One of my favorite time management rules is to aim to have one big adventure and one little adventure each week. This is enough to make life feel memorable, but not upset any good routines that exist.
This weekend my big adventure was going to a Phillies game on Friday night. This is my third trip to Citizens Bank Park for the year (!) but what made this one more memorable was that a friend had rented out a suite to celebrate his 50th birthday. So it was a Phillies game combined with a party (and with very good seats!). My husband and I had fun watching the game, which the Phillies won, though the last inning was a little more nerve-wracking than it should have been, and chatting with people. After a rainy Thursday, Friday the weather was absolutely beautiful. So it was nice to get one last “summery” baseball game before the Phillies go into the postseason.
My little adventure was biking at Valley Forge National Park on Sunday. We live about 20 minutes from the park, so this is not terribly adventurous in the sense that I’ve done this many times. However, Sunday’s bike ride was different because I biked with my 5-year-old. We loaded five bikes into the cars (adults + the 3 boys who are still at home) and then my husband did the full loop with the bigger boys, but my little guy insisted he wanted to ride his own bike, not go on the tag-along behind me. This was a bit ambitious, as he’s only really ridden around the neighborhood, but he wanted to try. So he and I rode together and he did a really great job. We had to walk the bike some on the hills and there was a lot of coaching (“to the right…the right!”) but we had a good ride. We stopped to look at the Revolutionary War cabins, and this added some interest to the ride as well. I was very proud of him!
Other weekend highlights: I ran with my friend Jane on the Schuylkill River Trail on Saturday morning. I went to the farmer’s market with my daughter on Saturday and bought honeycrisp apples because, despite our huge haul from picking two weeks ago, we are actually out! There have been a lot of apples consumed in this house. We watched Texas A&M win their football game and the Eagles win theirs (not the whole game straight through in either case – we recorded and then watched while forwarding a lot). I sang with my choir on Sunday morning, and took the little boys in the pool and hot tub a few times.
And a big family event: We now have another driver! My husband took the 16-year-old to PennDOT on Saturday and he got his permit. My husband then had him drive home, which was a bit exciting, but all good. Now we need to clock our 65 hours of supervised driving so he can get his license in 6 months.
What a coincidence- my family and I were at the Phillies game on Friday night too! We flew in from Minneapolis that morning, took a stadium tour that afternoon, and enjoyed the game that evening 🙂 So, I suppose I will also claim that as my big adventure for the week! It’s quite possible we’re in the photo you posted above, as we were seated a few rows up from the ballgirl down the left foul line.
I really have to thank my 7th grader for the experience though- although we are from Minnesota, he is also unabashedly a Phillies fan (Phan?) – he justifies this by saying he needs both an American League team and a National League team to cheer for (ha!) But he really wanted to come and see both of his favorite teams play, so he mowed a lot of lawns this summer and was able to fly us out and cover a hotel for the weekend! We went to the game on Saturday evening too, though the weather was not quite as nice as it was on Friday. But we were happy to check out a new stadium (my husband and I only have 7 more teams/stadiums left to visit!) and my kids were happy to see some familiar faces on the Phillies (namely Harrison Bader and Jhoan Duran, who were recently traded from the Twins).
Not sure my adventures this week will be quite as big as a trip out East, but we do have plans for an extended family dinner at a local winery next weekend, so we’ll make the most of that 🙂