October 5

I had been looking forward to today because we went to Daniel Boone's Homestead.  I did a gigantic ancestor report last year in Mrs. Sontag's class.  I am a direct descendant of Daniel Boone.  He is my great, great, great, great, great, great, grandfather.

At the Homestead there were two barn cats.  We took a guided tour of the house.  We saw the spinning wheel room, the dining room. kitchen and bedrooms.  We also saw the basement that had a cold spring that always stays 40 degrees year round.  It never freezes over.  They used it as their refrigerator.  It had been there since Daniel Boone lived there when he was a boy.  I bought a leather pouch as a souvenir.

After that we went to a fancy McDonald's.  It had a big fancy playground we played on.  We played there for about an hour.  It was in Reading, Pennsylvania.  Then we went to Valley Forge.  We took a driving tour.  We saw where George Washington stayed during the winter.  We also saw small log cabins the soldiers stayed in.  I got a small stuffed animal owl, I named Fred, as a souvenir.

It was a long day.  We were glad to get back to the hotel.

October 4

Today there were four main events.

Event #1:  Today was my birthday.

Event #2:  We went to the US coin mint.

Event #3:  We went to the Adventure Aquarium across the river in New Jersey.

Event #4:  We went to Friendly's for dinner.

Now to tell you about the events.  As you know, today was my 9th  birthday.  I got nine presents.  It was a coincidence.   My three favorite presents were Pokemon Diamond, Pokemon Pearl and Poke Park II.  Since we didn't have wii at the hotel, I didn't get to play the wii games. 

Our first stop of the day was the US Mint.  When we saw where the coins were made, we were very surprised it was about 4 football fields long but there were only 2 or 3 people working there.  We guessed the machines did all the work.  We saw them making pennies.  After that we went down to the gift shop and bought ourselves some gifts.  I didn't see anything I liked there so I took a picture in a photo booth instead.

After that we went to the aquarium in New Jersey. We heard from Christopher's friend's mom who lived in Philadelphia that we should definitely go to Adventure Aquarium. We didn't write down the names of all the fish and stuff because we found it was too much work.  Here were my favorite exhibits:  the penguins, the hippos, and the ginormorous tank with sting rays and manta rays.  We saw a show in the tank where some divers dove in and told us about their equipment.  The hippos were in an African river exhibit with some birds.  You were able to see the hippos really well through the glass.  In the bird part of the exhibit there was a sign that said, "WARNING:  Birds poop every 15 minutes.  How long have you been standing here?"

I got a robot ring that I think looks like my dad at work.  I also got a sea turtle stuffed animal.  I named him George.

I went to Friendly's for my birthday dinner.  I had  mini grilled cheese sandwiches.  They tasted very good.  The best part was my ice cream.  Here is what it was:  a double cone that has 2 places for ice cream scoops.  I had 2 scoops of chocolate chip cookie dough with cold melted marshmallow and carmel toppings.  It took me a long time to eat it because it was so messy.  My ice cream was the very best part of the day. 

October 3

Today and yesterday were very memorable days. Yesterday, I forgot to mention that the fire alarm in our hotel went off at 7:00 pm. Then it went off again this morning at 5:00am. There was no fire at either time. It was just a false alarm. It made me nervous and now I feel like it is going to go on again at any second.

Now back to the main and more positive events of the day. Here are the places we went today: the Liberty Bell, Betsy Ross's House, Ben Franklin's Grave, ruins of the first Presidential House that George Washington and John Adams lived in before the White House was built, and Independence Hall. We had a tour guide at Independence Hall but he was pretty boring so we left early. While we were there, we saw George Washington's sunrise chair and the old fashion court room. This is also where they signed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

After Independence Hall, we had lunch at a food court that only sold fast food. I ate a piece of pizza dipped in ketchup. It tasted very good. I also had 2 scoops of chocolate marshmallow ice cream. I bought a small replica of the Liberty Bell with a stand.

We had a walking tour but we only stayed for about 15 or 20 minutes. The tour was free but your were expected to pay a tip. Here is the conversation Mom had with the tour guide before we left:

Mom: "I am sorry, but I underestimated my children's attention spans."

So then Mom tried to give the tip to the lady but the lady said:

Lady: "I am sorry but I am not allowed to accept any tips on Federal Grounds."

I am not sure why you aren't allowed to accept tips on Federal Grounds, but that is what I heard Mom and the lady say.

So then we walked by ourselves to see Benjamin Franklin's graveyard. We had to pay $6 to get in. Only after we found the grave, did we find out his grave was next to the fence and we could have just looked in for free.  When we were done, we went to look at the outside of Betsy Ross's house. We saw a replica of the flag she had sewn.

It was really hot today. We were glad to get back to the hotel, (even though, I still feel like the fire alarm is going to go off at any second).

October 2

The Franklin Institute is where we went today.  Early in the morning, we had breakfast in the lobby of our hotel.  We had to eat our breakfast fast so we could take my dad to work.  Once we dropped my dad off, we went to the Franklin Institute.

First we went and saw a big statue of Benjamin Franklin.  The first real exhibit we went to was the Earth exhibit.  In the Earth exhibit, we made our own weather forecasts and measured our carbon footprint.  Next we went to the electricity exhibit.  You made a call with your cell phone next to a large wall of lights.  When you made a call the lights lit up.  The second part of the exhibit showed Ben Franklin's lightening rod and how it attracted electricity.

The third part of the exhibit there was an educational video game (not x-box or something like that) where you supplied electricity to 8,000,000 people with mines, solar plants, wind plants and dams.  There were so many more exhibits, I can't name them all.

We also went to the planetarium and learned about the night sky.

There was a sky bike, which is basically a bicycle on a tightrope except it has a lot more safety equipment.  I rode on it.  You were supposed to ride back and forth twice, but I only did it once because it felt like I was gong to tip over and fall.  The sky bike was on the 3rd floor and it went out across the atrium.  You had to get off where you started.

It was a good day to be in a museum because it rained all day.  I got a bounce back ball as a souvenir.

October 1

   Today we went to the oldest zoo in the country. Here are the names of all the animals we saw (you don't have to read all the names if you don't want to) : camels, turtles, apes, ibis, chickens, roosters, bugs, goats, turkeys, donkeys, sheep, lions, pumas, black footed cats, mongoose, jaguars, tigers, red pandas, hornbills, hippos, giraffes, Coscorabas swans, lots of reptiles, amphibians, alligators, crocodiles, peahens ( female peacocks ), screech owls, okapi, marmosets, duprasi, tree shrews, aardvarks, lynx, otters, Aldabra and Galapagos tortoises, Central American river turtles, black swans, Cape Barren geese, black headed swans, Humboldt penguins, Andean bears, polar bears, rhinos, zebras, storks, addax, gazelles, coati, pelicans, vultures, squirrels, rabbits, chinchillas, ducks, snow leopards,  and mirror cats.

TOTAL NUMBER OF ANIMAL TYPES SEEN=

58!

The peahens were not in cages but they were rooming the park freely,  so were the squirrels.  The bunny rabbits got their own miniature town to hop around in, in their cage.  Christopher sat on some bird poop and we had to wash his pants.  My favorite animals to see were all the turtles, tortoises, penguins and otters.  I thought the coolest exhibit was the penguins because it looked like it was a  camp where the revolutionary war soldiers camped out.  Their homes were the tents and small buildings. I didn't get a prize there because there were lots of other zoos you could get prizes from so I didn't waste my money.

We went to Wegman's, the grocery store, for lunch.

Highlights for animal pictures:

Look at the aardvark's eyelashes!

The tortoise is staring at you!

 My GramB was the photographer. She's really good!

September 30

 Last night my Dad came home from Europe and we were glad he could go with us to Hershey, PA. When we first arrived at Chocolate World, we saw how they packaged Hershey kisses. We got to be on the assembly line. After that we went on a ride that showed how they made chocolate products. It takes a lot of steps. Our next stop was the make your own chocolate bar. First you had to put on special hats and aprons so there was no hair in the chocolate. Here is how you made the chocolate. First you go and find an open touch screen. Once you get to the touch screen you scan your ticket and it will say your name. If your name is wrong then you press no that is not your name. If it is, you press yes. Once you are in you get to choose what type of base chocolate you will have. The base chocolates are white chocolate, milk chocolate, and dark chocolate. I chose white chocolate. And then you got to choose what goes in your base chocolate. I chose butterscotch chips and chocolate chips, they were the only ones that did not have peanuts in them, other than the raspberries, but I didn't like them. After that you got to go and see your chocolate bar with all of the ingredients being put in. When you finished looking at your chocolate bar, you got to design a seal for it. There were a bunch of different things you could put on. Here are the things I chose: my background color was green,  SCOTT'S, a cow that says Hershey's milk chocolate, Chocolate Lover, and a small hershey's. I got a Hershey's pillow and a tie dyed kisses shirt as souvenirs.

Next we went to the Chocolate museum that shows more history than Chocolate World.   We got to do a little scavenger hunt.  Well, not necessarily a scavenger hunt, but we got to see and find out how Hershey and his relatives were the same and different.  We also got to find out some facts about Hershey Pa.  We found out that if Hershey did go on the Titanic, lots of buildings would not have been built in Hershey.   We got to get a souvenir for completing the scavenger hunt.  It was a special Hershey's coin, but you couldn't spend it.  Also after you finished it, you got to take a picture of yourself and print our a pretend newspaper that talked about you as Hershey's apprentice.  Today was one of the best days of whole trip so far.

We drove to the hotel.  The good part was that we didn't have to drive for six hours.  It only took one.