11 days late...

Oh my goodness, where to begin?? There's been so much going on in our lives, with the holiday weekend (which was now ages ago), a short visit to Missouri for me, all of the drama involved in getting our lives ready to move to Rome, and some insulin pump drama for good measure. Seriously, so much going on and yet I'm incredibly busy now that I've started teaching for the summer and I have an enormous deadline looming. Plus all of the usual stuff and my constant drive to do new things and spend time with friends.

Shall I go in chronological order? How about a recounting of our 4th of July?

We actually spent July 2-3 in Seaside Heights with some friends and drove back to Philly on the 3rd. Since we had the opportunity - and we'd never managed to do it, despite this being our fourth 4th while living in the birthplace of America - we decided to partake in all of the festivities in Center City.

We got up fairly early, parked my car downtown, and drove back home! Then, we took the train into the city. We even managed to catch part of the parade! And I will tell you, following a parade is a seriously easy way to cover a lot of ground. Lots of entertainment!

We first stopped at the Independence Visitors Center for a free Tastykake! Then we continued our walk. This walk would eventually take us all over the city.


Eventually, we made our way to Penn's Landing for the all you can eat ice cream festival!!
I didn't have TOO much...plus, we seriously walked at least 8 miles that day so....

But since it was hot and we had lots of time to kill before fireworks, we made sure that our trek across the city was broken up by lots of stops to, as my grandma would say, have a cold drink.

First, Triumph Brewing Company:
Then, El Vez:
Then, Monk's:
Then, Rum Bar!
These places are all in different parts of town. We'd make a stop, rest our feet, use the bathroom, cool off, and then head out again. It was a weird sort of Philly restaurant crawl.

And then finally, we headed to the Parkway:
And there were hundreds of thousands of other people there. We pushed through the crowd, all the way up to the art museum, trying to find a good spot to hear the concert.

And then we became disheartened at the massive crowds and lack of space. So we went to Kite and Key for dinner. Nick is friends with one of the bartenders:

Hi, Rick!

Once it was almost time for fireworks, we headed back to the Parkway to find a spot. Somehow, in the midst of all these people, we ran into my friend Christa and her uncle! What's even stranger about this is that we'd run into them earlier in the day at Triumph. How does this happen? So, she took this picture of us:

Finally, the fireworks began and the four of us enjoyed the show over the art museum.
That is, we enjoyed the show until we got caught in the middle of a this stampede. We heard the loud pops that resulted in no fireworks, and gunshots definitely crossed our minds. It's amazing how quickly group mentality sets in. As soon as all of these people started running towards us, Nick grabbed me so we couldn't be knocked over. We started moving, we lost Christa and her uncle in the chaos, and so we decided to just head to our car.

And then began the hour and forty-five minute ride home. It usually would take about 20 from where we were.

We had an incredible day, even if it ended with some mindless fleeing and being stuck in terrible traffic. It really was a great way to spend the holiday, as (possibly) our last one in the US for some time.