Week 2 of Vacation & Our Week Back

( 3x is a charm right?)

"Look mom & Grandma.  We made a saw mill!"

 During our second week in Pittsburgh, we went to one of our favorite places, Kennywood!

The boys with Kenny.

The pagoda was designed by an uncle and his coworkers.
(I put the "bug" in Pumpkin's ear about being an architect
 with all his drawing & designing.)

A wall of water from the ride The Pittsburgh Plunge.

One of Pumpkins faves!  Fireball Coyote "doesn't like getting wet".

Put your hand up on the Whip!  WEEEEEE!

This is the first year Fireball Coyote could ride the bumper cars.

LOVE !

Ready to ride the Jack Rabbit ~ roller coaster.

Riding the Kangaroo is another favorite of everyone.

The only ride of this kind still in operation.

Fireball Coyote ride this about 10 times through out the day, if not more.

The Parachute, alone.

Fireball Coyote's speed, kiddyland. 

A laser show at night with funnel cakes.  One was topped with ice cream & strawberries!
YUM!!!
A great day!

The boys had been begging to try their new tennis rackets, so the next day they did.

Pumpkin after a while got tired "chasing balls" and quit.
At the park there is also a NICE stone sprinkler and playground equipment,
it was well used. 

On Wednesday, we drove out to Latrobe and stopped at a great grocery store, DeLallo's.  There we had an interesting experience, we learned about and tried Headcheese!  Let's just say it is interesting and now we can say we tried it and never have to eat it again.
While in Latrobe we went swimming, visited the Anelemma sculpture to chart path of sun                                
at St. Vincent's College.

The uncle who help design the pagoda at Kennywood, did this project. 

After that we went to 

Here we watched a short video about how the mill began, runs, and is still in use today.

On Friday, before we headed back to Pittsburgh, the boys got a butterfly lesson.

Owl butterflies.

They learned about the different pigments in butterflies, too.
These iridescent butterflies are different than the pigment butterflies, in that their coloring does not rub off.
These type have even been see from space!

Male and females. 

 On Saturday, our last night, :-(  the boys played Yahtzee with grandma and mom went to lunch with a friend.  YEAH! Thanks mom!!!  Then we went to a local church carnival in the evening.

Heading south.

One of our favorite stop on eh way up &/or back is the
 New River George Bridge.

There are sometimes rafts that go down the river.
We are always curious on how to get to the roads below.

When we returned, pretty much all week, all the boys did is play with their Legos.  TONS of story plotting, character building, language and more happened.

We did go to the library one day during the week.  When we were there I noticed a poster for the movie  Big Miracle.  We definitely came back to see that!  

On the Saturday after we came back Pumpkin and I did grocery shopping and went to  see A Mid Summer's Night Dream at a local library.  He really doesn't need Literature just yet, but I figured why not start now and maybe he'll understand and like it better.  Happily, he liked it and enjoyed it!!! :-)
Fireball Coyote, go to "hang out with dad" and  do tractor things.