Summer weekends

Although the summer solstice doesn't come around until June 21st, summer has definitely kicked off here in our home. This weekend was the first of 3 awesome June weekends and I can't wait for the rest of this month. Next weekend we'll be in upstate New York with family and friends for our first wedding shower (!!!) and the weekend after we'll be in NYC for Father's Day and my brothers birthday. I'm so happy that we're able to relax a little bit and hang with some family.

This past Friday Keith and I went down to our favorite Irish pub and cheered on the Flyers with lots of other rowdy fans haha Basically I love watching hockey (shhh don't tell Keith that I think it's way more exciting than baseball :X) and I'm pretty excited that the Flyers are in the playoffs so we can cheer for our Philadelphia home team.

Saturday Keith was off so we enjoyed sleeping in before heading to the gym and then driving over to Dan and Aly's for a BBQ. Aly and Dan cooked us up and amazing dinner: grilled chicken, corn on the cob, sweet potato mash and lemon tart! They also made some homemade sangria which was incredibly refreshing on our warm summer night.




We also love going to Dan and Aly's house because they are kitten foster parents and always have the cutest little ones roaming around.


Today I headed downtown to take part in the Philadelphia International Championship Pro Cycling Race. It's pretty much the biggest party in the city and next year I DEFINITELY want someone else to come with me. Keith and I did a little research last night because ever since we moved people just kept telling us about "the crazy bike race in June" and we wanted to know what was actually going on. It's a 156 mile race through different parts of the city which is the longest running single-day cycling road race in the United States. Part of the race comes through the neighborhood where Keith and I live (Manayunk) and it's a famous place for people to stand and watching because it's the home of "the wall". As I'm sure I've mentioned before, our neighborhood is known for having steep San Francisco style hills and part of the race's course goes up the steepest hill in the area (which is 17% grade, and not very much fun to walk/run/bike or even drive up haha). The racers actually have to climb that hill on their bikes like 10 times or something crazy because the course loops around, but I headed down to watch their first climb. THERE WERE SO MANY PEOPLE OUT THERE CHEERING! It was nuts... there were people everywhere, and there was beer everywhere haha Lots of people were at the bottom of the hill, mostly because everyone had coolers and even kegs that they brought with them. There were people on roofs and hanging off of porches of all the houses on the streets. It was pretty unreal.

The firemen even came out and opened the hydrant for kids to play in since the streets were all blocked off.

When I first looked at this picture I thought that I had just taken it horribly crooked, but when I looked again I don't actually think the issue is my unsteady hand haha the street REALLY is this steep haha



Here is a video of the pack of racers about to head up the hill. My favorite was all the mini coopers that follow behind with extra bikes and tires for the racers, oh and all the dude-bros chanting USA haha. I tried to get a photo of the leader, but he was biking just a bit too fast haha