Spring Break

M, the kids and I just returned from our trip to Philly. We took the kids back East for a spring break getaway, and met up with K & her fiancee for a wedding shower with M's family and close friends. We had some great visits and good family time together in the van, in our little apartment in Philly and with our extended family away. We did some advance planning for M's dietary needs prior to leaving, packing gluten free pretzels, nuts, gluten free blueberry muffins (I baked them myself!) and a loaf of gf bread to make sandwiches on the way out. Everyone who fed us was very conscientious of M's diet restrictions and we ate like royalty. M's mother made gf meatballs, beef stew and I assisted with chicken on the ritz, substituting gf crackers for ritz on M's portion. M's sister made a delicous cheesecake dessert with gf chocolate cookies and cheesecake mousse, it was yummy. I took along a gf brownie mix, which was Bob's Red Mill blend, it was also quite yummy, especially with the fudge topping recipe on the back. We visited our sister-in-law and her kids one day and LMH joined us, they put together a kid friendly lunch, with gf choices for M and a luscious bowl of fruit to snack on after the kids played outside. All in all, our eating was pretty good, not ideal, but we tried to keep ourselves focused on not just blowing our forward progress on one vacation.

I managed to walk about three days, once with M to get our EZpass, which was about a mile and a half walk in downtown Philly. V & I went to taking the stairs down from the Penthouse floor of the building we stayed in to our 5th floor apartment, I didn't try going all the way up, perhaps I'll be able to tackle that on the next trip.

Highlights of the trip for me were: Seeing so many family members and friends at the shower for K & E. M's sister, KHH, and good friend Vee, threw a nice party, with great food and so many family members and family friends were present, many traveling several hours to be with us; our day spent in Cape May, we had a chilly walk on the beach, brunch at Uncle Bill's Pancake House (I got my potato pancake fix), trolley tour and tour of Physick Mansion, shopping, ever so briefly at Washington Street Mall, quick trip to the Lighthouse and dinner at the Lobster House; Spending time with LMH and family; our trip to Philly suburbs to have lunch with cousins and aunts; a horse and carriage ride through historic sites in Philly; my lunch time with KHH and a relaxing dinner on the "veranda" soaking up some sun and margarita's as we faced our last night in the city. We left Philly Friday morning, not without stopping for a real Philly cheesesteak from Dominick, a street vendor we've come to know. Poor M, had to settle for a few bites of the cheesesteak I handed him off of mine, but we all got a taste of this Philadelphia favorite. Our trip home was uneventful, other than hitting some heavy rain outside of Toledo. We stopped for lunch in Iowa City to meet an old college friend of mine, before arriving home around 7 p.m. M, left this morning for a business trip to Philly, and I leave next week for Denver. April will fly by into May for all of us.