Happy summer! How crazy is it that Independence Day is two weeks away? I’m not ready! Let’s slow time down on this sultry evening and look back at three beautiful things from the past week, shall we?

1. My Bikeshare membership comes up for renewal. (Bikeshare is the system of shared bicycles located around the region. Pick up a bike from the automated stands in one place (like by your office) and ride it to your next destination (such as the grocery store, the park, or home).) The annual cost is not inconsequential, so I consider my options. But because the system tracks your usage, I am able to see that in the last year, I used CaBi 75 times, rode 91.47 miles (that would most likely not have been biked otherwise), and burned two days’ worth of calories. I hadn’t realized I had used it so often. Although I have my own bike, I find that the benefits at least equal the cost (if not outweigh them) for a continued subscription.

2. Twice in the last week, I’ve gotten to see favorite movies from the 1980s on the big screen. On Saturday, we headed up to Silver Spring to catch The Princess Bride on the AFI’s huge screen. It was fantastic — complete with occasional interludes of audience recitations. Tonight, Back to the Future was shown on a screen set up in Dupont Circle, and we trundled our camp chairs over there to watch. There was lots of applause at the key moments — and a real life DeLorean for us to check out (no sign of the Flux Capacitor).

3. I have not yet made homemade ice cream (although the canister is now in the freezer to enable making it this weekend), so we stopped at Larry’s for cones on our way home tonight, because two days in the upper 90s seemed to demand frozen concoctions. Rudi sampled the Mud Pie for the first time, but I opted for my favorite, Paradise, which was a fresh vat when we walked in.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week?