Day 26

For our last full day in Philadelphia we decided to tackle a few more museums. After a filling breakfast of Grammie's french toast we drove to Independence Center and headed toward the museums. On the way we stopped by the beautiful cemetery where Ben Franklin is buried and dropped our pennies of respect.

  

This was the day of no photography as two of the museums didn't allow much if at all.  It seems we are destined to not see the U.S. Mint in action as they had shut down due to the heat earlier this morning. We still walked through and learned the way coins are made again. The girls didn't really remember much so they had a good refresher.

We then walked next door to Constitution Hall for a wonderful interactive experience. After doing the kids' presidential portraits (Ryan's looks more like a mugshot!), an inspiring live presentation first about the history of the country. Upstairs there was a beautiful display of the articles of the Bill of Rights above us etched in glass. There were tons of artifacts and videos about different important events in history below them.


The kids' favorite part was the presidential trivia game Ryan wanted to play. Ryan and Brayden teamed up against me and Laney for a Jeopardy-like game. I let Laney try if she thought she knew them and to give the other team a fair shot. There were some I didn't even know though! Laney and I still did manage to eek out a win 140-110. We all learned a little bit in the process!

I was finally allowed to pull out my camera in signer's hall among bronze statues of the signers of the Constitution. We walked around the room looking at the brilliant men who created and signed one of the documents that shaped our nation. Ryan sat in Ben Franklin's lap, Laney played London Bridge with two man, and Brayden thumb-wrestled Nicholas Gilman of New Hampshire.

The kids really enjoyed being able to sign the Constitution and email it to themselves!















While I was refereeing and argument, Grammie found us a little cafe for a snack as we were all a little hungry with plans for dinner far away at 6pm. On our way back to the car we stopped by the visitor's center for a photo Laney had been asking for of another sculpture.  We write "xoxo" to each other all the time so this one she especially loved.


Our next stop was the Philadephia Museum of Art for a children's art program the owner of our apartment let us know about. The kids had a blast making their own stamps to make repeating prints. They got ink everywhere, but had so much fun creating. They also enjoyed completing many, many drawings using architect tools and learning how many buildings are made in Africa.


The highlight though was definitely the interactive art strings they could walk through.



We checked out a few more of the art rooms then headed out to meet up with old friends for dinner. It just so happened our Boffin friends from Italy were in town the few days we were so we made a date to meet for dinner!  The kids had a blast playing after we ate and we closed the place down!

After a lot of catching up, we headed home and started pre-packing to be ready for the next day. Grammie would be leaving early in the morning so the kids said goodbye just in case they missed her, but secretly two of them were adamant that I wake them up no matter what. I stayed up checking the weather and updating the blog as I wouldn't have wifi for about a week. I also started some laundry in hopes it would hold us for another week. Laundry takes a while when you can't do 3 loads at once!