Vacation 2013 - part 2

We caught a 7pm flight from St. Louis to Philadelphia. After waiting for our luggage and then the hotel shuttle, we checked in to our Phillie suite at almost midnight...without dinner! Everyone was tired and hungry so Daddy set out to find something, anything to eat. He came back and announced that a hole-in-the-wall pizza place was the only thing open and the pizza should be here soon. OMG...the pizza was soooooo good! I knew this was going to be the beginning of a great time!!! Once everyone had something in their belly, we went to sleep because morning would bring the drive to NJ.

The next morning, we checked out of our hotel and headed out to Jersey. It was the 4th of July so the plan was to check in to our new hotel and then head out to Aunt Kathy's house who was having a barbecue for us. We got to visit with Aunt Kathy, Aunt Laura, Grandma Barbara and a bunch of my cousins. Kalissa loved Aunt Kathy's birds!

After eating some delicious food and catching up on each others' lives, we drove back to the hotel and got ready to visit Uncle Felcie and his family. Kalissa had been really looking forward to meeting her cousins Mike & Alex so she was really excited to be going to their house. And of course after meeting them, it was as if they lived around the corner in her eyes! She bonded with them, Felcie and Aunt Raila right away. She especially loved dragging Alex around the living room and ALL the girls loved the basement (the secret play room)

The next day was Friday and we had planned to take a charter bus out to New York but after talking it over, I convinced Daddy that he could conquer the mean streets of NYC himself...and save ourselves a few hundred bucks too! We arrived safe and sound to Times Square around 11 in the morning and it was hot! Candy wanted to shop at the flagship Macy's so we hoofed it from one end of Times Square to the other. Along the way we visited the humongous Toys R Us and took plenty of pictures of us being tourists.

After walking 20 miles (okay, maybe not but it seemed like it) and getting lost in Macy's (yes, it's that huge), we worked up quite an appetite so we stopped for some deliciously famous New York pizza at Famiglia Pizzeria where we devoured a whole pie in record time.  Not wanting to walk the entire way back to our starting point, we took the opportunity to get on the subway (what's a trip to NY without riding the subway??) and Candy got her first NY street caricature done.

After a full day of NY hustle and bustle, we were thoroughly and officially worn out! So we happily packed up the family and headed back down to New Jersey were we would be meeting up with Felcie and family at the hotel for swimming!

The kids had a ball and Kalissa was so proud of herself because she was tall enough to touch the bottom of the pool all by herself. They played in the pool for hours! But all good things must come to an end so we said our final goodbyes to everyone *sniff sniff*

The next morning, we met up with my 'cousin' Robina. I hadn't seen her since I was 7 years old but a couple of years ago, I found her on Facebook and we vowed to meet up with each other the next time I was on the east coast. And the time had finally come!  She and her family drove up from Maryland even with her being 8 months pregnant!

After having a horrible breakfast as Crackerbarrel (first and last time I will ever eat there!), we headed out to visit Grandma Barbara but on the way, we stopped off to see my Dad's twin, Aunt Fannie and her husband, Uncle Gene. When we got to their house, we were greeted by Rocky...a big, slobbering, lovable lapdog (NOT!)!!

After our quick visit, we were back on the road to Grandma Barbara's house who was waiting to take us to Atlantic City. It's been about 13 years since I've been to A.C. and it sure has changed a lot!! We had a great time people watching and getting pooped on by seagulls (oh, that was just me??)

After yet another long day of touring the area, we snuggled in for our final night of sleep away from home! The next morning we had a delicious breakfast prepared by Barbara before heading the the airport. We left in plenty of time so we made a pitstop at Geno's so I could FINALLY get my hands on an authentic Philly cheesesteak! We boarded our flight with no problem but then...they announced that our plane was being diverted due to bad weather heading into St. Louis (where we were to catch our connecting flight home). We ended up stuck on the tarmac for over TWO HOURS! Our layover in St. Louis was only 2 hours long so this would mean that we were going to miss our connection. Oh well, nothing we could do until then so we tried to enjoy the short flight. We landed 20 minutes after our connecting flight was scheduled to depart and guess what? They were holding the plane for us!!! We heard over the loud speaker, "Whitaker, party of 5, your plane is waiting at terminal 9" WOOO HOOOOOO!! You didn't have to call us twice! We ran over to the terminal and settled in to our seats. It was the best feeling in the world to be headed HOME! And sleeping in our own bed that night was the best sleep ever!

We had a wonderful vacation but there is no place like home!