Someone loves us!

Yay! Megan, Zack's sister, came and put up with us for a few days. We are so glad she did because we sure had a good time.

She arrived last Friday, and we just spent the evening kinda vegging out. Okay, maybe not kinda. We watched like 7 hours of TV. Yeah, we really know how to start a vacation in Philly off with a bang.

Megan lives in rainy Tacoma and was probably hoping to escape some of that rain while she was here. Saturday wasn't very helpful in that regard. It rained all day and was pretty darn cold. We made the best of it anyway and saw some good stuff. We went to the Rosenbach, which is an historic mansion/rare book library. They own all of Maurice Sendack's (Where the Wild Things Are) original artwork and were having a display of that in honor of the release of the movie last weekend. That was pretty cool. Who didn't love that book growing up? They also had a number of other rare books/manuscripts, including Ulysses, Dracula, Alice in Wonderland, and we even spotted a 1st edition Book of Mormon on the tour. After that, we tromped through the rain to Rittenhouse Square just to check that out. Since it was so cold and wet, we made a stop at Naked Chocolate Cafe-- yummy! Megan said it was the best hot chocolate she has ever had. Ever. I am with her there. If you ever come visit, don't miss this one. We could even take you there in the summer. Their frozen hot chocolate is delicious too. After a wee bit of shopping, we went to Macy's, which was once Wannamaker's, Philadelphia's first department store. I think I have mentioned it before. It is a gorgeous building, and they have the largest playable pipe organ in the world there. They have free concerts every day, so we caught that, which was pretty sweet. We polished off the day with some delicious Mexican at El Azteca, and a play at the Walnut Street Theatre. We saw Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which was funny. We made it home that evening, tired and glad to get outta the rain.

On Sunday, church was cancelled and a special meeting was called at the stake center for our ward and a few others. We knew something big was in store. There were 4 wards and a branch when we arrived there, and 3 wards and a branch by the time we left. Our ward lost a small chunk (which starts just 1 block away from us... Phew, that was close), but mostly we picked up some areas, which is so great. We really needed some manpower in our ward. We won't be at church this Sunday because we are going on a weekend getaway, but we are excited to meet all the new people and see how the changes affect our ward for the better. (Just as a side note: the young women's president was in the small chunk we lost, so it looks like change is in the air as far as my calling goes). So that was all very exciting for us. Probably much less so for Megan. Sunday was another take it easy sort of day. We drove around in search of beautiful fall leaves, and just kinda bundled up inside (it was cold and rainy again).

Monday was finally rain free (although still somewhat cold). I had to work so Megan and Zack had some fun without me. I can't fill you in on the details but they went to Eastern State Penitentiary (the daytime tour, which is excellent by the way), and they explored a couple parts of the city like South Street and Old City. That evening, we got some delicious gelato and we went on a ghost tour. Tuesday was just gorgeous weather-wise. I worked again. While I was working, Zack and Megan went to the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, got some lunch at Reading Terminal Market, and toured the Betsy Ross House. That evening, we tried a restaurant that some of our friends have recommended called Scannicchios (it's Italian food). My opinion-- meh. Maybe I just ordered the wrong thing or something, but I thought Zack's food was just meh too. I think I could pass on going there again. I just don't see what all the hype is about. It was fine. It just didn't knock my socks off like people said it would. I think we'll stick to High Note Cafe in the future. I think that's my South Philly Italian of choice. After dinner, we went to Eastern State Penitentiary for their haunted house, which is called "Terror Behind the Walls". It is very well done, and I had a good time. Finally, we got some water ice. We had to get Philly Flavors since we couldn't find an open Rita's, and it's just not as good, but it was still yummy and we couldn't let Megan leave without having that.

We hope Megan had a good time, and we hope others might consider coming to see us in the future.

We took very few pictures, but I will try to post some soon.