The great thing about starting a blog is – the rules are there are no rules (which happens to be a line from my favorite movie from my adolescence … anyone??). Well, actually, I’m sure there are rules to having a successful blog with a large audience, but, the rules are, you don’t have to follow the rules. If you haven’t noticed, that’s sort of what we are doing for now, so I hope you’ll stick it out with us while we find the perfect layout, format, and groove. We’re still working on all that, and in the meantime, you get to read our take on a lot of cool places.

One of our main goals was to bring to you an array of affordable day trips. While we aren’t necessarily breaking the bank, we are still spending quite a bit of money on our adventures, but we’re working on it, so you don’t have to. You can use our mishaps and extra spending, and fine tune these trips to meet any budget.

One of our biggest issues is food. We could pack a day’s worth of meals, snacks, and drinks – but that sucks a lot of joy out of it for me, in particular. I really love finding new places to eat, and having other people bring me food that they’ve prepared, and that they will clean up.

Now that I cleared up those things – on to our day in Reading, Pa. About an hour drive from our town outside of Philly, this was our second trip out to the Reading area. Our first venture out there was just a few weeks after baby number 3 was born. Then, we visited the Reading Pagoda, which was a cool place to see. I stayed in the café with the babe, while Shawn took the older two up for the view. Shawn thought that he was pulling one over on me – but I knew that his end goal was to get to a Fightin’ Phils game. But I digress.

I spent a large majority of my childhood watching baseball.  I use the word ‘watching’ loosely, though. Despite years, and years (and years) of attending my brother’s baseball games, I have an impressively limited knowledge of the game. Nothing sank in. I’m just not that interested in sports. This is kind of a bummer when your husband is a huge baseball fan. Lucky for us though, we’ve come to a great compromise. I like going new places, eating good food, and being together as a family, and I can usually siphon those things out of a trip to a local ballpark. The kids usually get ice cream. Everyone wins. And in all honesty, being at a ballpark is a lot more entertaining and enjoyable than watching baseball on television OR sitting in the grass at the local field (sorry, Mike).

I’m getting away from the point though, which is to tell you about our day. It started off as usual … late. We didn’t leave the house until around 11:30a, after what we thought was a strategically planned early lunch. We figured on eating early, hitting a museum, having an early dinner, and then heading to the baseball park. And that’s exactly what we did – except, having an early lunch doesn’t seem to eliminate the need for ‘regularly scheduled’ lunch, as we learned midway through our first stop – The Reading Public Museum. Truth be told, I already knew this was a faulty plan, given my and our children’s need for regularly scheduled food intake, but sometimes you ignore those inner voices.

The museum was rather cool for a place I’ve never heard of. You could spend a whole day there, exploring the arboretum surrounding the museum, the museum itself, and the planetarium, which shares a parking lot with the museum. We only did the museum, and a quick stroll around the outside – due to starvation and heat. Inside the museum was a variety of exhibits ranging from animatronic dinosaurs to paintings to mummies to brain teasers. Think Philadelphia Museum of Art meets Franklin Institute meets Academy of Natural Sciences meets The Natural History Museum. A little bit of everything – this is good, because you never know what will be a hit with the kids. Despite all of the cool exhibits, I think our four year old’s favorite part was the table with impressions of dinosaur bones in it, on which he was able to make rubbings with crayons and paper. Good ole crayon and paper – always a sure thing.

While we were enjoying our perusal of the exhibits, something really annoying happened, and I feel the need to share, as it colored the rest of my day and certainly impacted my enjoyment (or lack thereof) of everything. If you’re a breastfeeding mom, you might (literally) feel my pain. We’re walking through this cool museum and I start to feel it – the painful ache of a plugged milk duct. Sorry if that is TMI, but you know what – it sucks, and you should know about it and be sympathetic to anyone suffering from it. And also appreciate the endurance it demands for a day at the museum followed by FIVE HOURS+ at a baseball stadium. That is serious endurance. Like, if I was a different wife, a different mother, a different person – I would have pitched a fit and demanded that we go home. As would have been the recommendation of a health care professional, if I had spoken to one. Instead, I sucked it up and suffered, mostly, quietly.

Instead of popping some pain meds, climbing into bed with some water and the baby (part of the cure for these devils), off to lunch and the game we went! Let’s face it, moms don’t get down time, no matter how you shake it, and I was an hour away from home with tickets to the game already paid for. I had to literally take one for the team. Annnnywayyy …. We left the museum when our daughter declared, “We’re hungry, we’re leaving, we’re women” HAHAHAHAH. I didn’t tell her to say this, and I don’t know why she did, but it seemed appropriate, so I just turned to Shawn and said, “Yea!”

Prior to leaving on this particular adventure I tried to find a great place to eat – no surprise there. I found quite a few good options, but was trying to keep it reasonable with what the kids would be interested in eating, and the price. I settled on Café Sweet Street, not totally understanding what it was. Turns out that it is a company known for its desserts, and the location we ate at seemed to be on a corporate campus of sorts. I don’t know, I’m still confused – but my lunch was good. I was a little disappointed that they did not have the falafel that was on the menu, but my egg salad croissant was yummy. I was also bummed that I had to forego the delicious smelling coffee – because caffeine aggravates those little f-ers known as clogged milk ducts.

I feel like this post is getting to be way too long, so I am going to wrap it up. I don’t have much to say about the baseball game, because I spent the entire time hating life. I will say this though – everyone else seemed to have a wonderful time, the weather was beautiful, particularly when the sun went down, the fireworks were great, and the band of mascots was entertaining on the way out.

And now Shawn’s take on our day in Reading ….

Visiting Reading twice in one summer is not something I thought I would ever do.  After all, I made it over 35 years and only spent about two hours there.  So why would I drag my family back there again?  The answer: baseball.  The Reading Fightin Phils are an AA affiliate of the Phillies, my favorite baseball team.  Around Father’s Day, I found out they have an annual Harley Night.  My dad is a big Harley guy, so I figured we would take him up there for that, and celebrate one of the things he loves more than his children.

Now the game started at 6:30, and so we needed an afternoon activity to keep the kids busy.  Since it was hot, we figured something inside.  We were debating between the Mid-Atlantic Aviation Museum and the Reading Public Museum.  Once the kids found out the latter had dinosaurs, the decision was made for us.  After an early lunch, we were off to Reading!

For the four of us and the baby, admission was $32 (Kids 3 and under were free.  Our son refused to act like he was 3 to save us cash.  What a little bastard).  We figured we would get about an hour before the kids melted down and told us how bored they were.  Imagine our surprise when we got about 2 and a half hours out of the place!

The Reading Museum is an interesting mix of science, art and archeology.  The first display we came across was a series of brain teasers.  They involved blocks, math, and a bunch of other hands-on things.  The kids spent their time making houses out of the jenga-like blocks set up along the walls.  They had a blast – but it did annoy me that I spent $30 so they could play blocks.  Luckily, the brain teasers were there to keep mom and dad busy.  Some of them were pretty challenging and fun.  But most of them were either stupid or broken.

After that, it was on to the armory!  A couple of rooms full of swords, spears, shields and armor.  There were also ancient Greek pitchers and even an Egyptian mummy.  Oh, and a few “pillows” from Papua New Guinea.  They essentially rested their heads on tiny wooden work horses.  My son was probably disappointed there were no lightsabers, but the other stuff in there was cool.

Next we came to a room with artifacts from Native American tribes, and a local wildlife exhibit.  They had stuffed bears, birds, snakes, and other wild animals on display all over the room, and binoculars for the kids to find them.  They also had an exhibit on animal poop.  Yes, you read that right.  Ever wonder if that pile of crap in your yard is from a raccoon or a squirrel?  Well, this is the place to come and find out!

The museum also had several rooms full of animatronic dinosaurs, plaster footprints and fossils, as well as a digging pit for the kids to find their own fossils.  The kids really enjoyed this, but the dinosaurs were pretty loud, and I think they scared them a bit.  But we got some good pictures of the kids “pretending” to be scared of the dinos. 

It was coming up on meltdown time just as we got to the art exhibit.  There was a nice mix of paintings here – some medieval / Renaissance religious art, 17th Century portraits, and even modern art.  I can’t draw to save my life, so I enjoy looking at the things other people can create with paint and a canvas, particularly the paintings of nature.  My kids evidently are modern art aficionados.  Their favorite painting was a painting of two people (or pigs, as my son said – they had pink skin) crapping money on top of a cross and a heart.  I am sure this one touched them deeply.

The museum is located along a creek, and has a nice walking trail along it.  We were going to take a walk after we left the museum, but growling stomachs make fussy kids.  So we decided to feed them.  We stopped off at a place my wife found called the Café Sweet Street.  We thought it would be a little corner bakery.  But evidently this is a pretty big local bakery that makes desserts, and the café was the lunch stop for the workers.  The lunch was kind of pricey – we spent about $35 for sandwiches, wings, a big basket of fries, chicken fingers and dogs.  The food was decent, but I would skip the wings.  They were the smallest I have ever eaten.  Lots of people were going in and out while we were there – but they were getting desserts like cakes and pies.  So check it out if you are in the Reading area and are in need of a pie.

After our late lunch / early dinner, it was off to the ballpark!  FirstEnergy Stadium was only a couple blocks away.  Parking was free, and tickets are only $9 each (and we were 14 rows behind the dugout.  But we had an hour and a half to kill before the game, so we bought the kids bracelets for unlimited times on the moon bounce and inflatable slide.  We got our money’s worth out of it this time.

We came so early to make sure we got some of the giveaways – Harley Night hats for dad and my uncle.  The stadium sells out, so if they have a giveaway you want, get there early.  But soon enough, my parents and brothers joined us.  Once they got there, we were able to enjoy some adult activities – watching baseball, drinking beer, and getting pictures with the beaver mascot.  At least I was.  My wife had some problem with her boob or something, so she was just a miserable pain in the ass.

At the end of the game, there was a pretty decent fireworks show, followed by a rock concert by the mascot band.  My wife was ready to go, so we didn’t stick around to watch the band rock out.  Probably just as well.  I felt pretty bad for them.  Here are a group of musicians dressed up as dogs, ducks and other animals like some G rated version of Gwar, and they are probably playing to the largest crowd they will ever see.  That, and the only tail they are probably leaving with is the one attached to their costumes. 

Overall, I would rate this trip a success.  The kids had fun, and so did dad.  Mom just had boob problems, so she probably hated it, but she was a good sport.  We went in with the intentions of saving money, but probably spent about $150, not including beer.  So if you are ever up in the Reading area with kids, I would definitely recommend the Reading Public Museum and Reading Phillies for some fun activities with the family. 

In case you want to see for yourself where some of this stuff is, check out this map, where we marked off the places we have visited and considered going: Reading Map.