Leaving Boston completes Phase I of the Urie Family Nomad year; the initial 10 months that we booked is officially done. 🤯🤯🤯
And as we embark on phase II, we are all feeling very grateful for all of the adventures we’ve had. But we are also incredibly grateful to know, at last, what comes next.
So, today, we bid ‘adieu’ to Phase I! And Boston too!
And we say ‘hello’ to Phase II and Philadelphia!!
(But first, a quick ‘Hello’ to a Connecticut Chick-Fil-A on the drive to Philly.)
We arrived in the early evening and got all settled in. The Airbnb we are staying in is lovely. It has a small footprint and is 5 floors tall:
- The basement (where Clara slept),
- The ground floor (Kitchen and living room, there was no space for a table, just a large island that doubled as a table)
- The master bedroom floor (which is literally the master suite + a tiny closet for the laundry),
- Two small bedrooms (the floor that the 4 younger kids slept on)
- The top floor is a small living room and a balcony.
We would have had most impressive legs if we had stayed for a month.
Also, the parking situation was tricky. It literally took 20 minutes for Jonathan to find a parking spot. This area is definitely in the process of gentrification. There are several new apartment buildings, and none of them have dedicated parking. Street parking was it. So yeah, kinda tricky.
Besides the parking situation, it is a cool area; there were a lot of fun stores, shops, and restaurants.
Jonathan and Clara made a quick run to the grocery store for supplies and also to scope out the public transportation a bit.
09.25.22- Sunday
The next morning, we rode the subway downtown to attend church (in part so that we wouldn’t have to deal with parking). The kids were all quite excited to ride the subway. The three older kids are basically subway pros after navigating NYC. So they were very willing to help out the newbs among us. And luckily we didn’t lose anyone.
And we looked like a cute little 1950s family in our fancy duds.
Our subway ride was over in a flash and we got out and started making our way to the church. We had a lovely walk with lots to see the whole way.
Eventually we made it and went inside. The church and the Philadelphia temple are pretty much on the same block, and so we got some views of the temple as well.
After church was over, we went and walked around the temple grounds for a few minutes. And we even had a little snack on one of the benches. It was peaceful and lovely. And of course the snacks helped. Because as we’ve established, Kids + snacks= Parents x sanity
After we had wandered around the temple grounds for a bit, we started making our way back toward the subway station.
And eventually we arrived home. About 20 minutes after we got home, the heavens opened and there was a torrential downpour.
We were very happy that we made it home when we did.
We had lunch/dinner and relaxed a bit and went to bed early. Cause we have things to do tomorrow!!
