The Family K

These guys met when the youngest was still in utero. Every few months we get to spend a fun day catching up with J and her boys!

Pittsburgh Childrens Museum

Working on electronics in the Maker Space.

They had an entire floor devoted to water play!

A habitable/climbable wall. Two thumbs up to this museum! 

Cousins

Andrew and his cousin Levi were best buds for an afternoon. They are finally old enough (4y6m, 3y3m) to play the same activities together. We hope to see then again while we are semi closeby!

The Happy Family

Or perhaps I should say, the happy 2/3 family. Poor Shawn. We'll call this series "Selfies on the zoo tram." 

Zoo and Aquarium

I was surprised at how nice it was. And big. We spent 5 hours there and didnt even see everything. 

They even had a play area and some rides.

Little Scientist

Our neighborhood library has great programming like Kitchen Chemistry where he mixed ingredients to form a reaction that inflated a balloon!

Spray Park

Running thru the "mistee"

Having a laughing fit at this boy letting water spray up his shirt

Making new friends.

Hideout

Andrew staked out a sweet spot of his own at the park the other day. I managed to fit inside and we pretended to cook over a campfire and row away on a canoe.

Happy Fathers Day!

I havent mentioned in a while how awesome a dad Shawn is. He is just as involved as I am in parenting which is a rarity for most families. He does the cooking, the disciplining, the arts and crafts, the caring-for-sick-child, playdates, etc. This is on top of his full time career. He has enabled me to continue in my career without having to put Andrew into daycare.  He has shown me how to be a better parent. Kudos to Shawn. The cute, smart, thoughtful kid we have raised is a testament to his loving involvement.

Around the Neighborhood

Meeting Orson the hamster at our local library. Some great kids programming there (chemistry!) that we will try this summer.

Our open air neighborhood coffee shop  - just 2 blocks from home. Very cute, tasty too. Looking forward to the pinball competition they are hosting next weekend!

Summer Sweetness

He has the most beautiful hair that is getting lighter in the sun. I love how soft it is and how it feels against my face when he snuggles up to me.

CMU walkabout

The CMU campus has changed quite a bit! Andrew spent most of Tuesday afternoon roaming around. He especially liked taking the city bus to/fro our house.

Disney Visit

We visited Shawn's office at Disney today - what a creative environment! Too bad I can't tell you anything about it (signed a non-disclosure form)

Random

Flat(tening) tires make for good entertainment.

His first self-addressed envelope. I actually mailed it - curious if it gets delivered! p.s. -  it did :)

Preschool Portraits

Hammin' it up for the camera. Preschool pic, age 4y 5m.

Climbing Nets

Pittsburgh gets two thumbs up for novel playground equipment.

The Blue Slide

I lost 2 hours of my life yesterday watching him go up and down and up and down. But who cares it was a gorgeous day!

In Pittsburgh!

We made it! After a never-ending drive on Friday, we arrived and were really blown away by this beautiful house we are renting. We had hoped it would be as nice as it appeared online, having never seen it. it was even nicer. 

This weekend has mostly been about unpacking but we've also visited our local playground, food coop and walked over to Squirrel Hill for breakfast (5.5 miles R/T, anyone want to give me a foot massage?) Before the walk, Shawn took a 4 mile run this morning in Frick Park with like 500 feet of elevation change down to the gorge. Fit as a fiddle, that one is.

Shawn's mom is here helping with Andrew while we get the unpleasantries taken care of which are inevitably necessary when you move. He loves having Nana around so they're busy playing in the sunroom, or his enormous bedroom which is like 3 time the size of mine and Shawn's. 

Its a really cute neighborhood and he's ridden his trike around quite a bit. 

The transition for him was a little hard the first 24 hours, lots of misbehavior, defiance etc but now he's back to his happy self - all smiles and laughs. Kiddo has been traveling since he's 3 months old, and has lived in 4 different houses so he's very adaptable and sees everything as an adventure.  Tomorrow we get back to real life. Shawn starts his contracting position for Disney, and I get back to my architecting. Andrew will be starting morning gymnastics camp and we'll have afternoons to ourselves to explore! Will do my best to blog frequently. I suspect Andrew will have lots of memories of this summer, or want to talk about what we did once we return to NY and the blog can be a tool in revisiting those stories.