Day 10 Philadelphia, Independence Hall, Liberty Bell, Rocky Statue and Stairs, LOVE Sculpture, Philly LDS Temple

Day 10 we got up early, ate a hasty breakfast, left Secaucus N.J. and drove down to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania which was about a 2 hour drive.  Along the way we had to stop for gas.  As I pulled up to the gas pump a guy jumped out and asked what I wanted.  I guess I had pulled up to an all service gas station.  He wouldn't let me pump my own gas.  That is the first time I have ever had that happen.  The kids were all fascinated by it and watched his every move.  Here he is in my side mirror:

Aaron and I felt weird just sitting there watching him and not doing anything.  Afterward we were back on our way.

This day was Matthew's birthday.  Wahoo!  I picked him up a birthday badge to wear the whole day because he was so excited.  He even had a few friends call him on my phone to wish him a happy birthday.  It was really sweet.  He really does have some awesome friends!  Here's my cute birthday boy with his badge:

We started off in Philly waiting in line for the second part of our tour Aaron ran into an old mission companion who had brought his daughter for a visit that day.  I hadn't seen him since our wedding 18+ years ago so it was cool.  

We had a few hiccups in Philly as well. Aaron had reserved our family's tickets to Independence Hall online.  Thinking we were good to go it wasn't until we got in line to go on our tour that it was pointed out to us that we actually had to turn in our reserved tickets for actual physical tickets.  It was in the small print that got missed by Aaron and me.  Whoops.  The line to exchange the tickets was forever long and quite a ways away meaning that if we did try to exchange them we would miss our tour time.  When Matthew heard that they weren't going to let us go on the tour he started having a bit of a meltdown.  That's when an amazing thing happened.  Remember back in Nauvoo when we did baptisms for the dead?  The lady that had been with the family ahead of us happened to have the same tour time as we did.  She was the one who came and told me after Matthew had baptized me so excitedly that our family was her most favorite family to watch doing baptisms for the dead.  She came over because she had recognized us (mostly Matthew) and wanted to give us two of her tickets so Matthew would be able to go on his birthday.  It was such a sweet gesture!!  I think the tour guide finally realized what was going on and was nice enough to just accept our reservation email time instead of the actual physical tickets.  I was able to give the tickets back to the lady (I feel bad because I don't remember her name) and tell her how thankful I was for her awesomeness.  There are some really good people out there for sure!!

We started out the tour by this picture.  It is a picture of all the signers of the Declaration of Independence.  There were pictures of all the signers except for one.  In the painting the artist painted all the faces from the pictures, but the only guy without a picture still needed to be included in the painting so the artist painted him signing the Declaration so you didn't see his face.  I thought that was pretty funny.

Some history of Independence Hall is that it was built in 1732.  It is considered to be the birthplace of America since both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were both debated and signed in this building.

We started in the courtroom of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.  This is where a group of Pennsylvania militia men stormed in and tore down the British King George III's coat of arms.

We also got to see The Assembly Room where both the Declaration and Constitution were signed.  This is where the Liberty Bell was originally hung here.

This chair is the original one that George Washington sat which is called 'The Rising Sun' chair which was pretty cool to see:

We weren't able to see upstairs, but we were able to appreciated the awesome architecture of the building.  The beautiful woodwork around the windows, ceiling and staircase.

We then were able to go and see the 'original copies' of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and the Articles of Confederation.

They said these were the originals, but they had the signatures actually typed out instead of signed so we don't know what to think.

They were still cool to see original or not.  Here's the Constitution:

Articles of Confederation:

Declaration of Independence:

Here's the silver Syng inkstand believed to be used by the 56 signers of the Declaration.

We then visited Congress Hall.  This building was constructed between 1787-1789.  In the 1790's it was used to house the U.S. Congress.  The House of Representatives met on the bottom floor while the Senate assembled upstairs.  We started out on the bottom floor:

They had us gather and did a presentation about the building which was pretty cool.  

We then were able to go upstairs.

The second floor was where the U.S. Sentate met.

We did see an old press which was cool:

West Committee Room:

There are huge portraits of Marie Antionette and King Louis XVI which were gifts from the French government.

East Committee Room:

After that we walked over to see the Liberty Bell:

The kids tried to see what the inside of the bell looked like:

We then wandered over to the B. Free Franklin Post Office and Museum and picked up a few postcards to mail out.

I think it is really cool that we were all actually there at the same place the post card picture showed.

The interesting thing about mailing a postcard from this particular post office is they cancel the stamp using Ben Franklin's signature:

Next it was time for lunch.  You can't go to Philadelphia and NOT get a cheesesteak sandwich!!  Luckily, the post office clerk from the B. Free Franklin Post Office recommended a restaurant close by where we headed to next. 

 

It was a small place so I tried to find seats for our huge family somewhat together while Aaron and Josh waited in line to order and pick up our food.

Yay we were able to all sit together and eat our yummy cheesesteaks!

When traveling around I didn't like hauling my huge purse around so I just transferred the essentials (credit card, cash, ID) into a small pouch that I wore instead.  The bad thing was that I needed a pen to fill something out which I didn't have.  I went into the gift shop to get one and the cheapest pen they had was a stupid plastic feather pen that fell apart as soon as you took the lid off.  I was trying to get it to work and it was a bit frustrating.  Aaron thought it was hilarious so he took a picture of the stupid pen and me trying to get it to work.  Luckily, I was able to fill out what I needed and then I didn't need to write with it anymore.

We then stopped by the Philadelphia LDS temple.  It is really pretty.

We were able to find a parking spot relatively close and walk around the grounds.  It is a pretty place.

We also stopped by the Rocky statue to grab a family picture.

You can't stop by the Rocky statue and NOT climb/jog up the actual stairs!  Me and the kids raced up.

Aaron cheered us on from the bottom of the stairs and took a few pictures--haha! Daniel ran up and beat everyone then ran back down before I could get his picture.  However, I was able to get a picture of the rest of the kids at the top.  Yes, I did jog up the stairs, too!

As we were driving around town we did get to see the beautiful Philly City Hall:

We did get to see the famous LOVE sculpture as well:

By this time the kids were done for the day so we went and checked in to our hotel.  After that we went and picked up some HUGE ice cream sandwiches and sang Happy Birthday to Matthew.

I think that was a pretty awesome birthday spending it in Philadelphia, hopefully Matthew did, too!