Canada Day in the US

I am traveling home from a weekend trip to visit my family in a Philadelphia suburb of Pennsylvania. Even when some of these visits are filled with typical family arguing they are wonderful, memorable, and nostalgically hard to leave. This trip is no different. It began with me intersecting with my parents and two sisters who were driving East from the GTA and me driving south from Ottawa. We arrived early Saturday morning so I crawled into bed with my 15 yo cousin. Saturday afternoon would be filled with him and me arranging lights in the backyard for his brother’s HS graduation party that evening. In between a frantic search for more strings of white lights at local stores we would visit an exceptional Japanese garden off one of the local roads. Here are some pictures:




The party that evening went smoothly well and lasted late into the night. It began with hors d’ouvres and a catered barbeque. The lighting done by myself and my cousin looked amazing and received many compliments. To give you an idea of the setup there was a patio that you walked onto from the sliding glass doors of the house. There was a large and small table on this patio along with a full bar and tub of beer. The patio was slightly enclosed with hedges and lanterns with an opening that went out onto the grass and stone pathway. If you headed in one direction the path lead to the BBQ and front of the house. To the other direction you would stay behind the house and eventually reach a flower garden. Behind this path were bushed and trees and a wooden fence. The fence and bushes were lined with white lights. The trees had bunches of lights hanging in various places. There were three tables with flower centerpieces on the grass and they had white ball lights overhanging in strings that went from the house to the trees. Each table was lit with candles.

The next day I played basketball outside with my cousins and went shopping in a village with a cobblestone walkway all through downtown. We had pizza from the local shop and then some of the family left for home. That night I watched Alpha Dog with some of the family and then chilled outside with my two sisters and two of my cousins. We went for a late night drive to the convenient store and stocked up on candy that you can’t get in Canada. This included Now and Later and Peanut Chews. We all watched the Sopranos then my two cousins and I went long boarding all around town. This was probably the second best moment of the trip after the Japanese gardens. The streets were completely barren and there were a tone of hills that let us cruise around endlessly. It was a really calming experience.