Just chill

You don't see any pictures here, do you? One possible reason is that we toured the mint and the Federal Reserve today and absolutely no photos were allowed. Another reason is that I am still trying to figure out the technology end of this vacation. I love the iPad (and oh, do the boys ever love it) but it sure has been tricky trying to figure out how to do some things on here. But the only thing more boring than having technical difficulties is reading about someone else's technical difficulties, so this train of thought cannot continue.

In four days we have visited the wildlife sanctuary and hung out with alpacas, traipsed through a river park to see deer and ducks, and done two day's worth of cultural stuff in Philly. It's cold, but the weather hasn't seemed to slow anyone down. Yesterday it was a real thrill for me to experience the full Philadelphia cultural spectrum within about three hours: from watching the Nutcracker at the Academy of Music with the womenfolk (thank you, Sara) to eating pizza while standing at the counter of Lorenzo's on South Street. Dave took the boys to the Academy of Natural Sciences while I was out Nutcracker-ing, and he managed to keep them both thoroughly engaged, solo, for several hours. Tomorrow we are headed back into the city to view one of the most famous light displays in the country (voted tops by US Airways magazine at least) and then off to Joe's for a few hours.

Zach seems to be doing a little bit better; it's hard to measure but he was sure in a good mood after we baked cookies and later got a bag of shredded money from the Federal Reserve. Tonight I asked him to draw some designs on some butcher paper so that we could use it as hand-crafted wrapping paper. He spent about three minutes drawing two large scenes involving snow and cars; then spent the next two hours talking about how proud he was of his wrapping paper. Oh, and it is quite a sight to watch him operate the Trains and Jelly Doodle apps on the iPad. Makes you think that kids his age were literally born to do this.

Luke has been busy with a crystal-making project, along with cookie-baking, movie-watching, and Googling pharaoh stuff with my dad. Getting here so far ahead of Christmas has been confusing for both boys, who are certain it is imminent. Dave finally made up a calendar for Luke to hang on to that has all the milestones of our trip carefully marked. Personally I don't want to look at it because it's all going too fast for me already.