More Mostly From Philly

I already did a post about the 4th of July but you missed out on some festive grandchildren pictures that we took after I made that post. First up is from Philly.

And over in Denver, Lloyd was festive on the 4th of July too!

We've had some tasty summer treats on our stay in Philly. Last weekend we went out for ice-cream with Rosie across the river in New Jersey. 

We also went out for water ice in Rosie's neighborhood.

We've had fun hanging out together, reading books, and having lots of laughs.

Rosie is a fun little goofball.

It's been great to be in her world for awhile.

Mary and Andy returned from Costa Rica last weekend. Today Mary took the train up and we spent the day together.

Not the easiest to get a group photo but we did our best!

It's Always Sunny in You-Know-Where

There was a lot of sunshine and some pretty fall scapes during our stay in Philadelphia. This is a picture I took while running in Roosevelt Park, which is about a mile from where Peter and Jessa live.

I've been told that this picture looks like we're out of an episode of a real estate show. Well, no matter, this was our group in front of Peter and Jessa's house.

Now this is us inside Peter and Jessa's house. All eyes are glued on the World Cup, which we spent a lot of time watching.

There were also pets. This is Agnes. She's Peter and Jessa's cat. Their other cat, Lola, didn't make it in a picture. Lola is really shy, but she finally started coming downstairs to visit on our last day there.

Mary and Andy brought their dog Tikka. The cats and Tikka did not mix. So Tikka was in her crate when the cats were out of their upstairs rooms, and vice versa.

We ate well on this trip. On Saturday morning we went over to a place called The Machine Shop and feasted on these breakfast pastries. 

Last year when we visited Philly we went to an outdoor mosaic gallery called Magic Gardens. The artist who created it, Isaiah Zagar, has other public mosaic creations around town. On this visit we went to a place called Electric Street, which is an alley that's been turned into an art installation. There's a lot of mosaic in it and we all assumed it was by the same guy who did Magic Gardens. However, we were wrong. I just looked it up and it's by a different artist. Still quite beautiful and of course we took a picture.

By Saturday, Andy had to go home for work, so it was down to the five of us. We walked into the center city area via the Italian Market area, and ended up at a Christmas market. It was a glorious sunny day and we enjoyed meandering about the market. Over Brad's left shoulder is Philadelphia City Hall. The next morning Mary drove home and the remaining four of us chillaxed inside Peter and Jessa's house on a rainy Sunday, watching soccer and playing a board game. On Monday, Brad and I took the train to Baltimore for a few days with Mary and Andy. More on that in my next post.

Philadelphia Thanksgiving

 We spent our first ever Thanksgiving in Philadelphia (as seen in the distance) with Peter and Jessa and Mary and Andy. 

Peter and Jessa put together some delicious food. This was the Thanksgiving appetizer spread.

These two were being silly, but there was nothing silly about the food. Everything was so yummy.

Here is the chef in his space. The Thanksgiving menu centered around a glazed ham. In the foreground is the apple galette that Peter made for dessert.

Our hosts. 

Dinner is served!

Everybody humored me by passing the phone around the table.

We all felt very thankful as Lloyd had been born the day before and Peter and Jessa's baby is practically around the corner. I have more pictures from our time in Philly, but I'll save them for another post. 

Philly and Baltimore

We had a fantastic time last week visiting Peter and Jessa in Philadelphia, and Mary and Andy in Baltimore. Our first stop was Philly. On our first night (and on our second night too) Peter made a delicious dinner and Jessa outdid him with a double chocolate birthday cake for dessert. Peter showed me how much he liked the apron I made him for his birthday, and I showed him how he was wearing it inside out.

It's always a nice change of pace to get to run in a different place. I got to run in Philly twice and Baltimore twice. Peter ran with me on my first run in Philly, and then since he was running twice as far as I was, when I got done he turned around and did it all over again.

We ate a lot of tasty food in Philadelphia, including this pizza that we had for lunch in the part of town called Italian Market. Yum, the Italian food there was so delicious.

After pizza we had Italian pastries for dessert. Why? Because of course after eating a pizza as large as that one we definitely needed dessert.

Peter and Jessa had Monday off work and went to a place called Philadelphia's Magic Gardens, which is essentially one man's massive mosaic project. It was fun and whimsical and really, who doesn't love mosaic?

We spent the Monday holiday walking and eating all around town. Here we are across from Peter's favorite downtown used bookstore.

Peter and Jessa had work on Tuesday so Brad and I showed ourselves around. We rode the double decker bus to get the lay of the land. We saw a lot of the areas where we had walked over the weekend, and thensome. Then after the bus we did a lot more walking around downtown.

I can't finish our trip to Philly without thanking Lola and Peaches, otherwise known as the hostesses with the mostesses. They gamely gave up their favorite parts of their house for our visit, until on our last night they finally decided to join the party.

You'll never guess what we had for dinner on our first night in Baltimore. Yep, we had crab! (Actually, it was crabcakes.) I ate a lot of crab on our visit and it was all delicious. This restaurant is in Mary and Andy's neighborhood.

We ate at a lot of restaurants in their neighborhood. You can kind of (though not really) see in this picture that the neighborhood is festively decorated. It's great for walking, as is Peter and Jessa's neighborhood.

Mary, Brad, and I spent a day in a town called St. Michael's on the eastern shore of Maryland. It's about 90 minutes from Baltimore. And very picturesque. 

We took a water taxi across the harbor to have dinner in a part of town called Fell's Point.

Mary took me to Herring Run Park for one of my runs. She and Tikka played while I ran.

We walked down to the harbor a lot on this trip, as it's two blocks from Mary and Andy's house. This trip was to pick up sandwiches for lunch.

Mary (and Tikka) took us by her school. It's on the same street they live on, about a half mile away. She has a great commute.

Walk another half mile down the street and you get to Fort McHenry. If you don't remember your U.S. history, take a look at the name of Mary's school to get the hint as to what happened at Fort McHenry. 

And before we knew it, it was time to come home. (If memory serves me right, this was the Ohio River near Louisville.) We had a great trip and all that was missing was John and Troy. But, we're excited to be having everybody here for Christmas and it'll be terrific to be together.