Pittsburgh

One or two times a year Nate has to travel to Pittsburgh for work.  I'm a little embarrassed to say, after all my extensive travel up and down the coast, to the upper mid-west, to west coast, to Caribbean and to Europe, I'd never been to Pittsburgh!  Since the Monday was a holiday for the kids and me we decided to tag along for a free hotel and check out the city.  The hotel was nice.  It was a little tough keeping the kids quiet in there but they did good.  It was also helpful to have the IPad so I could watch shows when the lights went out at 8pm and Nate was out with work people:).

Max only fell off of here one time!  Nate was upgraded and while it was nice to have more "room" in the room, there was only one bed.  Aliyah was on the cot and he did good on here for 2 nights.

Luckily they both like to color, this kept them quiet and occupied for a while!

We had a nice evening and dinner at Ikea.  I also enjoyed 45 mins of kid free shopping (and my only break from them for a while) while they had a blast in the kids' room.

Our big adventure was to the Children's Museum.  Again, I LOVE how even at 6 Max still just gets so into this stuff.  Since it was a holiday there were a lot of school age kids there too and the museum had SO much to offer kids of every age.

The last room we got to at the top was the water room!  It was AMAZING. There were some kids literally in bathing suits because the parents had obviously been there before.  The kids got soaked despite the smocks and shoes off but they had SO much fun!

Lots of other cool exhibits too!

God bless him, he spent a long time at this. They didn't really connect right because it wasn't designed for kids to make a huge connected project but he kept at it and got it pretty big!

There was a whole art studio with several projects.  The kids could leave stuff there to dry and pick it up on the way out.

And of course the best part was the POOL!  It had been over a month since summer swimming so they were thrilled to get back in the water!  Of course I forgot my bathing suit but had some great luck at the Target down the street and found one on clearance (and I even really like it so it will get some use again!).

10 Years!

Happy 10 Years to us!!! What a wonderful 10 years it has been.  It seems like SO long ago.  I can hardly remember not being married.  We have truly been blessed with a wonderful partnership.  I can honestly say we really never even have fights (just minor disagreements now and then), we really work well together and share a huge love for our kids and our families. 

Anyway.... for the first time ever we had a "weekend" away!  Saturday morning my mom took over the kids for the weekend and we headed down to DC.  It seemed fitting since that's where we spent our first 2 years of being married and started our life together.  I had free tickets to the Newseum and it was neat to see without worrying about doing kid friendly stuff.  The weather could not have been more perfect.  After the museum we headed to a sandwich place and ate outside for lunch.  We then headed to the National Harbor (which was only a work in progress when we lived down here).  We walked around for a while, had a drink, did a little shopping, had a little swim and even a nap before we headed out for a nice seafood dinner.  After dinner we went to a "dueling" piano bar which put on an amazing show of some super talented pianists/singers playing anything and everything.  We came back, hung out in the hotel lobby for a little and headed to bed.  After sleeping in (relatively speaking), as we got ready for the day it was fun to see the color run going on outside.  After we checked out we headed over to Old Towne Alexandria.  It was even better than when we left it!  There were a few more stores and a nice cafe right on the water front where we sat outside again and had a nice lunch.  On our way back home we drove past our first apartment.  I really do miss the area, it was nice.  But of course we're SO happy where we are right now in life.  Here's to another wonderful 10 or 100!

Newseum

National Harbor

Old Towne Alexandria & our first apartment

10 Year ago...

PA State Museum

I could not have been more excited for Max's first day off from school.  I'm so glad he likes school, but I REALLY miss him Thursdays and Fridays while I'm not working.  We were going to head to the zoo but the rain made us change our plans.  We hadn't been to the PA State Museum in years and I'm really glad we decided to head there instead.  The kids had a blast!  Max is just a few weeks shy of technically being allowed in the play area (though I think if you're with younger siblings you can still go in) but he's got such a great imagination he still loved playing there.  And I forgot how neat the museum is too.  I love how much interest the kids have in learning from the displays.  Museums have always been a favorite of mine and they really checked things out and were telling each other what everything was.  It was really a fun morning!

Always fun with the Virginians!

We really enjoy our early Fall trip to VA that has become a tradition.  With no other big family events this year, it had been since just after the holidays that we saw everyone, so it was long overdue.  We also finally enjoyed a beautiful weekend (despite a little rain in the afternoon Saturday) and got out on the boat a few times.  It was very fun to break in the beautiful brand new dock that was just finished too.  The kids just love their playtime with their VA cousins, younger and older!

Early Fall fun

For my mom's birthday we got her an IOU on Phillies tickets.  We finally got a game in.  It was a beautiful night and despite the loss, it's always a treat to be there in person and enjoy the stadium.

One of the first cool evenings, can't keep us inside!

 Fall cookout, easy dinner for mom!

Max had off for the Jewish holiday so I was SOO excited to have him home .  I really do miss him now that he's at school all day.   We had originally planned to go to the DC Zoo, but the weather didn't hold out for us.  Instead we headed to the PA State Museum right here in Harrisburg.  I forgot how neat it is there.  Max was a few weeks from being too old for the Curiosity Connection play place, and they even really enjoyed the museum exhibits.  There is some neat stuff and they spent the rest of the afternoon playing "olden days" with Indians and Dinosaurs in the basement.  It was nice to be closer to home and made the day more relaxing.