SO MUCH FUN!!!

Yesterday was one of the most fun days that I have had in a long time. The entire day was a blast!! I realized recently that I have lived in Philly for 5 years and I don't know a lot about the city. So, we all decided to spend the day out in the city yesterday! The group started with me, Brooke, Jenna, Ashley and Joy. We got on the El and decided to just pick a stop and try and find something cool from there. None of us wanted to pick a stop so we called Kirsten and just asked her to pick a number between 2 and 60. She picked 43, so we got off the El at 43rd street.

Unfortunately, there wasn't anything at that stop, so we started to walk. We headed back toward 30th street, near the University of Pennsylvania. We finally stopped and asked someone where some good restaurants are and she pointed us in the right direction. (We had been walking for over an hour, but hadn't realized it because we were all having so much fun!). We found this little side street with some restaurants and coffee shops and finally picked this little Irish Pub. The food was INCREDIBLE!! After we ate we walked around a little, went in a few bookstores, stopped at a coffee shop and then headed home around 4. We had done a lot of walking, and had SO MUCH FUN!!

After we got home we had about an hour before we needed to go to the church for Jared's graduation party. Joy headed to the church to help her family set up for the party, while the rest of us grabbed a newspaper and checked out all the fun stuff going on this summer. We have made some big plans for the summer to see and do a lot of the fun Philly things that none of us have ever done.

Next, we went to the church for Jared's party and had a lot of fun. The party ended around 7:30 and then we headed back to Center City for First Friday. Every month, on the first Friday, all of the art galleries in Center City are open for free, and they have live music and food. We only got to enjoy it for about an hour and a half, but we had a lot of fun. We saw some amazing art (even met one of the artists...she was amazing. She listens to music and then paints what she is hearing...its awesome!). We also saw a really great folk band, some belly dancers...it was just a really cool night!

We finally got home around 10 p.m. and we were all pretty exhausted. We left the house at 11 a.m., and were gone for over 11 hours! We all had so much fun together! We laughed A LOT, but also had some great conversations about life and the Lord. Incredible is the only word I can find to describe the day!

Today should be another really good day. I am going to pick up the girls in a little while, and I haven't seen them in a while. Its actually not going to be too fun for them, but they don't know that yet. I found out yesterday that they haven't been going to school for the last 2 weeks, and they are about to get it. Their mom and I are working together to make sure they go for the rest of the year, and they will face some serious consequences if they don't go.

After that, though, Jenna and I are heading down to South Street to get tattoos! Well, at least talk to someone and get some ideas. We both know what we want, but we aren't sure exactly what they will look like, so we're going to check things out. If we don't get them today, we're going to go back later this week, so we're both really excited. Also on South Street, they are doing some really cool art exhibits and painting at Whole Foods, so we are going to check that out too. I think Brooke is going with us too, but I'm not sure. We don't have any big plans tonight, which is fine with me...yesterday was such a busy day, I don't mind relaxing tonight.

There is an AIM group coming tonight that is going to work with Cornerstone next week and will be running a special After-School week for me. I am SO excited about it! We have 25 kids coming each day, and its going to be a blast!! The summer has definitely started, but so far so good!