Bowman West

Don't hold your breath...

It has been next to impossible to get a picture for our Christmas card. This is the one time a year that we get a family picture and I use the excuse of needing it for the card. There hasn't been a time in the last three months when Andy's off work and awake at home, it's not Charlie's nap time, it's sunny and warm outside, and my sis is free to take the picture (she's got the awesome camera). So I think this holiday season we'll be sending out "hope your holidays were happy" or new years cards. I deeply appreciate and love getting all the picture cards in the mail and they look great on our fridge. I just had to clarify here that if you don't get our card it's not because you're not on the list. We're just waiting for the right picture!

In other news, Andy and I had an amazing trip to Philly. I highly recommend it! We stayed downtown in the Radisson Plaza-Warwick Hotel. It's in a beautiful old building and has incredible resaurants with a boutique-hotel feel. Our room had a king-size Sleep Number bed with down comforter, a 32" flatscreen high-def LCD TV, bathroom with rain shower head, and was incredibly clean. Sunday we woke up stunned to find that it was already 11:00 am! Monday Andy went to his conference while I slept till 10:30 then roamed the city.

At the recommendation of locals, we ate cheesesteaks at Jim's Steaks on South Street. Awesome! Don't mess up your order or you'll get yelled at. Luckily the line gave us time to practice before we stepped up to the counter. It was very Seinfeld-esque.

It sleeted on our sight-seeing day but we braved it for a little while. We went to the Mutter Museum, which is a small medical history museum originally established to educated medical students. They have embalmed specimens of deformed fetuses, babies, limbs, as well as all types of pathologies. It was disgusting but SO intriguing. I was both amazed and nauseous upon leaving. I do not reccommend this stop unless you've got a strong stomach and vacant uterus. I think the fetal deformities would be WAY too much to handle if you were pregnant.

We also went to the Cathedral Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul. This is only the fourth cathedral that I've been in (St. Paul, MN; Mazatlan, MX; New Orleans; Philly). Each time I've been amazed by the solitude and beauty of the place. I can't help but want to light some candles and kneel to pray. I think there's more to ritual than we recognize in non-denominational (but really denominational) flavored churches. As we sat there I asked Andy of he'd ever been in a cathedral. He replied, "I've been to Rome." Oh, I forgot.

Our next stop was the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. The hilarious thing about our trip to the Bell was that we were stuck in one big cliche. Right as we got there a huge group of Asian tourists jumped in front of us to take pictures with the Bell. We stood there forever while they arranged every possible combination of person and camera. It was insane. Instead of getting mad we laughed and got a picture of the scene for the sole purpose of posting it here. Andy's in the bottom left corner of the photo.

Luckily the group didn't follow us across the street to Independence Hall where we jumped in the last tour group of the day. There were only about 20 people in the group and we had a hilarious (in the dry, witty sense) guide that LOVES Amerian history. It was pretty amazing to stand in the actual rooms where the Declaration was signed and the Constitution was drafted. We LOVE this stuff. A weird thing is that one of the guys in our tour group was from Austin and he also has a sister who lives in Bastrop (as do I). Small world.

There's so much to write about but the last thing I need to mention is that someone beat someone else in a game of bowling at the coolest bowling alley/bar/restaurant that I've ever been to. It's called Lucky Strike and it's where all the celebrities bowl in Hollywood. Unfortunately it's just where bored tourists bowl in Philly.

Thanks to my mom and dad for taking care of Charlie while we were gone. My mom also helped me paint my front door and kitchen. She did laundry, scrubbed the floors, did dishes, etc. I'm sad they're gone.