Pittsburgh

So after the week at Virginia Beach, the kids and I drove back up to Pittsburgh with my parents. I was in one car with King and my dad and my sister Katie and my mom were in another car with EZ and Netta. By some miracle everyone behaved the whole drive. My mom and Katie really lucked out on that one. Katie was only able to stay in Pittsburgh a couple days with us, but the kids and I were there for 3 weeks. Crazy with a newborn, but we had a wedding to go to in Pittsburgh at the end of the month and there was no way we were going to fly the whole family to Virginia and back and then 3 weeks later fly us all to Pittsburgh. So John got to be on his own for awhile. I know he missed us, but I am sure there were moments when he was happy to have all the peace and quiet. Luckily, my parents are AMAZING and did a great job helping me with the kids. My sister Rachel and her family also live in the same town and they helped a ton as well. They have some kids that are babysitting age, which of course I took advantage of and EZ and Netta loved having cousins to play with. So here are some pics chronicling our time in Pittsburgh

First Grandpa Steve and Netta at the zoo, which is always a favorite.

As you can see Netta had a little too much fun at the zoo.

EZ had just the right amount of fun.

The whole time we were there I was debating whether or not to go to Kennywood, the amusement park by my house. We had taken EZ when he was 2 and he was not a fan. He is older now, but knowing his personality I wasn't sure it would be any better this time. However, I knew Netta would have a blast so I went back and forth, but finally decided it wasn't worth the money, especially if EZ had a melt down. I was a little bummed and then like an answer to prayer, my mom won 4 free tickets at work. How frickin awesome is that?! So we made it to Kennywood after all and since the tickets were free, it didn't matter if EZ was a dork and refused to ride anything. Good thing, because it took almost 2 hours to get him to ride anything. (In his defense, he did fall asleep in the car about 20 minutes before we got there, which is never a good thing). So here is Netta riding without EZ and chatting up the girl next to her. Netta actually chose to sit by strangers and talk to them as they rode, which is exactly how I was when I was little. I used to ask to sit by myself on the plane when we would fly standby and chat with all the businessmen.

Again here is Netta on her favorite ride "The Whip". The girl has no fear.

I think EZ started to get jealous because we were taking so many pictures of Netta and making such a big deal out of each ride she got on. He kept yelling at my dad to stop looking at her. Finally, he couldn't handle it and he actually got on a ride. It was a like a huge burden was lifted off my shoulders. Hurray my son is not a complete baby. He was still a little timid on the first ride. . .

. . .but eventually he started having a blast and then he never wanted to stop riding.

King of course was a long for the ride and got in some good bonding time with Grandma Sharon. The adults didn't really ride anything, but that was ok with me, because I was just so glad EZ finally got over his fear and that both kids had so much fun.

Here is the only picture I have of any of my sister's kids. This is Carol chillin with King. I should have gotten more pics, but it's really a miracle I got any at all.

Finally, after 3 weeks without John the family was reunited and we got to go to the wedding of our friends Kim and John. We actually met them in Texas when we were here for John's internship and got back in touch with them when we moved back down. It turns out that she just happens to be from Pittsburgh, so of course we had to go to the wedding. That and John was a groomsman. They got married downtown in Heinz Chapel, which was absolutely gorgeous.

Then the reception was in yet another gorgeous location, the Le Mont on Mount Washington. Here is King taking in the great view of the city from the restaurant.

I am not going to lie and say that everything was peachy keen while we were there. Being spouse-less with a newborn is less than ideal, but I had a lot of support from my family and I was grateful to get to spend so much time with them.