Weekend Report

My weekend started a day early. Isaac had a morning appointment at the pediatric cardiologist at Dupont.  His pediatrician was concerned that Isaac's has a heart murmur and that his heartbeat is irregular so he referred us.  We were very impressed with Dupont.  They were very friendly, they put Isaac right at ease.  Isaac did a great job for his EKG and ultrasound.  I was so proud of him.  They decided that he has an innocent heart murmur but he does NOT have an arthymia.  So that was great news.

 

 

After we finished up at the doctor's office, we *probably* had enough time to go back to school, but seeing as it was Friday, we decided to play a little hooky.  We got some lunch and did a little shopping.  We checked out a fun new bookstore we had never been in before and (of course) I couldn't walk out empty handed.   

 

 

It is soooooo good.  I've already torn through about half of it.  We rounded out our fun day by picking up Ryan's girls and going swimming.  It was a great day of family fun. 

 

The next day Isaac had a soccer game and I headed into the city to the Paper Source to try to tackle my wedding invites. 

 

 

 

Isaac and Ryan took a train into the city and met up with me afterwards.  I had bought a Groupon for a reduced admission price to the Acadamy of Natural Sciences.   

 

They had an amazing butterfly garden...

 

 

 

 

We loved the dinosaur bones...

 

 

It was hot as blazes that day.  I was a sweaty mess.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope your weekend was as fun as ours was!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Linking up with Molly for YOLOMonday

Walking the Ben Franklin

Sometimes I dread Sundays because after church is over there is nothing really to fill up the rest of the day except sit around and wait for it to be Monday. The Sundays that Isaac is with his dad, we've starting swinging into the city to visit Joe. A couple of weeks ago Joe had the idea to go for a walk along the Ben Franklin Bridge. I have driven over that bridge a thousand times going back and forth from Philly to Jersey but I had no idea there was a pedestrian walkway along it. It was actually really beautiful. We had a great view of Center City and it was kind of dizzying and fun to be walking along so high above the traffic. Every once in a while a train would rattle along underneath us. We walked about halfway across and then walked back. I was surprised even in January how many joggers, bikers and photographers were up there. I would love to go back in the spring and summer when it is a little warmer.

Sometimes I think Joe is more like Isaac's big brother.

Those signs are attached to little walkways. They were closed off to the public obviously, but it was pretty amazing to think of walking so high above all of the traffic on a bridge which is already so high above the Delaware River.

Joe with the city behind him.

only comes once a year...

For all of the drama, 30 has been nothing short of awesome so far. This will be a little recap of the birthday funness I've had so far. I will be my traditional birthday year in review post at another time.

I started the celebrations the weekend before my birthday with a nice family dinner at the Hibachi. I wanted to do it on a weekend when Isaac would be with me. Our chef wasn't quite an animated as some I've seen, but it was delicious and yummy. They brought me out a little dish of icecream with a candle in it and everyone sang. We all started cracking up because as soon as we finished the last night Isaac promptly yanked the dish over to himself and started eating. In true Stephenson tradition, we didn't take any pictures. Afterwards we came back to my place for cheesecake and Dad helped me fix my vacuum cleaner.

I had a long day/night of parent-teacher conferences on my actual birthday. I did have a nice birthday dinner at Applebees with a group of my coworkers. My fabulous classroom assistant Sheree bought this cake (which was delicious!):

When I got home my mom surprised me with super cute placemats. They match the kooky chefs in frames on my wall.

This weekend I had the best birthday ever with my girlfriends. We went to Becca's in Fishtown and had a Stampin' Up rep come and help us make this adorable card:

The party decor was so fun. Becca made me this great banner:

The plates somehow managed to combine my favorite things, pink and animal print:

One of my favorite parts of the party was when Becca's husband Steve brought over a homemade Nutella panini. I order one of these at this great place in the city Tria every year for my birthday. We didn't go there this year, but they still brought me one, complete with a tea light on top.

They gave me some really thoughtful presents, including an awesome Wii game, one of those karaoke ones with the microphone.

(It should also be noted, that I received some *ahem* less thoughtful presents... anyone who knows me knows how I feel about bananas...) The evening ended with a trip to the piano bar where I sang "Part of Your World" from the Little Mermaid. =) So, so far 30 has been pretty great.

So I really wanted to check out Occupy Philly and I finally got a chance to today (google it if you don't know about it, or it's predecessor Occupy Wall Street). My friend Becca was up for checking it out and we managed to make it down in time for their big march across town to the Liberty Bell. I was surprised by the crowd. Yes, there were dirty hippies. But there were also a ton of families marching with their kids. There were white people and black people and middle aged people and young people and really old people. It was a fun way to spend the afternoon.

Me and my marching buddy Becca. They had a big sign making area so we decided to make signs.

(yes, I'm wearing my teachers union shirt)

Bonus points if you recognize the movie Becca's sign is quoting. I recognized it right away, but only a few people on the march seemed to get it, including a random bicycle cop. As we were leaving the march at the end of the day and heading towards the subway, one of those open top tour buses passed us. The tour guide read Becca's sign to the group in a confused voice and we ended up having a ton of tourists peering down at us, gawking.

Lots of different causes were represented:

We marched across town to the Liberty Bell, where they had a brief rally and then we marched back.

I loved these two little toddlers waving their fists in the air, so I had to snap a picture.

This sign says "You know things are bad when toddlers start marching".

Snapshot of some of the march.

I liked this one. It was above a big pile of snacks. I don't know how clearly you can read the writing, but it informs you that snacks are a human right.

This sign was one of my favorites, and we didn't even see it at the protest. It was on a wall directly across the street from a Bank of America in Fishtown. How angry do you have to be to do this? (I don't know how clear it is, but the yellow sign says "I hate Bank of America".)

There was tons of press there. I got approached by one reporter, who wanted to talk to me about student debt. He wouldn't talk to him, but he said something to the effect of "I'm sure many of these protesters here are recent college graduates like yourself." I was flattered, but I had to assure him that I can no longer really be considered a recent college graduate. Here is a video from the local news:

Occupy Philly Marches To Liberty Bell: MyFoxPHILLY.com

And one of my friends posted this on Facebook, so I had to share.

rock you like a hurricane

I had a couple of long days of school meetings and Isaac's daycare is not in session yet, my mother took him out to her house to spend a few days and he was THRILLED. I missed him terribly though, and I only got him for one night before I had to turn around and hand him off to his father for the weekend. I missed him, but he had a lot of fun, and it gave me a lot of time to get things together for school.

Anyways, unless you've been living under a rock, I'm sure you've heard about the wacky weather on the east coast lately. Starting with the earthquake. Someone posted this on facebook and I had to share it, because, this was pretty much as intense as it got:

I was sitting in the high school auditorium listening to a presentation on sexual harassment, when what felt like a big wave or ripple went underneath me. I could feel that it was moving like a wave and that it had started behind me and passed underneath me, but that was it. It wasn't intense or scary. It almost just felt like someone really heavy was stomping down the aisle next to me. Of course, since we were already slightly bored sitting there being lectured at, we all got on our phones and discovered it had been an earthquake!

Then this past weekend, with hurricane Irene. Isaac was with his dad, which had me a little bit worried, since he was much closer to Jersey. I went out ot my parents' house for the weekend. My brother Joe and his girlfriend Kami were there. We went out to eat at Texas Roadhouse, and then stayed up playing Uno. Even though Leola is no where near the coast, the wind was still instense and the rain was coming down in sheets. The lights flickered a few times, but we didn't lose power. Before the hurricane made it up, quite a few counties, including the one my house was in was under tornado watch. Church was cancelled, a few tree limbs were down, but thankfully no one in my family had a flooded basement or a loss of power. My favorite bike trail is now underwater. My friend Nicole's street looks like this, but overall everyone I know is safe and sound. We were pretty blessed.

Anyways, tomorrow s our first day back at school. Isaac and I will both be in first grade this year. This is the first year since I started in the district that I will get to teach only one grade, and I am SOOOO excited. Have a great week!

whirlwind

What a crazy weekend! Friday night my mom and I went to see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the Fulton theater in Lancaster. I had never been there before and had pretty low expectations. Especially since I saw Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in the West End in London. I was pleasantly surprised, however. The Fulton was a beautiful old building and the production was great.

The next day I met up with a good friend from college, Nicole. She was in town visiting her father. That has been a fun part of my parents moving to the Lancaster area: we end up in town a lot of times for holidays. I had only intended to stay an hour or two but it was so pleasant floating around in her pool that I ended up spending most of the afternoon there. I had put sunscreen on my face but I ended up up with a bad burn on my chest.

After that I dashed off to a graduation party at the TrueDeeva's house and spent the afternoon giggling at her former mother in law's antics being shocked at how much all of the kids had grown up. I think her daughter was in first grade the last time I saw her, and now she looks like a young lady, ready to go off to middle school. I managed to avoid drama with Isaac's daddy (We had both been invited and I had asked that we go at different times because I thought that might confuse Isaac. His dad didn't like that suggestion, but it worked out in the end.)

From there I met up with my friends Becca and Jami. She is officially moved into her house in Fishtown. It was such a nice night that we ended up wandering around the city from place to place. We checked out Stephen Starr's newest place Frankford Hall. Although I don't have much use for a beer garden, it was a really neat place, with a huge outdoor courtyard and ping pong tables and girls walking around selling huge pretzels. We also walked to PYT in Northern Libs but was disappointed by horrible service. Seriously, the worst service I have had in ages. We were this close to just walking out, which is a shame because the food was really good.

Sunday I squeezed in a walk with my friend Kim, before we were back to Lanc for a nice meal with my dad. Joe grilled steaks and I had a turkey burger. At first I was sad and it was one of the first times int he past year that I really found myself wanting to eat red meat. But once they were there on the table, they looked less appetizing and I was fine with my turkey burger. It was a great weekend.

You know you're from Philly when...

So on Sunday one of the Sacrament Meeting speakers had recently moved to the area from Utah. She was highly emotional and obviously felt a bit lonely and out of her element, so I am trying not to be too judgemental...

(BUT...)

She explained that her family had moved here after living in Utah for a very long time, but originally she was "from here" having lived in New York as a child........................

This comment struck me as, well, hilarious, because the last time I checked this is southeastern PA, which is no where near New York.

Now I realize this terrified Utah transplant was probably referring to "here" as in "the east coast". I will give her benefit of the doubt that she was not referring to "here" as "the mission field" which is one of my TOP Mormon Culture pet peeves.

Anywho, I thought I would compile a list of reasons that you KNOW you're in Philadelphia area, just to help her out.

• You know how to spell Schuylkill River
• You don`t call a cheesesteak a Philly cheesesteak or a hoagie a sub
• Seeing the Liberty Bell is not that big a deal
• You hate Kobe Bryant
• Your favorite dessert is "wooder ice"... or Tastykakes.
• A vacation at the Jersey shore (pronounced "Down the shoore") is better than going to an island (there's more stuff to do, plus you know everybody.)
• You don't think that "Wawa" sounds funny... and you recognize and fully appreciate it's awesomeness.
• You've never referred to Philadelphia as anything but "Philly." And New Jersey has always been "Jersey."
• You refer to Pennsylvania as "PA" (pronounced Peeay). How many other states do that?
• You know what "Punxsutawney Phil" ( A Ground Hog ) is, and what it means if he sees his shadow.
• You know that Blue Ball, Intercourse, Climax, Bird-in-Hand, Beaver, Moon, Virginville, Paradise, Mars, and Slippery Rock are PA towns.
• You know that driving is easier in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow.
• You know what a mummer is.
• You think Ben Franklin is the MAN.
• You have an uncontrollable urge to buy bread and milk when you hear the word "snow".
• You say the correct pronunciation LANG-kist-er instead of the mispronounced Lan-CAST-er, and LEB-en-in instead of the equally incorrect Leb-a-NON.

Pennsylvnia is sure NOT New York, but it's a pretty awesome place and a place that should be appreciated.