Pittsburgh Date

Not only is Kayli the greatest to visit because she feeds you delicious things like taquitos and fresh-picked corn on the cob and heavenly brownies (and of course ice cream), and not only does she take your family hiking and on motorcycle rides, and not only does she provide endless entertainment from her back yard, SHE ALSO SENT US OUT ON A DATE AND WATCHED OUR KIDS!

Really, it was so wonderful. We had a great time! We thought very seriously about kayaking around on the rivers, but doubted they'd let a tiny infant in a carrier on their canoes. Ya know, what with lawsuits and such. So instead we headed into Pittsburgh and rode the Duquesne Incline. It was awesome. Sterling was slightly petrified that it would fall apart on us. I thought it was great! At 2.50 to go up and $5 round trip, it was our kind of date!

You parked across the street and walked over top and across the road via this bridge.

The inside of the little station made me feel like Anne of Green Gables. A big black stove inside and a tiny little ticket office. It had great photos of all the same places back in the early 1900s and I loved it. This is walking out of the office and into the tiny tram.

Headed up the mountain!

Looking down the mountain!

This was the little train stop at the top. It was full of all sorts of cool photos from the past and then around the side you could overlook all of Pittsburgh. It was beautiful.

Looking down on a cute little ferry!

 After coming back down, we decided to head to Station Square. We hoped to make it over to that fountain park, in the photo above, but we never made it quite that far. Station Square was really fun. We had lunch at a place called something like Houlihal and had sandwiches, fries, a drink, and a cookie for $7 and it was delicious. I had french dip, and it was soooo good.

This little book shelf had three sliding ladders on their walls to get around and it was awesome.

This confection store smelled divine.

After walking around Station Square we came out over this beautiful bridge. There are bridges all over but you can't walk on all of them. This one leads right into the city.

This is looking back at Station Square.

A bridge across the way.

After that we just walked up and down some streets that looked like this. It felt very big-city-ish and very different from Miami. It was lots of fun.

Random park on top of a building, from back in the early 1900s.

 

Cool gothic-y buildings.

 Once home, we found our kids happily running around in Halloween costumes and Kayli had even braved a grocery store with three extra hooligans!

Ethne would have held Russ constantly--it was really too bad that he didn't feel well while we were there.

These two crazies became best buds.

Navy loved on Russ sooooo much!

That night we visited with our old friends from Ogden that only live ten minutes from Kayli's. And Kayli and I finished a movie we had started the night before, after delicious brownies. We headed out early Wednesday morning and just crossed our fingers that our power would be back on when we got home. It was such a lovely trip. We should do it more often! Our baby was a dream traveler and minus one toddler accident on the way there (to which Sterling, who had *just* found out he passed Step 1 said "Even cleaning out a urine-soaked car seat can't dampen my spirits right now!) we had a great trip. Sterling caught Russ's cold on the trip home, and that has been no fun for him, and we hope they keep it to themselves. Mostly, it just made me miss family more and I wish we could visit more often! Love you all!