Despite the heat over the past couple of weeks, we’re trying our hardest to embrace the season with a slew of clichéd summertime activities.

First up it was barbecuing. Lots of barbecuing. After the 4th of July last week we ended up with about ten or so pounds of extra meat, so we’ve spent a good portion of this week working our way through the backlog. First it was half pound burgers a la Tomas (with lots of crushed red pepper, garlic, teriyaki, onion and super sharp cheddar cheese)…

…followed a few days later by a huge rack of ribs which we had no idea how to cook. However the nice thing about grilling is that it’s pretty idiot proof as long as you keep an eye on it, so despite our lack of knowledge they still turned out pretty great! Next time we’re going to give slow cooking a try.

Shannon meanwhile has been trying to beat the heat at some of DC’s public swimming pools and she’s found a hidden gem. Public pools tend to get a bad wrap for being overcrowded and nasty, but Shannon stumbled across the one exception – the Francis DC public pool over in West End. Nestled right up against Rock Creek Park, it’s doesn’t get a ton of traffic so it’s not full of a million screaming, peeing kids. In fact, based on Shannon’s pictures it looks pretty peaceful. So if you’re in the neighborhood and need to cool off we’d recommend checking it out!

Towards the end of the week we all ended up on the roof deck of The Brixton over on U Street. Unlike so many roof decks in DC, The Brixton does it right. It’s mostly covered and they’ve got a slew of fans running at full blast, so it was actually pretty cool up there despite the 90°+ heat. Combine that with a super tasty beer selection… we were pretty content. We enjoyed it so much, we’re actually going to be heading back next week too!