THE EWELL FAMILY: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The next week Jerry was working in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania so I left Wednesday again and drove down to Philly. It was only a couple hours, so not too stressful. We LOVED the hotel we were in. I wish we would have taken pictures of the hotels. It was more like a condo. Full kitchen, living room, separate bedroom with a walk in closet large enough to put the crib in there for Luke. Yay! First time I slept more than 5 feet from him all summer. Wednesday night we just went out to dinner and drove around the town a bit, and got a Redbox movie for the kids, because the hotel had a dvd player. So if there is a dvd player, you have to take advantage of it. Same reason we went to the store to buy some snacks - if the hotel has a kitchen, you have to live it up and utilize it!
I got tickets to take the kids on the Independence Hall tour for Thursday, but Jerry wouldn't be done working by the time it started so we planned to go alone and we'd just meet him back at the hotel that night. It was a great plan, and it would have been an excellent plan, IF the kids had wanted to do the same thing. Unfortunately looking at buildings from U.S. history isn't so exciting for a hungry, tired child. The kids hadn't heard much about Philadelphia history. So one of my children didn't want to be there, so she made sure that we didn't do the tour. We sat through the first room. Wait... scratch that... We went in the first room and while the tour guide was giving his little speech, trying to keep attention on him, and not on the crazy frazzled mom with her 4 children - baby in arms, two girls fighting over who got to sit in what seat, standing up to climb, yes, CLIMB over the other to get into the stroller that was taking up the whole row. Getting mad at me because they both wanted to then sit on my lap, along with Luke. Yeah, not a high point of my summer. Finally I figured the only hope would be if they were separated, so I took one girl to the corner of the room to try a time out. Just then it was time to move to the next room.

This is some room on the tour of Independence Hall. Seriously, I couldn't tell you anything about it, other than the hall/stairway off the side is pretty cool looking and has blue walls. haha.

We went into the next room, but after less than 5 minutes of girls climbing all over each other, yelling at each other, and crying we were out. I didn't know if I could just go out any door, so I just went over into the side hall and tried to give "I'm so disappointed in you" talks - but they fell on deaf ears. Once that section of the tour was done everyone was moving to the next room. I waited as the crowd filed through to ask the guide how to leave the tour and get outside. So as I stood there waiting for everyone to leave I saw many trying hard not to look at me, but I knew they were. And endured many comments from people trying to be helpful. One lady gave a disapproving look to the girls, trying to get them to feel bad, and help their mother - it just made me feel worse. One lady looked at me with such sympathetic eyes, and said she was sorry. That helped. One sweet girl tried to help too and said, "I don't know how you're doing it. I only have 2 and can barely keep up with them." I just felt like such a scene, all I said was, "Well, I'm not doing it so well today.":( Yes, very embarrassing.

So we left the tour, and I went outside and just about cried. Called Jerry and complained to him, probably too close to small ears that were overhearing.

Most of the sights close by 5:45, so we only had a little bit of time anyway. Even though I was so frustrated I decided since it was the first time I'd ever been there I wanted to see the Liberty Bell. We had to walk about a block away, and we were some of the last people in, but we did it. The kids actually did like seeing the Liberty Bell. I want to go back again someday and take the tour again. Even with the less than ideal day, I'm glad for the opportunity to be able to see Philadelphia.