On the Street Where We Live

As I mentioned, we live in Philadelphia now. 

Although our current living arrangements are ABSOLUTELY TEMPORARY (we are working on finding a new place as we speak), I just thought I would show you in pictures what we went from in Georgia - to what we have been in for the last 5 months.

 It's kind of comical.

Here is our sweet little house in GA 

(on one of the RARE moments there was actually snow . . . sort of!)

. . . and HERE is where we live now . . . 

Yes, we live above a hair salon in a 2 bedroom, tiny little apartment on a busy street in urban Philadelphia. Can you say culture shock????

At least the inside is totally renovated and we are the first people to live in it. It's NICE inside . . . 

The boys like to look out the window at all the cars as they drive by and people watch too. 

A new night time game for us:

 As we lay on the bed with Luke reading stories at bedtime, often times a car drives below our window BLASTING music that you absolutely cannot ignore. Luke closes his eyes and does a silly little boogie dance lying down. He will NOT stop until the music ends - which is usually once the light turns green and the car drives away. Oh, the joys of city life!

We see this church out our front window. Pretty great, given the possibilities. All the amazing old churches are actually one of my favorite things about this city.

We often take walks down the street and Miles goes NUTS as firetrucks drive by - 

like he is in this picture.

Another cool thing is that there are TONS of beautiful mural paintings on the sides of buildings all over the city. This is the closest one to us. It's a painting of one our favorite things to do - hike on the awesome path along the river in Wissahickon Valley State Park - just down the street from us. 

These were my worst enemy the first few months we were here.

 They were right in front of our apartment! I had to park my car down the street. Imagine a Costco run with both of the boys by myself . . . you get the idea. Then one day, some fabulous men from the city walked along the street chopping them all down. I could finally park in front of our apartment! Bliss! Until . . . they started construction outside our window and now NO one can park there. Plus, we get the added bonus of construction sounds outside our window. Not so great at 6am, but THRILLING to Miles who is obsessed with all things construction. 

This is certainly a unique experience and even though I am REALLY glad it will be short lived, we have had some adventures that we will never forget!

Camping in Maine for The Fourth

We decided that since my sister Lindsey was doing a photography internship in Maine this summer -  THAT is where we needed to go for the Fourth of July.

Can you see why we're glad we did? Gorgeous.

Sisters, sisters. . . (We all look particularly "lovely" because we were camping - so, please, don't look too closely at our hair, clothes, etc in these pics . . . :)

We found tiny starfish and crabs. The boys were fascinated.

 

We camped in Camden Hills State Park. We enjoyed our time in Camden, but also spent time in Rockport, Rockland, Lincolnville and Belfast.

Completely NEW experience for all of us . . . uh, we were BUNDLED up watching the fireworks, because we were CHILLY. Hello? I am used to heat and humidity that is often unbearable on the Fourth. I will take this any day over the heat!

Miles LOVED splashing with Aunt Lindsey in the ocean! It was COLD!

Working hard - Jake even made an amazing rock fortress on one side.

We crowned Miles "King of the Sandcastle!"

The boys were obsessed with this awesome old "Choo choo!"

In Rockport Harbor we saw a cool and unique Fourth of July tradition going on - A BBQ where the local "Brits" were serving the "Yanks!" Funny!

A gourmet camping meal - including hot dogs cooked on STICKS! (Luke insisted on the sticks!)

Downtown Camden

Goodbye, Maine! (Sniff, sniff)

Oh, by the way . . . we live in PHILLY!

A few days before we moved from Atlanta to Philadelphia, my camera broke. No idea how. Seriously. The kids didn't throw it onto the concrete (like my phone). I didn't drop it into a poopy toilet as I was trying to help Luke wipe his bum (like my phone!!!!!! ew!!!!). It just died. RIP, good buddy. RIP.

SO . . . the extent of my pictures from our first 4 months in Philly have been a few from friends and family and a few from the O-L-D camera we resurrected out of sheer desperation. So, after gathering a few - I'm playing catch up. Here are our first adventures in the new place:

GRATEFULLY, two days after we moved to PA, some of our very best friends from GA, the Campbells, were up our way and visited us. It definitely made the transition a little bit easier for all of us. We were tourists together in our new city. We spent a day visiting a few of the MANY historic sights up here. What says Philadelphia more than the Liberty Bell? Nothing. SO, here we are!

Here I am TRYING to explain to Luke the significance of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washington Square . . . unfortunately he was a little preoccupied with playing tag with the girls and finding a place to go pee pee . . . huh. At least we'll be here awhile.  :)

Okay, so after historic sights - the first thing most people think of in Philly is a Cheesesteak. So . . . here we are enjoying our first one at the famous Jim's Steaks in Center City. Despite my skepticism, it was fantastic! Even "Whiz with!" ( In other words, "Yes, please, I would like my sandwich to have that gourmet stuff known as Cheez Whiz on it." )

I liked it enough I was even stealing a bit of Jacob's after mine was gone (even though it was his birthday!)  . . . mmmmm . . .

And - another sure sign you are a tourist or new to Philly? You know we ran up the "Rocky Steps" at the Phila. Museum of Art! "Yo Adrian!" Ha!

The boys were just so happy to see familiar faces in a very unfamiliar place.

Thank heaven for our friends.