Bartons

Bartons

Friday, July 1, 2011

Our new home in a place that is really far away from our other home we just moved from.

Well, here we are. Philadelphia!! We haven't been here very long but we've already had some pretty interesting adventures. Hmm, where to begin? Maybe from the beginning...
As we were arriving at the Philadelphia International Airport, as soon as passengers were allowed to turn on their phones, we knew right then we needed to become Phillies fans in order to fit in. There was a Phillies game going on during our flight and I think maybe Justin and I were the only ones on the plane not checking the game status as soon as possible. They won, by the way, and some guy who plays for them did something cool with some other guy that played for one of the teams...anyway, people were talking about it all around us.
As we came out of the airport in the middle of the night, I was a little afraid...but eventually we were able to make it to our hotel where my wonderful dad was waiting for us (he flew out to help us get settled in). We all slept at the hotel then rented a car the next morning and headed to our new apartment!! We didn't have to drive very far...we are only about 5 minutes away from the airport...but we made it here! I was so happy to find our apartment was not a dump, because seeing some of the places we could have so easily ended up in was very eye-opening. We live in a decent little area. There are a ton of apartments around, and I'm about a block away from the grocery store which is really nice. Anyway, our stuff didn't arrive til the next day so we bought some air mattresses and slept on the floor of our empty apartment that night and spent that whole day looking for a car to buy. Turns out buying a car in Philadelphia is a lot different than buying one in Utah...First of all there is NO KSL!!!!! Oh how I miss KSL. Such an easy-to-use website!!! We had to find everything on autotrader or craigslist (which I've come to despise). Another thing is it took us all freaking day long (the entire day) to see a grand total of 3 cars. It takes forever to get from one place to another here. Needless to say our car search was not going very well....it took us about a week to find a car to buy, and the one we found was a last-minute kind of a thing because the guy was taking it to auction the next day, so we got lucky.
Anyways, onto other things...our stuff got here, we got it all loaded into our apartment, then had to go buy a lot of furniture which was really fun for me!! (Justin hated every second of it, for multiple reasons).
Well, sadly on Sunday it was time for my dad to say goodbye and go back to Utah. We went to Church that day and it was the most interesting experience we've had yet....our ward is, what we like to call, like a Little Liberia. I don't know how, or why, but about half our ward is straight out of Africa! And my goodness, Sunday school was the most entertaining thing I've been to in a long time! I'm not going to go into it too much, but just know that we had fun.




Justin finally took his GRE on Monday of this week, and he doesn't start school until Tuesday of next week, so we are taking advantage of this little break. On Wednesday we went to Atlantic City!!! I almost felt at home there, because I felt like I was in a mini-Vegas. It was a lot of fun! They have a ton of shopping, and the boardwalk is really cool, it's got stuff all up and down it. And the beach was fun too! Except Haddy really really hated the beach....I think she was crying practically the entire time. But we still had fun!! We went Wednesday because it was supposed to be cloudy that day (me + sun = not fun), turns out the weather forecast was wrong...it was clear skies, so I was under the umbrella most of the time, but we still enjoyed ourselves! (btw I'm not sure how those pictures ended up where they did...)
We are very excited for more adventures! We are going to the art museum and zoo this weekend, and if everything goes according to plan for the 4th we are going to the Amish country and Gettysburg!! I am very excited! If anyone ever visits us we will be good tour guides!
Peace out.

2 comments:

  1. glad all is well! cute pictures can't wait to see more :D

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  2. oh my gosh crazy adventures for sure! I am glad you were able to get settled and find a car.. how cute is your dad! Atlantic city sounds cool too.. I have only seen it on King of Queens ha ha.. the beach photos look fun! Why did Haddy hate it? Maybe I shouldn't take Kaylee to Powell yikes! Keep the posts coming!- This is Kara!

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