Vaction update

We've been seeing so much stuff the last few days that by the time we get back to the hotel I just want to crash rather than update my blog.
The forth of July was even busier than we expected at Williamsburg. The first day we were here it seemed like we pretty much had the place to ourselves. But Wednesday there were people everywhere. We did out best to re-visit some of the same places we went Tuesday in hopes of recreating some of the photos I lost. Didn't get many of them replaced but we did manage to create several new ones.
We went back to the hotel earlier than we would have otherwise so the kids could get some more swimming in. Rachel and Victoria stayed back for some period dancing lessons. After the swimming and a nice dinner at Red Lobster we went back for the fireworks. The kids thought this was the coolest part of the trip so far. Eve gets the quote of the day, "Daddy it is like the sky is screaming." The fireworks were going off right over our heads and we were even getting little pieces of paper and ash in our hair.
Thursday we checked out and drove through Pennsylvania dutch country. After a little bit of searching we found the Amish buggy rides that we'd looked up. It was about a 30 minute ride with a really nice driver. The scenery was beautiful. at one point he stopped on a little dairy farm and we bought some chocolate chip cookies from two littel danish girls. We just missed the the thunderstorm which hit us during our dinner. Then we continued on to Phildelphia.
Our hotel in Philly was about a mile from Independence Hall, We took a shuttle and waited in line at the visitors center for our tour of the histroic area. We saw the congress building while we were waiting and then we went over to the hall I'm not sure how much of this the kids understood but they were pretty well behaved for it. It wasn't perfect but they did pretty good.
After that we saw the Liberty Bell and then took a buggy ride of some of the older houses and buildings in the area.
It was a little bit out of the way but we then found a great place to get a "cheese wit" and some "wuda ice". For those of you who don't speak Pilly, that is a Philly cheese steak with onions and Italian ices. The kids loved them. Noah grabbed a free sample of pizza from another store trying to drum up business and sucked it right down.
After lunch it was ferry ride to New Jersey to see the aquarium and the Battleship. once we got over there we found out that they both were going to close at 5:00 so we opted to just get the aquarium. I think Aaron and Victoria would have loved it but we just didn't have enough time. The ferry driver made up for us missing it by driving back right next to the Battleship to give us an up close view. Victoria said, "This thing is massive!"
All in all it was a good day in Philly. We're all having a good time and spending money like there's no tomorrow.
Tomorrow we head out to New York City. We'll be staying in Hobokken but on the rail line so we can take the subway everywhere we need to go.