PHL Photodump

Note: I am following the news about the devastating losses of life in TX, and my heart goes out to the many families impacted. It feels surreal to share memories from my own happy weekend with tragedy happening elsewhere but here we are. Life is fragile and precious.

According to my 5 Year Journal, 2025 is the fourth consecutive fourth spent in the Philadelphia area, at my parents’ house. This was originally to see my parents, but now my sister and my niece M live there too — so it’s an even more complete family experience!

We spent Friday – Sun (left 6:45 AM from MIA on Friday and arrive back in MIA at 9:30 PM on Sunday). Short, but I had to work 7/3 and Josh had to work 7/7, so that’s what we settled on. Our kids are pretty used to early rises for flights and did really well! Our only hiccup was having to wait 90 minutes for a car at Budget (which I feel is . . . much too long for a car reserved and prepaid a month prior?). But it all worked out and we got to my parents’ just in time to grab my dad and head to the Phillies game.

Then I ran into Laura . . .

I know I talked about fireworks but after ~4 hours outside at the game it wasn’t in the cards! Instead my mom made a great BBQ spread (burgers), Josh / C helped grill, and we all relaxed at dinner (and passed out by ~10). I don’t think I even got woken up by fireworks (in FL people tend to be exploding things for hours).

The next day was also gorgeous so we all (my parents, my sister, M, and all of us) headed to Longwood Gardens — I hadn’t been since probably middle school! It was beautiful. My parents initially worried the kids (ages 5-13 with M) wouldn’t be interested but there were a ton of fun places to explore/walk around. Oh and I also showed my mom the Peloton strength workouts. She was pretty decent at on-the-knee pushups for her age, I have to say. I am not sure I converted her though (I taught her some basic strength moves years ago and she still does them but trying to see if this would be more interesting / help with variation of movement).

THEN, Josh / me / the kids headed to Laura’s to hang out, record a Patreon podcast, and let the kids swim (except G, sadly, because of her cast – but she was okay because she loves their playroom). They had a whole spread for us and we all enjoyed the fact that no one had to stand over the kids when they were playing upstairs together — huge milestone (obviously they were supervised in the pool).

We picked up cheesesteaks + pizza from here on the way home and they were pretty amazing. My sister went to a concert and the kids had a fun sleepover with M (I only had to yell at everyone to be quiet twice, lol).

On Sunday, I went for a lovely outside walk with my mom (Josh ran both days — I was a little sad not to join him as I always loved running in PHL on this trip — but hey, the walk was nice) and then she and C made lemon ricotta pancakes.

After that, we headed to the playground with my sister, made an obligatory/traditional trip to Rita’s Water Ice (my unpopular opinion is that Jeremiah’s is better, and neither of them are that great), packed up, and headed to the airport. Thankfully, returning our rental car was way easier than procuring it and our only hiccup was ~45 min sitting on the runway after our flight due to a thunderstorm. I was SOOO much happier to be on the ground (vs in the air in a thunderstorm) that I didn’t really care. We got home around 10 — totally tired!

Yesterday, I worked from home (led a session, did some catchup, did an interview) and took C/G to camp (our nanny had the day off). I DREAAAAAADED this because I thought everyone would be too tired out from the weekend yet somehow . . . the kids rose to the occasion! C had lacrosse camp, G went to gymnastics camp (yes with her cast – so not actually DOING much, but she wanted to go), and our house is not a TOTAL disaster as I type this so I will call that a win.

Conclusion: I’m really glad we went, and feel like we packed more than 3 days’ worth of memories + connection into a short period! I’m really glad that was our last trip for a while — just ready for a solid number of weeks at home (in all fairness, I will be in a hotel in ~3.5 weeks with my college friends for a bit, but it will be local). I’m SOOO glad I trusted my instincts and decided NOT to go to Endo Society (would have been leaving later this week, and it’s on the West Coast. That does not sound desirable in the least).

Conclusion #2: Highly recommend picking a ‘minor holiday’ like this for family travel — you can build a lot of traditions around the 4th (or Labor Day etc). Note to self to request 7/3/26 off now!