Double Date

After a couple weeks of not doing very much, Bill and I went on not one, but TWO dates this weekend!

Well, technically it all started Thursday night. We decided to finally hit up one of Philly's famous Night Markets. Over the last couple of summers, Philly has introduced a monthly fair of foods to its streets, hitting up a new neighborhood each month. This month it was the neighborhood of Mt. Airy which is part gorgeous old homes and part extreme poverty. All the same, while overly crowded, it was fun to take in the perfect summer weather while eating cheap, tasty bites.

We started off with a fresh lemonade, made with agave and a hint of lime. Tasty! 

Then Bill got some sort of spicy Vietnamese hoagie, which sounds right down his alley but it was a beef sandwich made by vegans so it was weird. 

I on the other hand went straight for the beef! A hot dog concoction from The Dapper Dog food truck made with cheddar, caramelized onions and some sort of fantastic sauce. 

Heart attack in a box. 

But that's ok, because we finished it off with the very healthy Vietnamese Coffee and Mango Sriracha popsicles. Ok, maybe not that healthy. Once again, you couldn't dream of a better combo for Bill - Mango Sriracha- but sadly the spice was a little faint for his liking. These delicious and creative pops were from a cute little cart I discovered a couple months ago called Lil' Pop Shop. Last time I found them I ordered a peach rosemary pop which I then immediately went home to copy. In fact, some of you might have been lucky enough to try mine! ;-) 

While I had fun taking everything in, I think we probably won't return anytime soon. The crowds were just terrible, and we went on the late side when people were clearing out, and Bill and I hate people too much to take them in such mass quantities. ;-) 

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Speaking of mass crowds, we endured them again last night, this time for a more than worthy cause. Longwood Gardens, an estate gardens about an hour southwest of Phila, has this incredible summer installation by British light artist Bruce Munro (check it out here). We tried to go late Friday night but it ended up pouring, I mean POURING. so they cancelled the exhibit and we got to come back again last night. 

I have to say, this, along with the theatrical piece we interacted with last summer on the canoes on the Schuylkill, this was the most amazing art installation I've seen in Phila. I guess I'm partial to interesting art in nature. 

Enough talk. Here's the pictures: 

Pretty cool, huh? 

We're Alive!

I know, you probably thought we had died, or that I had retired from writing after I saw Bill's mad author skills.

Alas, none of that was the case. I'm just lazy and fell off the wagon. That and we somehow lost a bunch of pictures I was going to blog about.

All the same, we are back and about to take you through our super fun weekend.

It started on Friday, which is always a good thing. One of Bill's coworkers has been training in MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) and had a fight Friday night down in Wildwood, NJ, on the shore. So we bought ourselves some tickets and decided to make a mini-vacation out of it. We headed to the shore Friday afternoon, booking into our awesome hotel, the Caribbean.

This place was awesome. Apparently Wildwood has a "doo-wop" theme where everything, even the Wawa, is a 1950's pop-culture throwback. For the most part, that means everything is tacky and kind of gross, but the Caribbean totally embraced it and renovated with a tongue-in-cheek attitude. 

The pool had fake palm trees and the lounge looked like Rosie the Robot was about to come in and dust any moment. All in all, we were in love. 

We headed down the boardwalk, which, with all of its carnival rides and games would have been cute if it wasn't for the "Jersey" t-shirts hanging everywhere and the tacky radio show playing over the loud speakers. 

After eating at the only spot that looked like it wasn't going to give us herpes, we headed to the convention center to catch the main event. 

The fight card was long, with about nine fights that evening and Bill's coworker coming in second to last. But it was a ton of fun and there were some pretty good fighters in the mix, making for a great show. 

Afterwords, we headed back to the Caribbean, which was lit up in all its glory and tried our best to break into the pool. 

We didn't succeed. 

But that was ok, because the next day was beach day! 

Wildwood is only 15 minutes north of our favorite spot, Cape May, so we headed down to the completely different world of Painted Ladies, fine B&B's, gourmet restaurants and boutique shopping. I am still blown away by how different Cape May is from its sister city Wildwood only a few miles north. 

We started by grabbing some brunch at one of our favorite spots, the Mad Batter. 

I had a delicious lobster and crab frittata and Bill filled up on a yummy omelet. 

After stuffing ourselves, we headed to the beach for a few hours. 

The great thing about all of this was that when we eventually had to pack up and go home, we still had a whole day left in our weekend! 

And what did we do with that extra day, you ask?

Well, we worked! 

We actually painted one of Bill's rental homes, which had several large holes in the walls that needed patching, and thus painting. I actually really like painting, so it was pretty fun, despite the lack of AC. 

Look, even Bill had fun! 

We actually enjoyed working together very much, and the end result was pretty great, making it well worth it, although there were some pretty great moments in between....

Isn't he the best?!

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That was our long weekend! 

We'll be back soon. I promise no more month-long breaks!