Family

We spent two days in Philadelphia.  Not a huge amount of time but enough to see the sights and meet up with my old college roommate.  We had seen a lot of sights at this point.  Maybe too many.  So when we went through the Liberty Bell line and then the Independence Hall it didn't have that "Oooo WOW" that we usually get going to historical places.  It was more like "Oh..that is nice"  We saw everything because I have a genetic predisposition to do so...but I'm not sure anything really resonated with us.  Leaving Philly I wanted to say "Sorry it didn't really work out...but it was me, not you."  Maybe it was the grey weather.  Maybe it was the millions of pot holes.  Or maybe it was my residual dislike for cities in general.  But it felt good to drive out on the Turnpike and head to PA.

Jared's brother lives in a little town called Shippensburg.  I wanted to go there--not to see anything, not for history--just to hang out with family.  I wanted my kids to be closer to their cousins at the end of the month than they were at the beginning.  This meant every day after work we would drive to their house and just kind of hang out.  Not super flashy on paper.  But when my kids look back on this trip, I do not doubt that Shippensburg will rank higher than Paris.  Because the people here were so fantastic!  Mike and Amy (my brother and sister inlaw) were amazing. They seamlessly folded my two kids into the mix of happy crazy that a big family orchestrates.  Amy was able to get Eden to attend school with Lydia.  This was a dream come true for Eden.  There were so many friends there!  And, oh joy of joys, Eden got to practice for the school play.  It was amazing.  Sam played hours of soccer in the back yard with Zeek (the cousin his age).  It was fantastic to watch him get better and better at the game.  Sam even got to go on a camp out with Uncle Mike.  This was a dream come true.  Mom really has dropped the ball on camping.  Sam came home smelling like campfire and with a new sharpened stick.  He was so happy!

I got to spend the month talking with Mike and Amy both of whom are both well read and well spoken.  It was a delight to get to know these remarkable people better.