Family Golf

The hype and stress of Stacey and Brad's wedding has come and gone, but what's left is wonderful memories, the excitement to see pictures, and GeeGee - who is making the most of her two week visit.

With free time to spare, and all hands on deck, BiBi and GeeGee came over to spend time with Riley and I as Chris was out of town.  After a lovely dinner of grilled cheese and catching up on the day, Riley invited GeeGee up to see his room, and show off where he practices his golf swing.  Not ones to be left out of the fun, the ladies grabbed their clubs (or canes, as the case may be), and everyone got in a round before bedtime.

It's good to know that even though there may not always be enough clubs to go around, GeeGee is prepared for just about anything!

GeeGee's in town

With Stacey and Brad's wedding day approaching quickly, the guests have started to arrive in Pittsburgh and the preparations are being finalized.  And to begin the onslaught of family, GeeGee has started the parade by arriving over the weekend.  Now, we all know how much Riley loves spending time with family, and he had been waiting forever to see GeeGee.

And now that she's in town, we can do fun things like go shopping, read stories and show off all of the tricks that Riley can perform.  And if Riley's childhood and upbringing is anything like mine, he can soon start to expect potato chips for performing these tricks - especially when performing in the pool!

Mother's Day on the move

Happy Mother's Day!  We had an awesome time celebrating today and it was so much fun just to be able to spend the whole weekend together doing whatever we wanted.  It was pretty outside this morning so we packed up the car, strapped on our helmets and hit the trails.  Riley has a new bike seat that lets him co-pilot my bike and we had the best time wheeling along the rivers.  We would talk to each other, point out fun things and sing songs.  With this little assistant, there is no way to get bored on the bike!

We rode along the rivers, rode past The Point, rode through downtown and rode to lunch.  It was nice to go out before the huge crowds took over and we really just had the best time figuring out what to do without having a set schedule.  Riley was so much better this year about wearing his "bike hat' and I think we will be rolling through the city often this summer.  

My favorite part about this Mother's Day was that we got to spend a low-key day together as a family and that's the best gift I could have asked for!

Warm weather

Just a quick post to say how happy we are that the weather is warming up!  Today is the hottest day of the year so far, going up to the mid-80's, which is funny cause it seems like it was snowing just 3 weeks ago.  We love when it's warm so we can take family walks, play outside and eat ice cream, all of which we did after work yesterday.

Riley is happy cause he gets to wear his new shorts and sandals to school and was very excited to show them off to his friends who welcomed him with hugs and toys, as they do every day.  

Hope everyone gets to enjoy the warmth and sunshine as much as we are!

And so I don't feel left out, here's a cute picture of Riley and I from the Yom H'atzmaut celebration at the Science Center the other day when all Riley wanted to do was sit outside and watch the trains go by. 

Fore!

This evening before bedtime, we were playing in Riley's room when he started swinging at anything he could find with a makeshift stick/club/bat.  So rather than letting him learn wrong and waste his energy, we took out the golf set we bought a few weeks ago and started the lessons.

I'll admit, it wasn't the best idea to start teaching him to play golf in the house, but with the weather warming up, I'm hopeful that we can move this new activity to the backyard and really let him take a swing!

And with an on-site golf pro, we should have him on the course in no time and winning the Master's in record time.  I won't send the measurements for his green jacket quite yet, but keep an eye on this one - he has natural talent!

New experiences in Pittsburgh

When I said on Sunday afternoon that we were going to have to find something to do after nap time, I had no idea that we would find SO much to do!  It was Easter Sunday and with almost everything closed, it was a challenge to find things that were open, but once we had a game plan, we hit the ground running and didn't stop for hours.

We headed down to Station Square and decided to take Riley on the incline for the first time.  We watched the cars go up and down.  When it was our turn, he was a little hesitant, but once we started moving, he was happy to watch the cars get smaller and head to the top of Mt. Washington.  We looked at the city, saw a "waterfall" from above (The Point) and even found an ice cream store that was open for our afternoon snack.

After heading back down again, we walked around Station Square and headed down towards the water.  That's when we heard it... a train!  We rolled the stroller as fast as we could and got there just in time to see the train chugging by.  Riley was so excited!  He kept waiving and saying "choo choo" and when it was gone, he looked for another one.  By the end of the day, he saw four trains go by and was excited about each one.

It was still early and beautiful outside so we drove over to The Point to show Riley the "waterfall" that he had found earlier.  He wanted to jump right in, of course, but was happy just to walk around the fountain and get sprayed by the mist.  We saw boats and trains and cars and bikes and babies and hats and everything else that Riley loves to point out.  It was such a beautiful day that we really just wanted to make the most of every minute that we could.

Let's all sing like the birdies sing

This weekend, we have had the most beautiful weather and we are making the most of the blue skies and sunshine!  Surprisingly, we had nothing planned on a Sunday so we are having fun finding things to do outside.  We started with a morning walk with BiBi and Zee, then had a hot dog picnic on our side porch, we played a little more outside and now it is nap time.

Riley didn't want to waste one minute of playtime so we took an extra ride around the neighborhood before lunch.  He was having such a good time and breathing in the fresh air.

And as we were waiting for the hot dogs to grill, we had fun playing on the porch.  Chris had Riley try on his new shorts and sandals.  Even though the outfit doesn't work well - at all - the pieces are great and will hopefully get a lot of use over the next few months.

Looking forward to spring and summer outdoor playtime!  Now what should we do this afternoon?