Her hearty lungs came in handy for this! 

Being with friends made the night special. 

Round 'em up and take 'em home! 

I just returned from another weekend in a new city ... Philadelphia! This time for a trade show. 

The nearby market even had an assortment of flowers for me to get my photo fix ... 

... but it made my friend's head hurt!

An evening meeting took place at a mystery dinner theater ... quite amusing! From servers who acted to audience participation, it was quite memorable.

We shared our table with a precious family ... their youngest girl was celebrating her 11th birthday.

I had time for a quick sight-seeing trip before leaving Philadelphia. It was pretty amazing to see things I had only read about! 

This is something I've never seen ... the crack in the liberty bell from the inside. 

It was very moving to see so many people from different cultures and generations taking photos beside the bell. Tears came to my eyes thinking about the significance of freedom and how precious it is. 

There was an interesting street market in honor of Ben Franklin's 300th birthday. That was great! A "Puffy Roll" (supposedly one of Ben's favorite things) even came back with me ... well, not all the way back! It was eaten rather quickly! 

It was a rain-filled weekend, but yet another adventure! 

Our most recent adventure? A trip to Chicago led by my good friend. I think the sports were a favorite of my son! There were many things, however, that were just wonderful. The kids had never just had a "city vacation" like this and thought it was pretty awesome.

Of the many things we enjoyed, a free concert by the Chicago Symphony was quite a treat!

How cool is this? I didn't get to see it in February when I was here. It was covered up for some reason.

These fountains "spit" water at you (there's another one opposite with a wading area between). I'm glad we were here in the evening ... it made for a stunning view against the city.

The view of Chicago from the pier was great, even though it was cloudy and almost cold with the breeze and light rain.

The view from the ferris wheel, however, was SPECTACULAR!

This seems to be the ride of choice ... Maybe I should start a new photo series!

Now I thought this was exciting ... but I think the kids were a little worn out! How often do you get to sit on a huge anchor?

We also made a quick trip to see one of my favorite hotels (like I'm an expert or something!) ... the first time I was here was when I turned 16. It is still just as lavish and lovely now!

While in the Hershey's shop, a little song-and-dance number from the employees ended up involving us ... and we shared a HUGE cupcake as a prize. YUM!

Downtown Chicago ... Can you tell we're tourists?

Of course, I loved the opportunity to get close ups of all kinds of interesting flowers while we wandered.