Philly & DC

We have been a little missing in action lately - sorry about that. It's hard to believe it's already September! We have been pretty busy lately with Ben officially graduating in late August and now working part-time as his job search commences. (Side note: looking for a job has to be about the most painful, difficult thing to do, so please pray that he/we will be guided to the right place and job at the right time, and that in the meanwhile, we will remain content and trusting in the Lord.) Anyway, last weekend we went to Philadelphia for my cousin Briana's wedding; we drove up Saturday morning, picked up my (Jenny's) dad at the airport and then later that night went to the wedding, which took place outdoors at Cairnwood Estate in Bryn Athyn, PA. The wedding was very pretty with a lovely pink and ivory white color scheme. One nice thing about it was getting to see a lot of my dad's family, who we never get to see, including his mom, my grandmother, who now lives in Washington state (she's in the picture above with me).

Later in the weekend, we went into downtown Philadelphia to see Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. Although we didn't much care for the city as a whole, it was definitely cool seeing these historic places. The only disappointing thing was that the Independence Hall tour tickets were sold out when we got there, so we only got to see the outside part:

The Liberty Bell:

On Monday, we dropped my dad off at the airport to catch his flight back to Atlanta, and then Ben and I drove back toward home, making a several-hour stop in Washington, DC, on the way. We ate at Union Station (first picture, left, below) and saw the Capitol, and then we went to the U.S. Botanical Garden. We had been to the garden before and loved it, but we really enjoyed seeing it again. We recommend it to anyone who visits DC--especially since it's free!

My favorite was in the desert part of the garden (bottom picture, right): The Old Man Cactus! It is a cactus with a big mess of stuff that looks like an old man's white hair. Pretty funny!

We were very tired after our trip, and then we had the work week to get through, so this weekend we are really taking it easy. Fortunately, too, the tropical storm that passed us, Hanna, ended up being a little wind and rain and that was it, so nothing damaging at all. The sun is even coming out already! (We are a little sad, though, since we were hoping for a really neat tropical storm to watch all day!)