weekend of the fourth

We've been attempting to blog about our 4th of July weekend for several days now. And by that, I mean, I've been attempting to let Ben write about our 4th of July weekend for several days now because he is, by far, a much more funny writer than I. Alas, we always find ourselves with too much to do during our evenings together after work.. dinner, dishes, So You Think You Can Dance (GO KENT!), outings to Rita's for custard and water ice... busy, I know.

So, here I am, and here is what we did for our first married 4th of July:

The Pattersons (the directors of my study abroad) were staying in Wilmington, DE (about 40 minutes south of us) for the first week and a half that we were in Philadelphia. (Actually, we live about 30 miles northwest of "Center City" in a nice, little place called Malvern.) Anyway, last week the Pattersons invited me on two different outings - on Tuesday I went with the kids to Dorney Park - an amusement park in northern Pennsylvania, and on Wednesday I visited all of the Independence Hall and such historic/tourist attractions. Both days I was sad that Ben couldn't come with us, but on Friday (back to my topic of the 4th of July), we both got to go with the Patterson's to the Wilmington Blue Rocks minor league baseball game, complete with hot dogs, Dippin' Dots, and post-game fireworks!

(Notice the board behind us - the player batting has the same last name as us! Myers!)

GENTLE BEN!!!

We got home around midnight and were up again at 6 a.m. Saturday morning to meet the Patterson's for a trip to The Barnes Foundation. You can find more information about it here, but in short, it is one of the world's largest collections of impressionist, post-impressionist, and modern art. It was amazing, and tour we took only made the experience ten times more amazing. Ben said it really "brought the art to life." :) The collection will be moving to downtown Philadelphia at the end of next year, so we feel very lucky we were able to see it in it's original set-up.

That afternoon, Ben and I decided to be bold and adventurous and head into Center City with no game plan other than we knew that the Philadelphia Orchestra would be playing at Penn's Landing at 7:30 followed by fireworks at 9:30.

Well, what else would you do on America's birthday besides wander through Chinatown? I had an absolute blast in Chinatown! Two main reasons: 1) I am reading the book Shanghai Girls by Lisa See and it is SO good. So, I am feeling a little obsessed with all things Chinese right now. 2) Ben speaks both dialects of Chinese so he can talk to everybody. He loves it. And I love watching him! I love watching him get so happy and exciting talking to the Chinese people and I love watching their reactions to this tall white boy ask them for bread in their native tongue and then continue to carry on a conversation with them! It is so fun and I absolutely love it. It's something I really love about Ben.

These are the ladies that were working in the bread shop (that had a French name under the Chinese characters, might I add). Ben was looking for his favorite kind of bread from his mission which apparently turned out to be not quite the same, but the other kind of bread we got - pineapple bread - was uh-may-zing! When we went back in to take a picture, everybody in the restaurant took notice and started talking to Ben in Chinese, then they pushed these two little girls into the photo, too! Look at the one on the right's face! So funny, so cute.

This shop was packed full of fish - live fish, dead fish, eels (alive and flopping around), crabs, lobster, and all kinds of shelled fish. It was so gross and so unsanitary and Ben said it was so authentic! Haha.

Because of my current obsession with the Chinese, I had to try these two things on. If I had a place to wear a cheongsam (the dress), I would totally own one; they are so gorgeous!

This is where we sat on Penn's landing for 2 hours, (not really) listening to the orchestra and then watched the fireworks. It was packed. Seriously, there were thousands and thousands of people sitting everywhere on the cement landing for hours! I couldn't believe it! It was crazy, but it was fun. The best thing about it was how there was only one entrance/exit. Can you say mad-house? Haha! The fireworks show was honestly one of the best, most well done shows I have ever seen! It was fantastic!

Ben had the day off on Monday and we had quite the adventure! We did have a little bit of time for Ben to blog about it:

The whole day really began the evening before. It is the 4th of July weekend and Karin and I are living in the birthplace of our nation, so we decided to be both patriotic and a little adventuresome on Monday. I had talked to some of my coworkers about fun things to do in Philadelphia and one of them suggested canoeing down the historic Brandywine River. (My interest was picqued as I wondered how it compared to the historic Monon Trail of Carmel, IN. Love me some Bub's.) Wanting to get the full experience, Karin and I even researched the Battle of the Brandywine.

And that's as far as we got. Back to me. We rented a canoe for the "2 1/2 hour trip" down the Brandywine. This is a little taste of what it was like:

Ben: Paddle right! Paddle right!

Karin: Paddle to the right or paddle on the right?

Ben: Paddle on the right!! Ah! Watch out for the branches!

Karin: Ben! Help me paddle left! I need help on my side or we're going to crash!

Ben: Okay! I'm helping!

Karin: Oh no! There's a rock! Back to the right!

Ben: (noticing Karin is not paddling) Karin! Paddle! We're headed for a log!

Karin: (peering over the side into the water) Wait..I'm looking at the rocks and shells...

Ben: Karin! Paddle! There's a log!

Basically, we paddled to the right side, we paddled to the left side, we paddled to the right side, and we paddled back again. I'm not sure we ever went straight, and I know for certain we got stuck in the shallow water at least 30 times and one of us had to climb out and pull the canoe to the deep. Twice we went through rapids backwards because we couldn't straighten out the right way, and the saddest was when we were stuck on a sand bar, facing each other talking, and a bird dropped a big one on our bag of snacks in between us!

The "2 1/2 hour trip" took us an extra hour (calculating our paddling to be less than 2 mph) and suffice it to say, we are the world's worst canoe-ers!

Hilarious!

Ben put his life jacket on and promptly said "This supposed to save me?"

Bus ride upstream.

Happy canoe-ers!

Stuck canoe-ers!

It was a gorgeous day and the river was beautiful! A very funny trip.

Happy Birthday, America! :)