Mom Visit

My mom came to visit here in Philly about a week and a half ago, we had so much fun! She left on Wednesday, and I am sad....but what do ya do? Anyways, it was definitely a trip full of "firsts." First earthquake, hurricane, tornado, DC trip, and much much more.....
Well, while my mom was here we did some fun things! First thing we did was went to Lancaster County, that's where the Amish are. There's this place called Kitchen Kettle that is a bunch of really cute shops, I LOVE that place! And they have Amish ice cream and kettle korn (soooo good) and we definitely indulged.

 They also have a HUGE outlet thing there so we of course had to go there as well. All we made it to was Carter's...Haddy pretty much got a new wardrobe (they were having an AWESOME sale AND I had a coupon!). Awwww shopping.

The next day was Thursday and we went to Arlington, VA to visit my mom's aunt and uncle. On our way we stopped in Baltimore for lunch, this place was so cool but FREEZING inside!!! Colder than most freezing places I'm sure. But delicious and fun :)

As we continued our road trip saw the DC temple! It just comes out of all these trees while you're on the freeway (this picture doesn't do it justice)

You can barely see it here, it looked so amazing in real life, but that's the Temple back there in the mist!

 We had so much fun in VA! They have a beautiful home that made us feel like we were in a cabin in the woods because it was surrounded by trees! And it was supposed to rain so it was really really misty, like fake-looking misty, like the misty you see in movies...I loved it it was so so beautiful! I just stood in their backyard enjoying it. Anyways, we slept there that night and went to DC the next day.
I love love LOVE LOVE Washington DC! We only had 5 hours and you can't even make a dent of a dent in that time.

The beginning of our DC journey, our nation's Capital!

The front had a really pretty garden area.

This was the view from the capital, you can see all the way down to the Washington monument (which we couldn't go up because of the damage the earthquake did to it)

Naked baby! It was so dang humid Haddy was sweating, so we just took off her clothes! We were all jealous and wished we could just take off our clothes to cool off....

Pretty fountain....we really wanted to jump in.

Um, creepy headless statues. We didn't know anything about them, but I took a picture because of their creepiness.

Another creepy statue, a very large spider.

Justin with the Washington Monument in the back

Unfortunately our DC trip was cut short do to an uninvited guest named Irene....we had to leave early so we weren't driving in the midst of he wrath. So we said our goodbyes to my mom's wonderful aunt and uncle!

Then we headed back to Philly to prepare for the hurricane! Word to the unwise (because the wise already know this): don't wait until the last minute to prepare for a natural disaster, because EVERYTHING you need to buy is unavailable because everyone else waited until the last minute also. Well, we were unwise. The mayor said to expect power outages that could last up to two weeks (which has come to fruition, some people are still without power), so of course the stores are out of D batteries, flashlights, candles, water, and everything else useful. We literally went to at least five different places. We ended up with a little dinky headlight, and two tiny candles. Thankfully our area wasn't affected as bad and our power didn't even go out. But, thanks to the tornado warnings, it was a nerve-racking night.
The next day was Sunday and we just hung out all day. We weren't supposed to be out driving because of trees and power lines being down, and flooding.
Monday Justin had to go back to work unfortunately, but my mom and Haddy and I did some more hanging out.
Tuesday, Justin had to work again, so the girls went downtown to Independence Hall. We started off at the Liberty Bell then did a tour of Independence Hall. It made me realize how lucky we are to live in such a historic location!

Haddy loves George.

Let freedom ring.

Outside waiting for our tour to begin.

This is the courtroom.

George Washington himself sat at that very chair at that very desk. Wow, so amazing to be there.

This is kinda blurry cuz my camera sucks.

Again, blurry.

Unfortunately all good things must come to an end. The next day we took my mom to the airport so she could fly back to Utah. We had so much fun with her and were so glad she could come! I love my mom and I miss my family so it was good to see her.