First Visitors

Two weeks in Philly. Still no kitchen table. Still no beds for the girls. Still no pictures on the walls. But, as far as the fun stuff goes: Art Museum...check, Independence Hall...check, Constitution Center...check, Zoo....check, Reading Terminal Market...check, Valley Forge...check, Cheese Steaks....check, H&M...check, Liberty Bell...check, check. We are getting quite comfortable parallel parking in tight places. We have mastered the roundabout in front of the art museum (We call it Phupont Circle--the ph for Philly, the rest because like DC’s Dupont Circle no matter where you are trying to go you end up circling and circling the roundabout). We even found a mail drop. That may not sound monumental, but I carried our rent check around with me for a week not knowing where to take it.

Abby and Sydney, my two nieces, have been visiting this week. Driving to the airport to pick them up was one of the happiest drives of my life-- one I hope to be taking very often. They have been so cute with the girls and they are always asking, “What can I do to help?”. I imagined myself getting our house looking like a magazine while they were here. Instead we have just played. But, man, how we have played! It has been good for me to get out and explore the fun parts of the city.

Abby and Sydney have been visiting this week. Driving to the airport to pick them up was one of the happiest drives of my life, one I hope to be taking very often. They have been so cute with the girls and they are always asking, “What can I do to help?”. I imagined myself getting our house looking like a magazine while they were here. Instead we have just played. But, man, how we have played! It has been good for me to get out and explore the fun parts of the city.

Josh officially started at Wharton this week. The scariest part about the experience seems to have been learning to ride his little moped. If fact, I had to drive him to class the first day because he was “too afraid to ride”. The earliest he made it home this week was 7:30 and that was with just one calculus class going on. That doesn’t bode well for the future. It has been very nice to have Sydney and Abby around to distract me. We have just done our thing and been happy when Josh showed up to join us without stressing if he wasn’t around. I hope I can carry on that attitude when I am alone.

Every night Josh comes home and tells me about a person he met from xxx. He has made friends from Beijing, Israel, Lebanon,Peru, etc. and talked to them about what life is like in their countries. What a unique opportunity.

The funny culture shock story of the week centers around our search for a kitchen table. We found a possibility online so we picked up Josh at lunch one day to go look at a local furniture store. The name of the store is Brothers’ Fine Furniture. In my mind I was thinking brothers as in Greg and Ken in business together and was expecting an RC Willey kind of experience. Oh no. I ended up taking Sydney & Abby and my two babies right into the West Philly Hood. “Brothers” rather than referring to siblings was referring to Brothers (say that in black talk). It didn’t dawn on me until I was in the hot, sultry second story looking at warehouse-like rooms full of “fine” furniture. I just had to laugh at myself.

It has been fun to hang out with my cute nieces. Abby entertains us with her retelling of jokes and stories and every once in a while we loose her to some trees or squirrels. I have a sore shoulder from Sydney’s slug bug hits. I think I used to be pretty good at that game, but now I can’t seem to get one to save my life. We have expanded it with new signs for hybrid, moving van, and limo. We also coined a new word: smovie. It is a smoothie and movie night of which we have had several. Last night we watched National Treasure. A good part of the movie is filmed in Philly. The girls were literally squealing as the action was happening in all the places we have been over the last few days. Super fun. We have discovered Philadelphia together and it has been fun to be with them. In fact, we have had so many adventures I am going to take a Sunday afternoon nap.