Pittsburgh
This past weekend Katherine and I went to Pittsburgh to visit my childhood friend, Alison. We have known each other since second grade. We attended the same church, school and college. We have been in each other’s weddings. Her parents still live in the area but her family only comes to town once or twice a year. There are so many people to visit that we have a short amount of time to spend when she is in town. So, we decided to go visit her. Four days of quality time. It was so much fun!
This past weekend Katherine and I went to Pittsburgh to visit my childhood friend, Alison. We have known each other since second grade. We attended the same church, school and college. We have been in each other’s weddings. Her parents still live in the area but her family only comes to town once or twice a year. There are so many people to visit that we have a short amount of time to spend when she is in town. So, we decided to go visit her. Four days of quality time. It was so much fun!
Alison and Jason (whom I have known since 7th grade) have three great kids. Macy is 7, Dallas is 5 and Kayley is almost 3. It was fun to spend time with kids that are a lot older than Katherine to see what is coming in the future. The first day we were there, we went to a park to play. Somehow Alison and all three kids fit on the teeter totter.
Macy is a cutie and a great helper to her mom.
Kayley is precious. She is the most verbal almost three year old I have ever met. She really enjoyed having Katherine around and not being the youngest.
I thought this was a pretty cool pic. You can the see the motion of the kids on the swing.
The second day there we went to the science museum. It was incredibly crowded. We found out that since it was the first day of summer you could get into the museum free if you brought a snowball. Apparently a lot of people knew this and have been saving snowballs in their freezer. We spent most of our time in the play area where Katherine explored the water table.
Then we went outside where we had a picnic and Katherine ate her first peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She liked it and it made a huge mess!
Friday we went to the Zoo. My Dallas Zoo membership got me into the Pittsburgh Zoo FREE! When I bought our membership, I saw that there were a lot of other zoos that you could get into but I thought I would never use it. I am so glad I had it with me.
Before this trip I got my new favorite piece of baby gear. It is a Patapum brand of a soft structured carrier. It is similar to a baby bjorn except you can wear your baby on your front or back. For a baby Katherine’s size, you really need to wear them on the back. It worked great at the zoo. She was in there for 3 hours as happy as can be. If she had been in the stroller, she could not have seen the animals over the fences and she would have been trying to get out. It also worked great in the airport since I was traveling by myself with Katherine. I did not even have to take her out to go through security.
These monkeys were so funny. They were just chillin out like a group of teenagers ready to cause some trouble. In another section there was another very entertaining monkey. A mouse had wandered into the cage and the monkey was playing with it. The kids were all amused until the monkey killed the mouse.
They just opened the polar bear exhibit. They were pretty amazing. They are only 2.5 years old and weigh 600 pounds. Full grown they will weigh 1800 pounds. They are the largest carnivores on earth. The other bear was playing in the water with toys. There was a tunnel where you could go below and watch them in the water. It was cool.
Saturday we went to Macy’s softball game. She is the one in the yellow shirt. Katherine was wandering all over the place but interested a little in the game.
As a typical one year old she was just as interested in a rock that she found.
While we were trying to cook dinner, the girls were all bored. So, we gave them pots and pans so that they could drum. It was loud but a lot of fun.
Both the flight to Pittsburgh and the flight to Dallas were delayed. It was a lot of fun *NOT* to entertain Katherine in the airport. In Dallas she wanted to run in the middle where the carts were zooming by. Finally we went to an upstairs hallway where she thoroughly enjoyed the moving sidewalk. We made several laps and she even discovered how to go the opposite direction so you stay in one place like on a treadmill. On the way back she liked to talk on the payphone. These are two of the photos I took on my camera phone that I cannot figure out how to rescue and get onto my computer (see other post).