They love the giant dinosaur there.
We saw lots more stuff we'd learned in science this year at school! Butterfly migration paths.
Little guy was so tired of being in the car or the stroller. He wasn't too happy unless crawling around or being held.
Brett's old job place is right next door, so we stopped in and an old co-worker showed us their super cool 12th floor break room with glass windows looking out over the town. It was a beautiful view.
We stayed at a hotel in Wake Forest, near the Seminary, so of course we had to walk down memory lane and go back to take photos at the place where Brett proposed & we took wedding photos. The first few years of our marriage we took pictures there every year at our anniversary, but now it's been about 3 or 4 years since we've been back, and Jacob has never been.
We have this same picture of Andrew at this age:
On our way home, we stopped to have lunch with an old friend of Brett's at Chick-Fil-A. Jacob had NO fear on the playground, climbing up the slide almost the whole way, and even climbing up into the play set with a little help from his sisters & going down the slide.
After another night's stay in the first hotel we stayed at in Philly, we headed back out toward home. Before we left, Andrew had been talking and talking about the Statue of Liberty. I'm not sure where the obsession came from, but he always said every statue he saw was the Statue of Liberty. So we wanted to take the opportunity while driving through for Andrew to see the real Statue. We knew that "driving through" New York City wasn't going to be easy, but didn't want to miss the chance. After researching, we found out you can take a 25-minute ferry ride from Staten Island to Manhattan for free. It's mostly for commuters but it also provides spectacular views of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. Well, "spectacular" only being the key word when it's not freezing cold, overcast and rainy. Which it was.
When we first got there we couldn't find a place to park in the garage. We drove around a little and finally found a spot about a mile from the ferry terminal (it might not have been that far but it felt like it when we walked). So we almost decided just to skip out on the ferry ride and just see the Statue from there (it was really NOT a good view at all!). Then we passed another couple who were tourists from Texas and they said the view from the Ferry was great, and not to be missed. Just like that they talked us into it, and we walked through the cold & rain to the terminal. Abigail HATES walking & cried most of the way, as did Jacob because it was freezing and none of us really had winter hats or gloves.
We finally made it to the ferry, along with the hundreds of other commuters and tourists-- they have a HUGE operation going there. And we were glad we did. It really was a cool boat ride, and we did see some cool views of the Statue. In spite of the faces in this picture, I think they did mostly enjoy it.
I'm pretty sure the tallest building in this skyline view is One World Tower, the one that replaced the Twin Towers after 9/11. The top is buried in the clouds.
Thankfully, the rain & clouds cleared up as we were riding by the Statue, and we did see a pretty decent view. Such an amazing symbol of our country's freedom. Not everyone gets a chance to see that, and we were thankful we did.
Of course, after taking that 2 1/2 hour detour, we ended up not getting home till after 8 that night, and had to drive much of the way through a snow storm (after mostly 70-80 degree weather down south most of our vacation!) in the dark. It was stressful and we all wanted to be back home, but we arrived safely and have some great memories we will always talk about as the kids grow.
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