Philadelphia Freedom

Eric and I love to travel, and we knew when we started a family that we wanted to be mobile--be able to pick our kids up and go. However, it's tough to travel with twins, so other than our short weekend trips to Boston, we hadn't gone on any vacations since Piper and Fletch were born. After 17 months without a non-Woburn trip, we were dying to get away. Last weekend, we finally broke the seal and took a trip to Philly to see the Please Touch Museum and Smith Play Place. I'm happy to say we had an AWESOME time, and it was so wonderful to get out of town, spread our wings, and break free from our daily routine.

Here's a recap of all we did:

Friday: Philly is about a 3-hour drive from DC. We had planned to leave after lunch so the babies would nap the entire way. However, by 10am, even after a trip to Target, they were restless, so we hit the road. On the way there, we made a quick stop at a local mall/play area to grab some lunch, and then we got up to the Philly area around 3pm.

We stayed at the Residence Inn in West Conshohocken. I tried to find a reasonably priced hotel downtown, but couldn't locate anything with one bedroom suites and a pool. We had stayed in this area one other time, so we knew it wasn't too far into the city. The hotel ended up being perfect for us.

Before heading to the hotel, we stopped at not so great Giant to pick up some snacks and dinner since we knew the hotel didn't have room service, and we needed milk and other items anyway. I do not recommend the Giant in West Conshohocken. Definitely stick to the Safeway-like store in that town.

Anyway, we finally checked into the hotel and P&F did some exploring...

This photo below isn't great (I have no idea what I'm doing to Piper), but you can see the set-up of our room. It had a kitchen and small dining area, a small seating area off the the left and a full, separate bedroom and bathroom. We brought the kids' booster seat/high chairs, as you can see. These were great to have because then Piper and Fletch could have their snacks and dinner in the room with relatively little mess.

On Friday night, we hung out in the hotel room and ate the dinner from Giant. Or, should I say, choked it down. The food wasn't good and was the first in a long line of pretty awful meals on our trip. Here we are in our PJs before bed.

Piper and Fletch slept in PacknPlays in the bedroom. We put them down at their normal bedtime (7pm), and they went right to sleep. I was really sweating that one and wondering how they'd do in the hotel, but they were awesome. Even when Eric and I crept into the bedroom later on, they slept right through it. It was kind of nice having us all in the bedroom together. It reminded me of their first few months when we slept in the "Mother Ship" with the two cosleepers sidecar'd to our bed.

Saturday: The next morning, Piper and Fletch woke up right at their normal time of 5:30am. No sleeping in on vacation for this crew. We were some of the first people down to breakfast at the hotel, which ended up being a pretty decent buffet for being free/included with our room.

After breakfast, we set out for the Please Touch Museum in downtown Philly. It was only about a 15-20 minute drive into the city, and we got there when it opened. When we arrived, Eric and I thought we'd try our new harnesses on the babies to keep them from running away (yeah, I know, some folks hate harnesses, but we just wanted to try them). Turns out, while P&F tolerated them, they weren't at all needed, so we quickly got rid of them, but you'll see them in a few of the pictures.

First up was the cars. P&F were in sort of a bad mood when we got there due to being woken up in the car, so they had their paci for a few minutes.

But then they cheered up and got down to the business of exploring. Here's Piper as Lady Liberty. About 10 second after this was taken, she stuck her head even farther through the hole. I nearly had a panic attack because for a split second, I thought she was stuck. 

They had some awesome water tables with boats and rubber duckies. P&F were a little short for them, but they got to splash around a bit.

Fletch particularly liked the water tables and was quite upset when we left them.

After that, it was onto some musical carpet thingys (technical term), which Piper really enjoyed. Fletch was still too heartbroken after leaving the rubber duckies behind to get into it.

P&F then decided they would take a turn posing as two of the three bears.

It had been about an hour of exploring, which is a lot of walking when your legs are only 18 inches long, so we took a break in the carousel room for a snack and diaper change. They were both completely enamored by the carousel. We didn't ride it though. The one downside to the Please Touch Museum is the cost. Admission is $15/person, including all kids over the age of 1. The carousel was another $3/person, so we skipped it, especially given that during our last ride on a carousel, P&F kind of freaked out.

If you look closely, you can see snow outside in this picture. This is pretty much the only snow we've seen this season.

After the carousel, we headed downstairs.

Our next stop there was an area on nursery rhymes specifically designed for the 3 and under crowd. The entire museum is designed for kids younger than 6, but they have areas that are just for the very wee ones, which were perfect for Piper and Fletch. This was better than Port Discovery because there were quite a few older kids running around there and trampling the toddlers.

Fletch really liked Mother Goose, but Piper wasn't so sure.

Captain Fletch at the wheel.

Piper "read" a few stories.

And then got her Martha Stewart on and hosted a tea party.

They followed that with some yard work and farming in another area designed for the 3 and under kids.

Like most children's museums, the Please Touch Museum has a fake convenience store. P&F really enjoyed taking everything off the shelves and driving the carts.

After that, it was time for a quick trip to a fake McDonald's. I actually wasn't impressed with this display. It was pretty small without much to play with for the kids.

We visited a few other rooms, and then the last stop was in a room with tunnels to crawl in and this fenced in area that had blowers that blew balls into the air. They loved this space and could have stayed there all day.

After all that play, the kids were hungry, so we got sandwiches at the museum cafe. This was another meal failure. The sandwiches weren't good, and P&F refused to eat anything beyond a few goldfish that I brought from home. I couldn't blame them, even Eric and I were pretty grossed out by our sandwich.

We had a terrific time at the museum. I think P&F are the perfect age to start enjoying it. Any younger than this, and I'm not sure they would have had that much fun. I know they'd love it even more in another year or so, so maybe we'll make another trip back. The museum is a lot bigger than Port Discovery and a bit nicer. You could spend an entire day there if your kids wouldn't get cranky after a few hours because there is so much to do. However, I do recommend bringing your own lunch. There aren't any eateries near the museum, and like I mentioned, the cafe wasn't good at all. 

After all that fun, we left the museum and made a quick visit to see some of Eric's friends who lived near the museum. Amy and Dave were so nice to let us invade their habitat to meet their kids and catch up for a few minutes. Piper and Fletch had a great time playing in their basement. 

Notice the Piper's small head invading the bottom of this picture. She fell in love with a small toy key while in the house, and had to show it to Eric at the exact moment the picture was taken.

After leaving Amy and Dave's house, we headed back to the hotel. The babies took a good, long nap, and then we went swimming in the hotel pool. P&F loved it--they've become quite the little fish since we started swimming lessons a few months ago. After swimming, we had dinner delivered (again, it wasn't good), played a little in the hotel room, and then it was bedtime.

Yes, Piper and Fletch still wear sleep sacks to bed. We love these things. I swear it's the only thing separating us from Piper escaping her crib and visiting us in the middle of the night.

Sunday: Everyone was up bright and early the next day. We had another hotel breakfast, and then headed out to Smith Play Place in Philly. This is a historic mansion that's been turned into a free play area for kids. 

The mansion isn't in the best shape and some of the toys were a bit old, but overall, Piper and Fletch had fun and didn't know the difference. Since it's free, I'd definitely vote that it's worth a visit. In the summer, there is also a huge playground that gets great reviews so maybe we'll check that out another time. It was also nice that it opened early since so much is closed on Sunday mornings.

After leaving Smith Play Place, we hit the road for home. We left around 11am and got back to our house around 2:30pm, stopping just once for lunch. P&F slept most of the way home, making the trip very easy.

Overall, we had a blast. It was so refreshing to get out of our normal swim lesson/Target/Costco weekend routine and do something different. If anyone else is thinking about making this trip and stays at the same hotel, the only thing I'd do differently is bring some more food for the babies to eat, like make a lasagna that I could heat in the microwave for them for dinner. And even though when we checked into the hotel, we looked like we were staying for a week, I was very happy with our decision to bring the booster seats and our own PacknPlays. We also brought a small bag of toys for P&F to play with in the hotel room to keep them busy.

Our next voyage is back to Pennsylvania in late May for a weekend in Lancaster at Dutch Wonderland. Since we had such a good time in Philly, I can't wait for this trip to get here. I can already tell that Piper and Fletch are going to love travel as much as Eric and I do.