Parents' Visit

A week ago, my parents came into town for their annual visit. Last year we took them to some pretty fun places and good restaurants but this year we simply took them everywhere. Anywhere and everywhere we could think of.

Luckily, most of that "everywhere" was just a few blocks from us thanks to the Parkway's plethora of museums.

When they first arrived Monday night, we were able to take them around the corner to Hickory Lane to grab a burger. No one actually ended up getting a burger, but my dad did find a beer he liked!

The next day, we hiked to the Art Museum.

(They even did the Rocky steps!)

I've been there a handful of times but only to special events and exhibits. This time, though, we spent several hours strolling through the long halls of European art, armor, architecture and Asian temples and tea houses. I was really amazed by the anthropological elements in there. Like this...

... or this...

... or this! 

That night, we headed to Moshulu, the restaurant-on-a-ship that we tried to take them to several times during their last visit and never succeeded. 

I really think they liked sitting there on that lit-up boat, looking over the Delaware and sipping martinis. 

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The next day, Bill headed into work and the rest of us went on more museum expeditions. 

  

 We started at the Perleman building of the Art Museum which houses the Collab gallery of design. Its was pretty limited, but there were some favorite mid-century pieces in there. 

The Perleman also housed an exhibition of women's coats, which was a weird but really cool exhibit. Lots of Betty Draper-esque designs. 

After hitting their favorite deli in Philly, Famous 4th Street, my parents and I headed to Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square to see the light installation we posted about in what was, sadly, my last post. It was such an awesome (truly, awe inspiring) sight and I didn't want them to miss out on it while they were still in town. We all grabbed a glass of wine and walked amongst the splendorous colored lights that my dad kept saying looked like "Avatar" and my mom kept saying looked like "Lord of the Rings". 

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The next day, we let my parents hang out at Eastern State Penitentiary for a few hours before seeing the new Barnes Foundation. 

I had been somewhat loathed to go there, not being very supportive of the "heist" that happened when the city of Philly took the collection illegally from Barnes' home. But my not being happy with the move wasn't going to move the works so I thought I'd bring my parents so they could at least see them.

I was very impressed by the building. Its really quite gorgeous in its minimalistic and mid-century way. However, there was something off-putting in seeing the collection and its rooms housed in a massive, cold building. It felt wrong. And the transition between mass structure and closed rooms of the galleries took something away from the pieces. You didn't quite have that "Holy Cow!" feeling you did in the old building. 

But I could talk about that all day... 

We next went to a fun trapeze show! As part of the Philly Fringe festival, Tangle, a trapeze and gymnastic group, put on a fun show in one of the Phila soundstages. It was a bit "off the beaten trail"
 and because of that, I think the folks really enjoyed it. 

Afterwards, we all went to R2L, the highest restaurant and bar in Philly, for some drinks and views. Sadly, my iPhone is pictureless from that adventure. 

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And speaking of pictureless, we went to Cape May on Friday, but those pictures will have to be shared at a different time, when I actually have them. Sadly, we seem to have left our camera in my parents car. Which is now in Illinois, obviously. 

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Saturday, our last day together, we had brunch at the Waterworks- a restaurant on the Schuylkill River which was created in the classical style and thus looks like a Grecian ruin.  Totally "Wow" producing for tourists and visiting parents.  

After taking in the sun and a nice meal there, we went to the Devon Fall Classic, an equestrian jumping competition. It was actually a ton of fun and the weather was fantastic! 

The grounds were beautiful and they had a little "village" of boutique shops and fair food. Like apple cider and fresh doughnuts! 

Sadly, my parents had to hit the road only a few hours later. 

Though they only come visit once a year - we make it worth their while they are here! Meg and Bill Travel Agency, anyone? 

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! 

Meg's Birthday

For Meg's birthday it seemed appropriate to give our tireless 886Miles author a break and assign the blog entry to a guest writer.  Who, you ask?  THIS GUY. 

Meg's birthday started that Friday night with a Frida Kahlo themed party at our house.  Frida and Meg share a birthday (almost - 2 days apart) and quite a few years ago Meg grew a powerful unibrow to make her Frida Halloween costume that much more authentic.  No pictures of the unibrow, but maybe that's for the best.... Our party was a big hit with all of our (2) guests.

April and Steve (the guests) did bring a decadent Spanish chocolate cake that was gluten AND lactose free. Birthday fun and no indigestion!

Saturday morning we went to Germantown for some small town walking, shopping, walking, shopping and shopping.  We started at this place which was half knick-knack shop, half incredible atrium brunch place called "Cake."  (very birthday appropriate naming)

This next picture is the birthday girl post-awesome brunch:

On Sunday, we saw a great new movie called Safety Not Guaranteed.  The film follows three reporters as they attempt to track down the source of a classified ad seeking a partner for a time travel mission.  The producers of this movie also did Little Miss Sunshine, and much like Sunshine, Safety Not Guaranteed is enjoyable for just about everyone.  Go see it!  Meg and I give it a wholehearted recommendation.

We finished out the weekend at a new eatery in Philadelphia called Jamonera.  Although it's the kind of place that recommends "three to four dishes per person," we still made it out of there with a very reasonable bill.

And what birthday dinner would be complete without dessert from Capogiro??

Happy 24th Birthday My Love!!!