We are home again. We all missed Daddy and he missed us. We did have some fun in Philly and we did get to visit with some friends we hadn't seen in a few years. Our week in review:
Sunday: We left our house in the afternoon and started our way through Ohio. We were able to meet my dear agency and DTC buddy Laurie and her family for dinner. Jenna, Hannah and Jordan were awesome. I wish we'd have had more time to visit with them but it was getting late and we wanted to make it through Ohio that night.
Monday: We made it to Philly. Driving in Philly was an experience but we finally made it to the hotel! Mom needed to pick up some prescriptions so we walked the 4 or 5 blocks to Walgreens. Well they had some printer issues and it took over an hour and a half to get her meds. While she waited on her scripts the girls and I walked down to Chinatown. I was a little disappointed. They were doing some sort of construction on the main road and many of the shops were closed because they didn't have any power. Bummer.
Tuesday: Mom had some training classes so the girls and I did a little swimming. After mom got back from class, we drove over to the Jersey shore -- Atlantic City! No, we did not go into the casinos! While the Boardwalk and the beach was nice we were a little shocked by the surrounding areas that you had to walk through to get to the Boardwalk.
Wednesday: The girls and I visited the Liberty Bell and a few things around there. We then ventured back into NJ and went to Chuck E Cheese's. We were able to meet our travelmate Lisa and her daughters Samantha and Sydnie. Samantha and Olivia were roommates in the orphanage. They hadn't seen each other in 3 years and picked up just where they left off. Sydnie was adopted the same time Sophia was and it was great to meet her. We had a great 3 hours visiting them and playing! Olivia is generally the smallest/shortest in the group but Samantha is even shorter than Olivia! She is a cute, tiny girl! After we got back to the hotel, I took the girls down to the pool and let them swim for a while.
Thursday: I packed up our stuff and we just did some walking around, met mom for lunch and went back to the hotel to take naps. We checked out of the hotel and took off for home. We tried several places to get a hotel room to no avail. We ended up driving much further than we planned but were thankful to have found a room.
Friday: We left our hotel in OH and drove to Columbus. We stopped at a couple of scrapbooking places and left to meet another travelmate for lunch. We met Susan and Tootie (her nickname on her blog) for lunch and had a great time catching up. We are hoping the M family can come to our groups next outting which is in September at the Zoo. It was amazing to see Olivia and Tootie interact with each other. I think it has been about 2 years since they've seen each other and they were so cute together. As much as Olivia is short, Tootie is tall. I was amazed at how much taller T was than Olivia -- probably close to 5.5 inches taller! I wish I could share pictures but privacy is important to Susan as her pics are password protected but let me just say the pics are cute of them interacting. After we left Susan and Tootie, we headed for home.
That was our week in a nut shell. Check back for pics soon.
Well, it is official -- Olivia is a Kindergartener! She was a little apprehensive this morning but did wonderfully. She had her favorite (well one of her favorites) cinnamon rolls for breakfast. It was a toss up between the cinnamon rolls and sausage (with eggs) and the cinnamon rolls won. She walked in like a big girl, found her cubby, put up her back pack and lunch. Then she found her name and sat down. She and another girl named Gracie shared a puzzle while waiting for class to start. Mommy didn't cry but Daddy got tears in his eyes. Here are a few pics for y'all: 
Now:
Olivia jumping off the diving board:
