Philadelphia

Brent and I planned our whole Maryland trip around the Philadelphia Temple open house. Those opportunities are rare and we want to give the girls as much exposure as possible.

Sydney getting her booties put on by one of the local youth. 

Photos inside the temple are not allowed so the following are from the lds.org website:

This is the Celestial room. Such a special feeling here.

 I adore the stained-glass windows and beautiful furniture!

 This is one of the sealing rooms. The guides were a couple who lost a son 12 years earlier. They gave a touching testimony of how grateful they are for families that are sealed not just until death do we part, but for eternity. As the crowd filed out, we called the girls over to stand between those two mirrors so they could see our reflection repeating infinitely.

 There is a visitor's center adjacent to the temple where questions can be answered and with this beautiful statue of the Christus.

On the top floor, there is a roof top garden which would normally be ideal for photos. However, it was SO hot and humid, a good picture was not in the cards. I've heard people with light colored eyes are more sensitive to sunlight and well, our 4 blue-eyed beauties could hardly stand the brightness. I hadn't eaten for a while and was feeling lightheaded so I was constantly sitting down. This was as good a photo as it was going to get.

After spending a couple of hours in the car, then a couple of hours being told not to touch anything at the temple, Reagan had the brilliant idea to take the kids to this place:

We discovered Sydney has a fear of carousels. It's apparently not an official phobia (I checked) which makes sense since they just go gently up and down and around. Whether it was moving or not, she was just having a hard time.

She was happier to take some silly photos like this:

 There was a whole room dedicated to Alice in Wonderland. Here Liesel is trying to paint the roses red.

 The roses would go back to white after a bit of time so she scrambled to get them all red at once. She's pretty proud of that, as you can see.

Piper showed Sydney this kiddie area where little ones could drive a boat. The boat would then move gently up and down... not unlike a carousel. Regardless, Sydney loved being captain of her own ship.

We drove by the "Rocky Steps" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Reagan hopped out with Josy. She wanted to get a picture of Rockwell on the steps but he was fast asleep in the back seat. The two of them ran the steps while we kept the cars running.

On our way out of town, we stopped by Abner's to grab a Philly cheese steak. The kids had really had it by this point, so we didn't do the Liberty Bell or Independence Hall. That's ok, it just gives us another reason to come back to Philadelphia! I really love this town; I could totally live in Philly. After a good day there, Brent agreed.