In 1774, John Adams travelled from Boston to Philadelphia to participate in the 1st Continental Congress - the journey would take roughly two weeks beginning on the Post Road in Mass. and finishing along "as fine a road as ever trod" through NJ - must have been an early version of the NJ turnpike...

Philadelphia lies on the bank of the Delaware River - it was a true 18th century metropolis - the richest, largest city in British America w/ a population of almost 30,000 people at the time of the Declaration of Independence.  Today Philly has a popluation of 1.4 million and a metropolitan area of 5.8 million people - the 5th largest in the US.  It was a cool back drop for the teams 1st tournament of the summer.

There’s so much history within the streets of Philadelphia...  The team guide for the trip downtown was Elaina - and we covered all the highlights - Independence Hall, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Liberty Bell with amazing efficiency (roughly 5 minutes to drive by all 3).  Fast Tom was fast - Leslie only got lost a few times - and while registration the 1st time flamed, the team did make it to the tournament and had a lot of fun.

The highlight of course was Garth’s time travel machine - transporting us back to when the giants of US History - Washington, Adams, Jefferson - changed the course of lives throughout the world creating a country that we are all so lucky to live in.  While Christine made the trip and Mike did not, Mike was able to employ Garth’s teleportation device to represent the team and offer some invaluable tweaks to our Constitution...

Tournament - oh yea - back to the tournament.  Have you ever heard of the description that some times to take two steps forward you have to take 1 step backwards...  The team played Pittsgrove Pride, MatchFit Academy & NJ Rangers - all ranked teams out of NJ.  The girls went 1-1-1 in tough conditions - the tournament actually was cancelled on Sunday due to a brutal storm they played through in the morning - heavy rain & winds in NJ - sunny & 75 in Buffalo - oh well...

It was a learning experience for the girls - learning new ways to attack opponents - experimenting with new positions - the best analogy I can come up with is changing your grip in golf or tennis - you know to get to the next level you have to take the steps necessary to do so - but there is a period of time that it can be a bit frustrating as they learn and make mistakes along the way.

Bianca is a great teacher - the girls have a long ways to go and the #1 emphasis is learning, improving & having fun.

Behavior among the parents was pretty good - nobody booted from the sidelines - curfew was met - another fun weekend with good friends...