent--the beaches there tend to be quite cold and windy. But Wednesday was very warm in Jersey, and the Atlantic waters were much warmer than what we get in the Pacific. So Theo had a great time picking up shells, sitting in a tiny "lake" made where some kids had dug out a bunch of sand, and letting the ocean water run over his toes and feet!

Afterwards, we stopped for frozen custard (I'm a junkie!) and then went to Russ and Bettie's trailer to relax and get crabby Theo a nap. Their trailer is just a few miles inland from the boardwalk, in a beautiful, quiet, wooded trailer park. We sat on the screened-in porch and visited while Theo napped, and then when he woke up, he joined us and had fun exploring the trailer and the outdoor area, which had lots of fun sticks and plants for him to look at. Uncle Russ managed to find a couple old trucks that their grandkids used to play with, and Theo had great fun with those.

Thursday morning it was time (too soon!) to leave Philly. To avoid the Philly, DC, and Baltimore traffic, we drove west though Harrisburg, and then south. And somewhat to our surprise, we found that we'd be passing through Gettysburg about two hours into the drive. Chris is a history buff and has always wanted to see Gettysburg, so it seemed like a good rest stop. And wow, I'm glad we stopped! What a fantastic national park!

The museum proper is large and designed for people much older than Theo, so I told Chris to go enjoy the museum, and I'd take Theo out on the park grounds so he could run around and explore. And boy, did we have a great time! We found a wooded (but paved) path to a soldiers' cemetery, so we walked about 3/4 mile down that, until we arrived at a beautiful hill that had numerous monuments, some cannons, and a small farmhouse that was eventually used as a hospital and "nerve center" for the Civil War. Theo loved the farmhouse, which was designed for people to walk right up and push a button to hear a little history lesson on the site. And among the monuments were a bunch of apple trees, which Theo decided were a wonderful, shady place to sit and contemplate life. I had a hard time dragging him out of there!

The park is huge, and to really do it justice, one should do the 24-mile driving loop and stop to see the various sites. But because we had a full day of driving that day, we opted against that and decided we'll just have to come back and do it another time! All in all, a fantastic place to stop for a couple hours, and we'll definitely visit again someday, when Theo is old enough to understand some of the history there.