USA Trip–Philadelphia

We were extremely happy (and relieved) when we made it to Tracie’s brother’s house in Philadelphia. We rented a car for the week and drove from Newark Airport to his house, near the centre of Philadelphia (2hour drive, boys slept most of it!).

Tracie’s brother, Graham and his partner David live in a HUGE house, and we were lucky enough to be able to stay with them. Tracie’s mum (Grandma) arrived about 3 days before us, and we all had a wonderful week together.

Ethan was sick for half the week, and spent many hours resting on the couch and watching Disney Junior on demand. He discovered a new show, Doc MuStuffins, and revisited many of his favourites from home too. We were lucky to have planned a quiet week, which allowed him time to rest and recover.

The day after we arrived it was Uncle Graham’s Birthday. We celebrated with dinner.

Ben and Ethan gave Uncle Graham a green butterfly and a blue dragon fly to put in his garden. Graham and David moved into this house 4 months before we arrived (in the winter) and now that it was spring, they were busy improving the garden. We thought this would be a nice keepsake present for him.

We spent one afternoon in the garden. The boys enjoyed helping Uncle David plant some sunflowers, and various other plants. Even Ethan got up the strength to come outside and join us.

One of the days that Ethan wasn’t well, David and Sal took Ben to the park. Ben had such fun having some one-on-one time with his Uncle David.

Ben’s favourite game, the grumpy old troll on the bridge is pretending to get him as he runs past (again and again and again!!)

The troll got him!!

 

We were happy when Ethan started to feel better.

Grandma and EthanBen and David and Parker (dog)

 

On one of our last days, we made the 2 hour drive to Hershey’s Chocolate World. The boys LOVED it!

We went on the chocolate ride, THREE times!

We saw how they made chocolate from picking and roasting beans to make solid cocoa.

Added milk (from the cows of course!)

Mixed…

Dried it in the dryer.

Rolled it smooth

Then moulding and packaging.

We learnt a lot about chocolate production. Ben and Ethan even got to pretend to be factory workers and package their own chocolate, which we later took home to eat!

 

To finish off our week, we got a couple of great family photos!