Philadelphia

The week after Katy's trip we headed to Philadelphia.  Its hard to believe that so many years have passed since my graduation that this little guy

 

 

was graduating himself



 

There was some confusion at first as to whether or not tickets were needed for the actual graduation. We didn't think we would be able to take all the kids so we made plans to take them sightseeing. A few days before, we found out we could all go to the graduation but we decided to stick with our original plan.  We met Nicholas's family and Tonya at a train station and drove in together.  Since Nicholas's family lived there for a few years it was nice to have our own personal tour guides. 

Our first stop was the Art Museum.., or rather, the steps to the art Museum.  Yes, we ran up them and I may or may not having been playing the Rocky song on my phone while we ran up them.  We even did a shuffle with fist pump when we reached the top.  There actually aren't near as many steps as I'd imagined.

 View of Philadelphia from top of the Art Museum stairs

 Me, Natalie, and Tonya

Our next stop was to the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.  Unfortunately, the Independence  Hall was sold out of tours for the day. 

 I liked the view of the Hall behind the bell

Afterwards we ate lunch at the Reading Terminal which is an adventure in and of itself.  The place is crazy but we somehow managed to find seats all together.  Our cousins were there at the same time and we had no idea because the place is so large and crazy.  Super fun though!  At some point on our adventure we accidently drove straight through China Town.  I loved it though and was very glad we did.  I wished we'd had time to get out and explore

We price lined our hotel rooms and called immediately after booking to request two doubles or queens. The hotel assured us that was not a problem but when we showed up we had two king suites and there were no extra rooms. Two king suites doesn't work very well with 5 adults and 4 kids.  They did bring in roll away beds for us which helped some.

Marcus's graduation party was at a restaurant.  And no Buchkovich party would be complete without dancing!

Weston and Xandy dancing along with Jacob and Katy

 Tonya and I dancing

 Grandma and my cousin Todd dancing

 Jacob was really getting down on the dance floor.  He had everyone in stitches.  I tried to get video but he would stop everytime I tried.  Natalie brought Weston's old Scooby Doo for Jacob.  He loves it!