Philadelphia!!

We recently returned from a Wednesday - Sunday visit with Brigg, Havalah, and Luke in Philadelphia and had a marvelous time!  We were quite thrilled with how close New Jersey and Delaware are - we drove to Wilmington Delaware one night for dinner and crossed the Ben Franklin bridge into Camden New Jersey (home of Rutgers U) so we could say we'd been to New Jersey - actually we took a wrong turn onto the bridge but wanted to visit that state anyway!!  On Sunday we found a very nice branch of the church to attend, the Widener Branch, who were having only their 2nd Sunday in their new meeting place.  They were very gracious (they were hoping we were moving in!) and even when they found out we were just visiting were so friendly!  It's wonderful to go to church where ever you might be in this world and you get those same great feelings.  We visited Valley Forge, downtown Philadelphia with the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, Logan Circle, Franklin Institute of Science, Reading Terminal Market, 4th street fabric row where we had the biggest Reuben sandwich ever at the Famous 4th St. Deli, went swimming several times, and much much more.  I honestly think Luke had as much fun looking out of our 5th story hotel room at airplanes coming in and big trucks and buses going by!  We'd never been to this city of brotherly love before and neither had our kids, so we decided instead of going to Morgantown we would meet in Philadelphia - and we're so glad we did!  Here are a few of the many pictures we took.

La Conner, TULIPS

We spent the day in the Skagit Valley today drinking in the beautiful colors of the tulips and daffodils.  One of Marcie's FAVORITE activities.  So glad Scott indulges me in this!!

It was a beautiful, clear day in the 60's.  We could see many of the mountains, this is Mt. Baker. The other previous pictures are of the bay in Mukilteo where we spent the night. (I don't do this blog very often, these comments were supposed to be under the previous picture), This picture is just the parking lot of the fields and grounds we were going to see.

The beauties of the earth:)

New Shakespear baby- Dallen

Megan and Jeremy had their 5th darling child on March 1st, Dallen Frost Shakespear. They have four boys and a girl. Scott and Marcie each spent a week with them (separately-to give Meg an extra week of help). Meg is a wonderful mother and Jeremy is a great dad.  Here are a few of the pictures taken in those two weeks.

Paradise - at Mt. Rainier!

We took our youth to Mt. Rainier today - Paradise in particular.  We had sleds and tubes and the park has a wonderful area where runs are already prepared for that purpose.  We had a great time - here are some of the pictures taken:

Our YW president looks cold!!

Our new Bishop had a great time with his youth

Enjoying a hot lunch

Priests Quorum with the older man:)