Bastille Day

I had the opportunity to participate in a awfully fun event on Saturday: Bastille Day! Sarah's Fairmount neighborhood celebrates the storming of the Bastille from the French Revolution a block from her new apartment right outside the Eastern State Penitentiary. This year was their 13th annual celebration, and I'm told it's gotten bigger every year. My best guess says that over 2000 people were there from 2-6PM to enjoy the booths, hear the music, and watch the reinactment. They had a real working guilletine!


My involvement was from helping my church Liberti. We had a meeting a week ago at our pastor's house discussing our involvement in this event. Since one of Liberti's goals is to join into things the neighborhood is already doing, we wanted to show our support and raise awareness of our church in the area. Our brainstorming led to the idea of making stocks and taking people's pictures for free--then posting the picture on our website for people to download. Over 500 pictures were taken, and people were pretty happy with the idea. I got to help organize the event for Liberti, which was our first time participating in the annual event. We all agreed we HAVE to do it again next year.


Another element to the booth was the confessional. Not the usual confessional you'd might assosciate with the Catholic Church. Inside, we had our pastor confessing the sins of the church to people--apologizing for things like the crusades, the church's idleness during the Holocost, treatment of gay/lesbians, justification of slavery, etc. As a leader in the church, our paster said he wanted to own up to those sins and ask the forgiveness of the person in the confessional. Our paster was so excited about people's reactions and the conversations that ensued! One guy said he didn't realize what Christianity was all about: "I had no idea!" A Jewish woman cried as she said she had never heard someone apologize for the church's lack of response to the Holocaust. There was no doubt that God blessed the conversations that took place, and it was pretty cool to see our pastor so fired up about it.


All in all, it was a very exciting and encouraging day. Not only did I get to experience over 2000 Twinkies raining from the sky when Marie Antoinette said "Let them eat cake," but I got to wear a Liberti t-shirt and talk with people about our church. What a fulfilling day!

Free Philly summer fun

With some of my spare time, I organized a list of fun summer events for free (or SUPER cheap) in Philadelphia. Let me know if you're interested in one, and we'll go!

Tuesday nights at dusk
Liberty Lands Lawn Chair Movies
Event: Free outdoor movies
Schedule:
July 17 The Atomic Kid
July 24 The Fabulous World of Jules Verne
July 31 Rainbow Round My Shoulder
August 7 Son of Kong
August 14 War Games
August 21 The Kid Brother

Wednesday evenings from 5-7PM
Center City Sips
Event: Cheap food and drinks at different bars
$1 appetizers
$2 beer
$3 wine
$4 cocktails

Wednesday nights at 7PM
Society Hill Dance Academy at 409 S 2nd St.
Event: Free dance lessons/movie in covered area.
Schedule:
6/13 Hairspray Madison
6/20 West Side Story Mambo
6/27 Grease Hand Jive
7/04 Saturday Night Fever Hustle
7/11 Dirty Dancing Merengue
7/18 Swingers Swing/Jitterbug
7/25 Cabaret performance only
8/01 Strictly Ballroom Foxtrot/Waltz
8/08 Chicago Charleston
8/15 Goonies Truffle Shuffle Contest
8/22 Priscilla, Queen of the Desert drag show
8/29 The Rocky Horror Picture Show The Time Warp

Wednesday nights at 7:30PM
PhillyCarShare sponsored drive-in movies
Free movies, popcorn, and refreshments!
7/18 Annie Hall at Liberty Lands Park
7/25 James and the Giant Peach at Vernon Park
8/1 Breakin' 2: Electirc Boogaloo at 22nd and Montrose Streets
8/8 The Wiz at Clark Park
8/15 3 Amigos at Pretzel Park
8/22 Rocky I at Capitolo Park
8/29 An Inconvenient Truth at 23rd and Pine
9/5 Ghostbusters at Eastern State Penitentiary
9/12 Spaceballs at UPenn
9/19 Double feature! Cars & The Princess Bride on South St. Whole Foods on top of parking lot

Thursday nights from 7:30-10:30PM
The Commodore Barry Club, 6815 Emlen Street, Philadelphia, 19119 (West Mount Airy) (www.freestepping.com)
Event: Free step dancing

Thursday nights from 7:30-11PM
Art Museum Steps (http://www.rakdan.com)
Event: Free Israeli Dancing

Thursday nights at 6:30PM
Penn's Landing at Columbus and Market
Event: Free movies and themed activities
Schedule:
July 5 - Bruce Almighty
July 12 - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
July 19 - To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything!
July 26 - It's Christmas in July! How the Grinch Stole Christmas
August 2 - The Wiz
August 9 - The Nutty Professor
August 16 - Kicking and Screaming
August 23 - Curious George
August 30 - Happy Feet

Friday nights at 7:30PM
Penn's Landing at Columbus and Market
Event: Free concerts
Schedule:
July is R&B month
July 6 - Jazmine Sullivan and Eric Roberson
July 13 - Featuring Donnie
July 20 - Featuring Musiq Soulchild and Raul Midon
July 27 - Kindred the Family Soul

August is Smooth Jazz month
August 3 - Jeff Kashiwa and Ken Navarro
August 10 - Jeff Lorber and Paul Jackson, Jr.
August 17 - Steve Cole featuring Cool World
August 24 - Chieli Minucci and Special EFX featuring Nelson Rangell
August 31 - Bobby Caldwell and the Smooth Summer All-Stars

Sunday afternoons from 1-5PM
Penn's Landing at Columbus and Market
Event: Free concerts
Schedule:
July 22 - KeKe Palmer
July 29 - The Jonas Brothers
August 5 - Paul Green School of Rock
August 12 - Lisa Loeb

Tubing pictures

Here are a few pictures from our adventures on the Brandywine River this past Sunday

Weekend!

What a fun weekend! Tubing, 4.5 mile race, friends, food, and beautiful weather. Here's the details:

Sarah and I watched the movie Akeelah and the Bee on Thursday night. (which was great since she didn't have any studies to do!!! her rotations have been doing orientation for a few days; the real deal starts later this week...dum dum dum....). It was a neat movie on its own, but what made me enjoy it even more was that it directly related with the current coursework in my online grad school classes at Walden University! I had been struggling with being interested in the course this week since it seemed to all be about teaching kindergarteners to read without a whole lot of application for me. The movie, however, had elements of phonics, etymologies, spelling games, and other activities that I associated with my latest lectures and readings, and I even wrote a paper this week using one of the games in the movie! It was a well-needed shot in the arm to help me finish up the week's assignments.

Saturday morning was an early: 6:30AM in West Philly to meet the bus. My students and I ran in a 4.5 mile race sponsored by Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church. This was the first race with me being the main leader, so I was a little nervous. Unfortunately, the bus was over an hour late, causing us to arrive JUST as the race started (thankfully for us, the church started the race 15 minutes late...gotta love the African American culture!). The kids had a good run despite the hilly course. Two of our runners were flat out lazy and finished BEHIND the ambulance. Finding intrinsic motivation on a warm day isn't always easy for everyone.

This week we start city-wide Students Run clinics. Our first one is in the graveyard behind our school! I'm interested in seeing how the students respond to having a bunch of kids from all over Philly come run in our backyard. They were pretty excited about it before, so let's hope it continues.

Sarah's new apartment is taking shape. It's been great fun for me to help her move in and figure out how she and her new roommate's place is going to look. (okay, so maybe I'm not too thrilled with all the designing part of it, but I can move beds and dressures and run wires through desks with the best of 'em!). It really is a beautiful place, and we've talked about its potential for hosting friends. She's lacking a TV, but what's more exciting...a TV or a roof deck?!? C'mon.

Yesterday about 25 of us went out tubing down the Brandywine River in Deleware after church. The 90+ degree heat made for a PERFECT day on the tubes. Traffic held our group up over an hour past our start time, and the tubing company wasn't too happy and dropped us farther down the river than expected. Still, we had a good hour in the water. Families were splashing in it all over the place.

After our ride, we went back to Libby's house for John's smoothies, pizza and fondu. John and Libby sure know how to host a party! What a wonderful way to spend a Sunday in the summer.

The latest forecast calls for temperatures to be over 100 today here. Yikes!

Chicago celebrations

Chicago was great! My parents, grandparents, aunts, uncle, and cousins were all there to celebrate the 4th of July...Bushhouse style. It was a little unorthadox with Maria and Jordan being gone and one family left partway through the celebration to drive to the other side of their family, but we had a good time.

Things we did:
-Experienced a Chicago building architecture tour
-Ate dinner at the Taste of Chicago
-Saw downtown Chicago's fine fireworks display (synchronized with a live orchestra playing songs like the 1812 Overture, the Imperial March, and the Stars and Stripes Forever.)
-Watched Pixar's Ratatouille (not quite as good as Cars, but beautiful storyline and creativity!)
-Enjoyed Wheaton's 4th of July parade


My flight made it back to Philly safely--despite the weather's attempts to keep me from seeing Sarah. Only some flights were being allowed into the airport due to heavy rain, and fortuntely, mine was one of them! On top of it, we got in early! Sarah was waiting for me at the airport--even arriving 30 minutes early and secretly parking in the short term lot to surprise me! What a gal. After not seeing each other for over two weeks, you'd think it had been years! Amazing what tricks your heart can play on you. As a nice treat for us, the Philadelphia fireworks were postponed due to rain until we came back from the airport. Sarah and I just stood in the street with a bunch of other people and enjoyed the show.

In other celebrations on the 4th, some people ate a lot of hot dogs. 66 in 12 minutes?!? That's 33 feet of hot dogs. The average American eats 65 in a year. Wowzers.

The Cubs have won 10 of their last 12 games. Watch out!

Hope College Gathering

This is one of the many things I miss about my days at Hope College:

Food, glorious food

After church today, about 20 of us went to Mama Palma's Pizza. I had been there before and was impressed with their customer service and product quality, and this time was no different! Delicious pizza, popping with flavor. They served our large group efficiently and cheerfully (Seth also had the foresight to call ahead and let them know we were coming!). No complaints here!


Jeremy and I caught a ride from Casey to Penn's Landing where there was an all you can eat ice cream festival going on! We scarfed down seven tubs of ice cream from Coldstone, Edy's, Jack and Jill, Ben and Jerry's, Starbucks, Baskin Robbins, and a few water ice locations. MMMmmmm! I thought it would have been a blast if I was a kid too...can you imagine having so many different choices and all you can eat?!? Oh the possibilities.


Tip of the day: when wondering why your bank account made LESS interest than last month with MORE money in it, consider the fact that the months may have differing amounts of days in them. I checked my ING Direct account for its monthly interest and was about to fire off an e-mail question to their customer service department for why I had less interest in June than in May even though I hadn't made any withdrawals. Fortunately, I caught my mistake before I sent the e-mail. (by the way, if you'd like to make 4.5% interest on your savings account PLUS get $25 JUST FOR SIGNING UP, let me know...if you just sign up with the company on your own, you don't get a bonus--that's only with a referral from a current member like me).