Mia's Visit.

My sister, Mia, came out to Philly about a week and a half ago for a long weekend visit. We stayed busy and loved having her! Here are some highlights from her visit...

She arrived late Wednesday night, and the kids were super excited to see her when they woke up on Thursday morning. The weather was awesome, so we immediately headed out to the Philadelphia Zoo! It's a pretty cool zoo with all of the typical zoo animals. One thing that we thought was unique was that there were peacocks seemingly running free throughout the zoo. Here's a close up...

Mia and Kylie in the car wash play area.

Flamingos.

Giraffes.

Brooks loved the "eesh."

That monkey looks a lot like my daughter! :)

Jon was off on Friday, so Mia and I decided to drive up to NYC for the day without the kids. Mia had never been there, so it was our goal to see all of the major tourist attractions...and we did! Some might call us the ultimate tourists! :) We started out on the north end with a visit with Rebecca and her girls. I had never met the twins, so I was so glad we were able to hang out with them for a little while. 

Then we walked to Central Park. We got a hot dog from a food stand and ate while we explored. After that, we walked down along 5th Avenue to Rockefellar Plaza where we got scammed by a hat salesman. He said he was giving away hats with a recommended donation of $10 that would go directly to feeding the homeless. We fell for it, and he made $20 off of us! :) We walked over to Times Square and Grand Central Terminal. We walked past the Empire State Building and down through Greenwich Village to see the Freedom Tower and 9/11 Memorial. The actual Memorial had a line that stretched on for miles, so we stopped in the store instead and watched a short video. We rested our legs and grabbed a quick bite to eat at a pizza place. Then we saw The Statue of Liberty and Wall Street before taking an accidental detour through Chinatown, which was interesting. At this point we had walked close to 15 miles, so we caught a cab back up to Dylan's Candy Shop. We bought a couple of pounds of candy, and stopped by Rebecca's one more time before heading back to Philly. It was a crazy fun day!

Central Park.

Me and Matt.

M&M Store in Times Square. 

Times Square.

The Freedom Tower.

The Empire State Building at night...on our way out of the city.

Saturday we pretty much did our normal Philly routine with the exception of the Broad Street Run Expo. Mia, the kids, and I picked up a few goodies, and had our picture taken! :) Kylie was all ready for gymnastics, in her leotard again!

Thanks for a fun visit, Mia! We had so much fun! :)