Philadelphia Archives - Weary Wanderer

A Trip Back East & Little Grace’s First Flight

Published on April 25, 2018 by Cheryl Lock1 Comment

Happy Wednesday, friends! Lotte, Grace, Chris & I are back from a quick trip to Pennsylvania and New York, and we had the best time visiting with friends & family there. This was Grace’s first plane ride, and she did so great! Lotte was slightly antsy for about the last half hour of both rides there and back, but I guess that’s to be expected from an almost-two-year old, right? All-in-all I’d say they both did amazingly well.

We mostly flew back so that we could attend the second annual MS fundraiser that my sister and I threw in honor of our mom, which was a yoga session we held at Stone Wave Yoga in Gardner, NY. That event was amazing—with about $1,500 raised and counting!—but we also tacked on visits with my dad and stepmom, Jen & Kev and the boys, my grandma and aunt and uncle and cousins. It was a lot of driving back and forth for the girls, but they are true travel champs, and I honestly think they had the best time. I know I did.

Here are some of the highlights from our five-day, quick trip back east.

^^ This was Lotte’s 7th flight (14th, if you count back and forth!). Quite the little traveler for only almost-two 😉

^^ We picked up some kids’ pieces from the Love Taza Luggage Collection at Target for the trip, and while Lotte wasn’t sure about the headphones prior to the trip, she really seemed to enjoy them on the actual flight. The activity set was clutch, too!

^^Mommom & Papa’s house has allllll the toys, so Lotte was one happy girl once we got there!

^^ Saturday morning we had breakfast at my parents, then we packed up their car and headed to New York to stay at Steph and Brian’s for Saturday and Sunday.

^^ This was the first time Grace met my Grandmother (along with most of my other extended family!), and it really was such a special day for me.

^^ My grandmother with my children. I mean … it doesn’t get much more special than that <3

^^ My grandmother with all three of her great-grandchildren!

^^ Lotte is pretty obsessed with dogs lately, so getting to meet and hang out with Linus, my sister’s pup, was pretty fun for her, too.

^^ A friend of mine from college brought her son, Jacob, to the fundraiser on Sunday, and he was born exactly one month after Grace. How cute are these two together?!

^^ My girls, all dressed up for their grandma’s fundraiser.

^^ We had such a beautiful day for our event on Sunday, and Stone Wave Yoga provided such an amazing backdrop.

^^ Back at Mommom & Papa’s on Monday, we got to hang with Jen & Kev and the boys for dinner and a mini birthday celebration for me <3

^^ These two! Jude was born about two months before Lotte, and he was the first baby Lotte met when Jen flew out to Colorado when Lotte was first born. I hope they are always bonded.

^^ Can you even with these four?!

^^ And just like that, we were back on the plane Tuesday morning heading back to Colorado. Lotte was not into turning away from the window for this family shot 😉

My little Weary Wanderers! Traveling with kids is never not an ordeal, with all the stuff you have to bring and (occasionally!) all the whining you have to endure, but to me, it’s also never not worth it. There hasn’t been one trip that I’ve been on with the family that I have regretted. I hope that even though the girls are too young to likely remember these trips, having these photos will mean the world to them as they get older.

And that was our trip in a nutshell, friends! I hope everyone else is having a great start to the spring season, as well <3 Bis bald!

Pennsylvania, Brooklyn & NYC — A Tale of a 5-day Trip

Published on January 16, 2017January 30, 2017 by Cheryl Lock1 Comment

^^ Gussied up in our fanciest for a very pretty (if somewhat cold!) Central Park wedding.

Hi friends,

Well we just returned from a super quick and very fun trip over to the east coast. We headed out last Friday, arriving in Pennsylvania around 10:30 p.m. for a second Christmas with my dad and stepmom, sisters and their husbands and Rory and Jude. Nan and Aussie Poppa came, too, which made the trip a super lot more fun.

Second Chrissy was only one of our objectives with this trip — we also rented a car and drove to Brooklyn on Monday, where we stayed with a friend of mine in her gorgeous brownstone and attended a wedding in Central Park on Tuesday and the reception at the Wythe Hotel.

This was Lotte’s second trip out to the east coast — a trip that followed quickly behind her trip out the mountains at the end of last year — and she was nothing but a wonderful pumpkin full of smiles the whole time.

Something tells me we got super lucky with this kid of ours.

Anyway, here’s what we got up to, in photos 😉

^^ Super pumped for her second trip out east!

^^ These two together … it seriously always warms my heart.

^^ My family has a little tradition of doing a taste-testing competition for one holiday (usually it’s Thanksgiving), and although we’d already done wine in the past, we decided why not do it again 😉 After what was meant to be a tie-breaker using beer between the three wine-tasting winners (my dad and both my brothers-in-law), both of my brothers-in-law won the beer round. This was not in the least surprising 😉

^^ Steph and I chipped in to get Rory an actual excavator toy that he can ride, and I think it’s safe to say he liked it. (Thanks Uncle Brian for setting it up!)

^^ The chef — aka my brother-in-law — hard at work.

^^ My delicious dinner plate. These shrimp with Kev’s homemade barbecue sauce were to die for.

^^ At the sports bar the next day with the fam!

^^ A poopy diaper explosion meant Lotte was taking photos with her cousins in pjs instead of her super cute daytime outfit. Oh well, still cute, though!

^^ Yup. Parenting is tiring.

^^ Sleeping on the ride from Pennsylvania to Brooklyn.

^^ The gorgeous setting for Tuesday’s wedding in Central Park.

^^ Almost four years ago, exactly, Chris and I stood under those very same arches and sat on those very same steps, taking photos of our own after we had just been married 😉

^^ Meanwhile, my friend Carla manned the fort back in Brooklyn with both of our babies … and her dog Simon helped.

^^ After a short hiatus, the reception took place at the Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn, which was nice because I had never been before. The views of Manhattan were spectacular, and the food was super delish. All-in-all, it was a very fun wedding.

^^ At one point during the night Carla sent me this picture, which I seriously adore. She even said Lotte went down super easy that night, which may have been because of …

^^ This amazing sleepsuit! Have you heard of this?! Baby Merlin’s Magic Sleepsuit is, as promised, magic! Lotte simply loves it, and although I’m pretty sure I’m not meant to be using it anymore since she can roll over, for now I’m just grateful it’s helped get her to sleep after the disruption of her routine over the past couple weeks. Thanks Carla, for letting Lotte borrow Fiona’s!

^^ Fiona and Lotte the morning before we left to fly back to Denver. It is my sincere hope that these two become good, lifelong friends. At least I know Carla and I will do everything in our power to help make that happen.

^^ Home. There’s no place like it.

And that was our trip in a nutshell, friends. We’ve got a pretty busy couple first months coming up, with trips planned and visitors coming out. But busy is how we like to be 😉

Until next time – bis bald!

The Year 2013: A Review

Published on December 31, 2013August 27, 2019 by Cheryl LockLeave a comment

Hi friends,

Well it’s that time of year again — the one where everyone takes a couple minutes to take stock of how the past 12 months have gone? This year has been a particularly important one for myself and Chris. It was our first year of married life. It was a year spent celebrating our marriage around the world with family and friends. It was a year that we made some pretty big decisions about our future (not yet shared here!), and one that had a lot of amazing traveling in it …

Continue reading “The Year 2013: A Review” →

The Inspirational Animals of My Travels

Published on December 3, 2013December 3, 2013 by Cheryl LockLeave a comment

As I sit here working on a passion project of mine — which, to be fair, I’ve been working on for the better part of a year now — I realized that I’ve up until this time passed up a perfectly lovely opportunity to give thanks to all the inspirational animals I’ve come across in my travels. These animals have been so much fun to meet and learn about, and I’m so grateful to them for being a part of the learning process that is traveling.

So without further ado, please meet some of my favorite animals I’ve met on my journeys:

^^ This is Shawn the Koala from the Koala Park Zoo in Sydney.
He’s the animal that started my whole project idea.

^^ Can’t you tell he’s just whispering amazing ideas in my direction!

^^ This is a replica of a Kookaburra bird in the
Museum of Natural History. They’re known for their good-natured,
hysterical laugh, which can sound a lot like a human’s.

^^ This is a red panda — let’s call her Jia. This photo is from the
Philadelphia Zoo, which is sort of cheating because my real
inspiration came from the red pandas at the Central Park Zoo.
This was a better photo, though.

^^ These are pigeons. And while yes, these pigeons are in London,
let’s be honest — the real inspirational pigeons live right here in
good ole’ NYC.

^^If we’re being even more honest, my true obsession with pigeons began
when I was a toddler and my parents lost me in the Piazza San Marco
in Venice because I was chasing them. That’s why I took this
dorky photo when we were back there in 2012.

What inspires you when you travel?

Bis bald, friends!

The Philadelphia Zoo With Some Friends

Published on November 18, 2013November 18, 2013 by Cheryl Lock2 Comments

Hi friends,

This past weekend I visited an old friend of mine (and her adorable almost-2-year-old son) at her home in the suburbs outside of Philly. Every single time I visit a friend’s house in the ‘burbs, I’m always struck by two things:

They seem so much more grown up than I am
I really enjoy seeing nature out my back window!

No. 2 is the reason I kept taking photos like this of said friend’s backyard:

Anyway, between taking backyard photos we managed to do a lot of other things this past weekend, like head to the park, play a lot with the adorable Oliver, eat dinner out in Wayne and, my favorite, head over to the Philadelphia Zoo.

According to the Zoo’s site, more than 1,300 animals live there, including many rare and endangered species. The Philly Zoo was also America’s first zoo, established on March 21, 1859. It took another 15 years, though — thanks so the Civil War — for the zoo to actually open.

Here’s a bit of what we saw:

^^ The zoo had this cool tunnel system running around above the grounds that the monkeys could wander through.

^^ This little gator guy was in this position the whole time we were in the area.

^^ Little Sebastian, anyone ;) — ^^ Little Sebastian, anyone 😉

^^ I was about to delete this photo of the Clown Fish because I had better ones, until I saw the Fish Photo Bomb.

^^ The fish tank was a serious highlight. So beautiful!

^^ This little guy is a Red Panda, and she'll be making an appearance in my children's book very soon! — ^^ This little guy is a Red Panda, and she’ll be making an appearance in my children’s book very soon!

^^ This was the Momma monkey, who did have a baby strapped to her chest, although it's hard to see in this photo. — ^^ This was the Momma monkey, who did have a baby strapped to her chest, although it’s hard to see in this photo.

^^ This is the dad and son. They were wrestling the whole time, which was pretty adorable.

And in other news, Chris and I booked our flights to Denver in April with my sister and her boyfriend — we’re so excited to check it out! So far the itinerary includes Boulder and Breckinridge and Denver, with one or two other potential areas thrown in there somewhere.

Can’t wait!

P.S. I feel obliged to say that these photos were all taken with my new iPhone 5C — not too shabby!