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Please Touch Museum and trolleys in Philadelphia

Last Saturday we headed down to Philadelphia for some weekend adventures. Our first stop was finally visiting the Please Touch Museum. It’s a Philly classic in terms of children’s museums. We also discovered when making the plan to head down that it’s now located in Fairmount Park, having moved in 2008 from the location on […]

Science and Sesame Place

Last year we learned about the Association of Science and Technology Centers (ASTC) Passport Program which offers benefits across dozens of science and technology centers nationwide, including free admission. This has been particularly useful when we travel to Philadelphia, since it means there are several museums nearby that we can get into for free. A […]

Accidental Philly staycation

As I wrote in my last post, a COVID infection sweeping through our house meant we had to cancel our trip to Florida. I thought about canceling my time off at work too, but I had already shifted my schedule around at work, and I needed a vacation, so I kept it. Plus, our au […]

Summer COVID

Hours after I published the last post that I concluded with a mention of our planned trip to Florida, I came down with a sore throat. The next morning I woke up with the telltale headache, and then a message from a relative we’d spent the weekend confirmed it: COVID. The rapid test I took […]

Philly summer books, swimming, and baseball

We’ve now been in Philadelphia for four weeks, and our car decided that was enough. We woke up one morning to a tire that had incredibly low pressure, and upon inspection, it had a screw in it. Oops. MJ’s friend Matti was in town, so they were able to take it over to a local […]

Father’s Day weekend “down the shore”

The boys love the beach. I’ve had this little fact tucked away in my head since we brought them to their first beach in San Francisco last year, but it’s tricky in northern California. Even during the summer, it can be quite cool on the California coast, and the water is not good for swimming. […]

Philly summer begins! Settling in, trains, and dinosaurs

We’re in Philadelphia for 8 weeks this summer! I know it’s going to fly by. Indeed, a week has already gone. But it was a bit of a settling in week, and our au pair took the traveling opportunity to take a vacation and MJ spent the week in NYC for work, so I was […]

Lego, cherries, a railroad museum, room-sharing, and a boat ride

On May the 4th we stopped by a Lego store. It was a total coincidence, aside from wearings Star Wars gear, we didn’t really do anything to “celebrate” Star Wars day. The Lego store was though, they had paper R2-D2 hats! Naturally, we had to go in. I walked out with an R2-D2, and a […]

Loss, Passover, and our anniversary

The day before I left for my trip that took me to Austin and Seattle, MJ’s aunt Sherry died. It was unexpected, and in addition to the shock and grief, left us all in a troubled state about what to do logistically. Should I cancel my trip? Should we all drop everything and immediately fly […]

Spring break 2024 in Philly

For spring break (and an extra week) we decided to head out to Philadelphia to visit with the family, and have me do a couple side trips for Poughkeepsie and CPOSC. Unfortunately, for the first week a stomach bug swept through our house. First, Adam was sick for 24 hours. Two days later I came […]