While my sister was visiting our family, we decided to make a quick day-trip to near-by Philadelphia!

Amazingly, we made it out the door at 5 AM in the morning. Woohoo! We admired some beautiful fog over water on our drive...

and we enjoyed a brief stop in the state of Deleware.

Then we made our way to Independence Visitor Center and got the first tickets of the day to see Independence Hall.

We saw a painting of what the scene at Independence Hall might have looked like when the Constitution was signed.

You may also be interested to know that Independence Hall has been designated a WORLD Heritage Site.

This is the room where both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were signed by our nation's Founding Fathers!

I took a close-up picture of the chairs, because I just thought it was so amazing envisioning our Founding Fathers actually sitting in them. This would have been Massachusett's table and John Adams, our 2nd President, would have been sitting in one of these chairs.

September is an incredible time to visit Philadelphia, because it is relatively an un-busy time. We were very excited that we were able to take a photo with us in the actual room.

I also had a proud "homeschooling mom" (I am still getting accustomed to that "title") moment when Jillian recognized the rising sun chair! She pointed to it and said to me "Mom, that is George Washington's chair with the sun!!" And she was right.

The Rising Sun Armchair

"George Washington used this chair for nearly three months of the Federal Convention's continuous sessions. James Madison reported Benjamin Franklin saying, 'I have often looked at that behind the president without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting. But now I... know that it is a rising...sun.' "

Before we visited Philly, we read two excellent books, A More Perfect Union: The Story of Our Constitution and Betsy Ross. We learned about the Virginia Plan, the New Jersey Plan, the Connecticut Compromise, the rising sun armchair, and all other neat things about the convention.

After our tour of Independence Hall, Daddy had some swinging time with Faith!

Then we all got a photo of the back door of Independence Hall as one big family!

Then we briefly took a look at the old Senate House.

The Senate House is where both the first and second President of the United States were inaugurated.

Then we saw the famous Liberty Bell in the pavilion. It is considered to be the most important symbol of freedom and democracy in America!

We were in absolute awe that we got a photo of our family with the Liberty Bell with no one else in the background!! The Park Ranger on duty was the one who offered to take this photo of our family!

Because of our early waking time and because we did not want to take all of our picnic supplies with us on the bus tour, we had an early picnic on the square.

Then we got a few more photos of all of us in front of Independence Hall.

Then our family got on the Hop-On-Hop-Off Philly Bus tour! We wanted to make the most of our day-trip in Philly and thought this would be the best way to see as much as we could!

The girls really wanted to sit in the back row, so their sweet Aunt Leigha happily sat with them.

On our tour, we saw the Chinese Friendship Gate in China Town.

We also saw Philadelphia's City Hall. On our tour we learned that because of it being a masonry building (there is no steel in its construction, it is made entirely of stone, limestone, brick and granite), it is extremely expensive to cool and heat. Every month, it costs the city a lot of money to operate, so they have considered tearing it down, but according to wiki, that too would cost a whole lot of money too (it may even bankrupt the city)!

More about Philadelphia City Hall

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Philadelphia City Hall is the house of government for the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At 548 ft (167 m), including the statue of city founder William Penn atop it, it is the world's tallest masonry building, since the collapse of the pinnacle of the Mole Antonelliana in Turin, and its consequent rebuilding as a metal structure faced with stone.^[3]^[4] The weight of the building is borne by granite and brick walls up to 22 feet (6.7 m) thick, rather than steel; the principal exterior materials are limestone, granite, and marble.

It was the tallest habitable building in the world from 1901 to 1908 and the tallest in Pennsylvania until 1932 when surpassed by the Gulf Tower in Pittsburgh. It remained the tallest building in Philadelphia until the construction ofOne Liberty Place (1984–1987) ended the informal gentlemen's agreement that limited the height of tall buildings in the city; it is currently the 16th-tallest building in Pennsylvania.

The building was designed by Scottish-born architect John McArthur, Jr., in the Second Empire style, and was constructed from 1871 until 1901 at a cost of $24 million. Designed originally to be the world's tallest building, by the time it was completed it had already been surpassed by theWashington Monument and the Eiffel Tower, though it was indeed the world's tallest habitable building at the time of opening. It also was the first modern building (excluding the Eiffel Tower, see above) to be the world's tallest and also was the first secular habitable building to have this record: all previous world's tallest buildings were religious structures, whether European cathedrals or, for the previous 3,800 years, the Great Pyramid of Giza.

With almost 700 rooms, City Hall is the largest municipal building in theUnited States and one of the largest in the world.^[5] The building houses three branches of government, the Executive (Mayor's Office), the Legislative (City Council), and the Judicial Branch's Civil Courts (Court of Common Pleas).

The building is topped by an 11.3 m (37 ft), 27-ton bronze statue of city founder William Penn, one of 250 sculptures created by Alexander Milne Calder that adorn the building inside and out. The statue is the tallest atop any building in the world....

In the 1950s the city fathers investigated tearing down City Hall for a new building elsewhere. They found that the demolition would have bankrupted the city due to the building's extreme masonry construction.

In front of the City Hall, there is a plaque commemorating the founding of Mother's Day by Philadelphian Anna Jarvis!

The famous Philadelphian LOVE sign in Fairmount Park with green fountain.

Then we made our way to the Please Touch Museum.

The girls had fun playing with the water in the River Adventures exhibit.

First, Jillian created her own boat.

Then the girls raced their sailboats in water currents.

Even Aunt Leigha got into the river action and helped the girls get to the finish line.

Our two little pianists enjoyed playing a piano their own size.

Then all of us hopped on the historic carousel.

"The carousel was built “Philadelphia-style,” which means the animals are sculpted in vibrant, lifelike detail. The animals in the outer ring are stationary, while those on the inside rings rise and fall in a slow gallop. There are 52 hand-carved wooden animals in the menagerie, including 40 horses, four cats, two pigs, two goats and four rabbits. "

Jillian and Faith enjoyed a make-believe canoe trip....

until a ginormous snake interrupted their plans! :-)

Faith enjoyed making music in the Rainforest Rhythm exhibit.

Then, because we felt like we had spent too much time sitting on the bus that day, we decided it was time for a little work-out! I've got some strong kiddos. :-)

Aunt Leigha is MEGA STRONG!

Brad enjoyed the Wonderland exhibit.

In the construction zone, Brad gave the girls a challenge to try to move all the bricks to the red tunnel!

The girls worked so hard, but what they discovered, was a mysterious man (in a red striped shirt) was undoing all their efforts!

Then the girls went on an ambulance drive, Anna was the driver, Jillian, the medic, and Faith, the patient.

Faith was a very happy, coherent patient as she was being checked-out by Jillian!

Anna was a fantastic baby doctor at the hospital.

But then something very sad happened, Anna got a boo-boo on her finger. We had a good cuddle and then we showed Daddy the finger that got hurt in front of the hospital where it happened.

Thankfully, she quickly recovered and she went back to taking care of the babies at the hospital.

After baby time, we went to a cute play about pirates and nutritious eating. The girls loved how interactive the play was and laughed a lot (I love kid's sense of humor). Every time the lady said any kind of fruit, the girls would yell (with everyone else in the audience) "Fruity Tooty...Toot-Toot"!!!

Jillian found some time to cuddle with a baby doll at the kid's house.

Then, Anna played a little putt-putt golf.

Jillian and I enjoyed some stamping and coloring time in the craft area.

Both the older girls courageously attempted their first wall climbing.

Then Jillian had some fun learning to operate a miniature digger!

Little Anna's arms were too little to reach across to both red bars of the wheel, so Aunt Leigha helped Anna run it by holding one of her hands. So cute!

Then it was Aunt Leigha's turn for some fun !!!

Then we all got on the bus, and all the girls ran up the "Rocky Steps" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

My girls and I had a picture taken of the Philadelphia sky-line behind us.

Then, all the girls took a photo of the Rocky statue!

After all that exertion, it was time for dinner! We decided to try Jim's for a second time (see our blog entry for our first trip here) , it was the perfect time to go, there were only a couple of people in line ahead of us.

We very much enjoyed our Philly sandwiches.

All over the restaurant there were pictures and signatures of famous visitors of Jim's. (In this photo are Denzel Washington and Jay Leno signatures)!

Then we made our way to Rita's for dessert. This kind lady gave us lots of toppings for the girl's ice-cream!

Then we went back to wait for our bus, but while we waited, we had the fun of enjoying custard and frozen ice.

After that, we went back to the Independence Center where Jillian and Faith were made official Junior Park Rangers.

On our way out of the city, we stopped at Elfreth's Alley. It is popularly known as "Our nation's oldest residential street" and dates back to the eighteenth century.

Elfreth's Alley
"Philadelphians had abandoned Penn’s plan for a "greene countrie towne" and instead created a cityscape similar to what they remembered in England. Wharves stretched out into the river, welcoming ships from around the world. Shops, taverns, and homes crowded the area along the river. Philadelphians made and sold items essential to life in the New World and to the trade that was a part of their daily lives.

Two of these colonial craftsmen, blacksmiths John Gilbert and Arthur Wells, owned the land where Elfreth’s Alley now sits. In 1702, each man gave up a portion of his land to create an alleyway along their property line that connected their smithies near the river with Second Street, one block away. By that date, Second was a major north-south road, connecting Philadelphia with towns north and west of the city and the frontier beyond.

In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, numerous artisans and craftsmen resided on Elfreth’s Alley, often living and working in the same building. Even at that early date, Elfreth’s Alley had a diverse population. English colonists who worshipped at nearby Chris Church lived next door to Moses Mordecai, a Jewish merchant who was a leader of Mikveh Israel Synagogue. Cophie Douglass, a former slave, began his life as a free man in post-revolutionary Philadelphia while living on Elfreth’s Alley. During the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century, the Alley became a neighborhood of immigrants from Germany, Ireland, and other parts of Europe who sought new opportunities in America.

By the early twentieth century, the Alley had become a run-down, impoverished area and faced numerous demolition threats. In 1934, Alley resident Dorothy Ottey organized a group of men and women to save several colonial houses from demolition by absentee landlords. They called themselves the Elfreth's Alley Association and helped to rescue the street from additional threats, including construction of I-95 in the late 1950s.

Since 1702, Elfreth's Alley has been home to more than 3,000 people. Today thirty-two houses, built between 1728 and 1836, line the alley. They form one of the last intact early American streetscapes in the nation. Elfreth's Alley is a National Historic Landmark District, one of the first districts that celebrates the lives of everyday Americans."