IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN West Philadelphia, born and raised...

Actually, I'm not sure it was West Philadelphia we were in. I can, however, confirm that we ventured SOMEWHERE within Philadelphia. So, there's that!

One thing that Rob and I both wanted to take advantage of while living on the East Coast was road tripping to areas that we normally would not find ourselves traveling to (no offense to the East Coast states, it's just a REALLY far shot from Hawaii!) With so much rich history, food, and culture to explore, we decided that Philadelphia would be our first of hopefully many little trips we take as a family while stationed out here. We picked Philadelphia because the drive is not very far (about 2.5 hours), there seemed to be a lot to do, and honestly, we had a pretty bad hankering for some legit Philly cheesesteaks. 

We started the drive in the early afternoon, and got to Philadelphia just in time to check out the Liberty Bell. Unfortunately, there was a line to get in, so we just barely made it into the exhibit before closing (I'd say within 10 minutes). There was a lot of information that we had to skim through, but still so fascinating to learn! 

IDK about this driver, guys. I mean, he LOOKS like he knows what he's doing?
But something about him is suspicious.

L to R: Exercising some independent exercise on Independence Lawn;
"Woman in the Window" - random street art on the sidewalk, and the famous
Steve's Prince of Steaks cheese steak!

We did a cheap overnight hotel in New Jersey (which was maybe only 20 minutes away), which was a really nice spot! The next day, we wanted to do something fun for Uriah. We took him to the Children's "Please Touch" museum, which was so amazing! I'd never seen anything like it! It was 3 floors, and everything in the museum is kid-friendly. There were little doctor's offices, grocery stores, bus stations, mechanic shops, train stations, water stations, and even an Alice in Wonderland themed floor. There really was  a little bit of everything! There was so much to do, and we really got our money's worth there. Uriah had a lot of fun. True to form, his favorite of all was the water play station.

Face on the right says the art of embarrassing my child has already begun.

We finished our day by getting pizza at Lorenzo & Sons Pizza. It was a pizza spot that came recommended from one of my Philly friends (Thanks Shana!). The pizza was CRAZY HUGE!!! So fun! and yummy!

The color on the right looks atrocious because the original was sooooo dark. I tried editing
it, but obviously I'm no professional. ANYWAY - you get the picture, though. HUGE SLICES.

Overall, our trip to Philadelphia was so fun! We definitely plan to visit again!