Philadelphia and Boston!

On Thursday Kent and I left for Boston to visit his sister Hillary. We anticipated driving about eight hours and making a two-hour stop in Philadelphia on the way. The Philly part went as planned, but we actually ended up driving for closer to 10 hours, thanks to traffic in Connecticut.

We got to see Independence Hall in Philadelphia--this is the room where the Declaration of Independence was signed! It was amazing to be able to go there and see the site of such an important part of our nation's history. We also got to the see the Liberty Bell!




This flock of birds came over as soon as Kent and I sat down with our lunch of (of course) philly cheese steaks. We had occasionally thrown a few pieces of bread into the throng, but the birds got impatient and began to fly up close to us. I was curious and held out a piece of bread to see one would eat out of my hand and it did! Holy cow!

Our time in Boston was an absolute blast! Hillary and her husband John were incredible hosts! They have a cozy apartment right on the beach outside the city. We got to go shopping with Hillary the next morning before the impending snowstorm and went out to breakfast the a cafe called High Tide. It was soooo good. The snow hit at about 2 that afternoon and didn't really stop. It snowed almost a foot, if not more. Sunday was pretty much the same way. We managed to get to High Tide again on Sunday for another awesome breakfast...and then the snow came again. We spent our snow days playing MarioKart, Guitar Hero, and board games, and watching movies and Arrested Development. Kent and I had never watched it before and we love it! It's one of my new favorites. We only got through about half of season one though, what a bummer.
Even though we couldn't get out on Friday or Sunday, we managed to get to the city on Saturday in between the bouts of snow. It was still snowing, just not as hard. It was a lot colder than Hawaii!


We met up with Hillary's friend Kristen, and then went through the Boston Commons, Faneuil Hall, Quincy Hall, and browsed through some stores before heading to lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe. We headed over to the North End and went to Mike's Pastries before we saw the movie "Yes Man". The whole day was an absolute blast! John, Hillary, and Kristen were great tour guides. The city's Christmas decorations were amazing, especially when the lights came on after dark. It was well worth braving the cold.