Pittsburgh, PA - Day 1

Some good friends of ours moved to Pittsburgh 2 years ago (3 years ago?  Sheesh), and we told them that we'd visit.  We finally made good on that promise this last weekend.  We're super prompt like that.

A few days before we left, I was reading Calvin and Hobbes and found this strip:

If I lived in Pittsburgh, I would frame that strip and keep it on my wall.

The Trip

The drive wasn't as long as I anticipated, and it was gorgeous.  Trees, hills, and purple wildflowers the whole way.  Our only snafu:  forgetting the cell phone.  Brilliant.  By the time we noticed, we were about an hour out.  We weren't turning back.  Fortunately Aliess isn't a worrier, so she wasn't too freaked out by not hearing from us.  ...  Made me think of the days when we used to routinely travel without cell phones.  Do you remember those days?  ...  You know, 10 years ago.

Day 1 - Children's Festival

On Friday we went to a Children's Festival on or near Carnegie Melon and that other Pittsburgh university's (Pitt?) grounds.  (I didn't know that Andrew Carnegie was from Pittsburgh, though I should have put that together.  His buildings, the library, etc., are GORGEOUS.)  The kids had a great time.  Re-cap in pictures:

They got to pet this dog:

They took pictures with this book character (can you guess who it is?):

It's Junie B. Jones.  Not that you can tell.

They got to do a climbing wall:

Elijah got all the way to the top!:

Here's a perspective on how high up he was:

Elijah was so determined to get to the top.  This shamed Miciah, who gave up about 5 times during her climb.  She decided that she couldn't let her younger brother show her up, so she tried again.  Here she is, looking like Spider-Man:

(That building is cool, right?  It's the Cathedral of Learning.)  But she didn't make it to the top.  Have to post her final Giving Up face:

Classic.

Then the kids got their faces painted.  Elijah, shockingly, wanted a koala bear.  This is what he got:

It looks like a pale Mickey Mouse.  (The picture is so green because they were under a green-roofed tent.)

Teancom loved his dragon.  He spent 5 minutes checking himself out in the mirror:

And Miciah was NOT happy with her butterfly (even though she looks gorgeous in this picture):

Why?  Because this is the butterfly her friend, Elizabeth got:

Disappointing for Miciah, right?  As a consolation prize, I told Miciah that her Aunt Corene could paint her face when we got home.  Corene is talented. When I was a kid she did a dragon on my cheek and then the fire went across the bridge of my nose to the other cheek.

Then we rode the Carousel, ate some lunch, and went back to Aliess' house.  By the end of the day we all were sunned out.  But it was fun.

Day 2 coming up.