Pierce's in Pittsburgh

School has been out for a grand total of two weeks, and we've already started to drift towards the Lord of the Flies at our house.  Considering that we were out of town during the first week, that's got to be some sort of a record.  I guess I shouldn't be all that surprised.... the best part of summer has always been the absence of structure.  And I openly admit right now that I am as bad as my kids.  Although we haven't been doing a lot of sleeping in, we have been doing our fair share of video games, binging on Netflix, reading books, playing Legos and Play-Doh.  Oh, and laundry.  We've been doing our fair share of that too.

The first week of summer, we were in the Pitts.  Pittsburgh to be exact.  We flew back to spend the weekend with our family and go to a Dixie Chicks concert.  It was way fun.  It's nice, that even at this stage in the game our kids get along so well and we can spend seven days together in super close quarters and all come home friends.

A few highlights of the trip...

The kids absolutely LOVED the huge Dodge Ram truck.  They thought it was hilarious to try and watch me get in and out.  Once we were in, it was great, but getting in was incredibly difficult.  It was the only vehicle that would fit all of us and all of our bags... but parking in downtown Pittsburgh was a chore.

We went to a bunch of different museums and saw lots of cool stuff.  We went to the Heinz History Center and learned all about Mr. Rogers, Heinz ketchup and the French and Indian War.

We had dinner with more balloon animals than should ever be allowed in one restaurant.

Then Erin finally got to hold baby Jillian.

Then the next day, we went to the Carnegie Natural History Museum and the Carnegie Art Museum.  The kids liked the Natural History Museum..... the Art Museum, not so much.  The highlight of the Art Museum was watching a protest and seeing museum security barricade the doors.  It made for interesting viewing while we enjoyed a three dollar cupcake.

I want to know what it is that says as soon as you turn 16, you can't be serious in a picture.... EVER.

They had a great dinosaur excavation area... the irony of the situation was, most of the dinosaur specimens that they had at the museum came from..... Utah.

Will wanted to pose by this.... we'll see if we can find one to load into the back of our car when we head to Yellowstone next month.

It was a pretty good cupcake, by the way.

Then we went to the Dixie Chicks concert.  We bought the tickets in November, thinking that it would be fun to see them play somewhere other than Utah; not because it would be any different, just because it was an opportunity to make an event out of it.  So we picked Pittsburgh, because Dave & Holli had just moved back there and we figured June would be a good time to visit.  Little did we know that we would have the opportunity to spend so much time in Pittsburgh this year.  So, we dropped the boys off with their cousins for a sleepover and we headed to the concert.

It was a little surreal to be at the concert with these girls.  They really love the Dixie Chicks, like us, but what is weird is the time that I would point to where we listened to them the most was when Erin was just a baby.  The summer she was born, we spent all of our spare time raking rocks, installing sprinklers and laying sod and the Dixie Chicks was the soundtrack of that whole experience.  And now, we were all together.  I didn't get any other really great pictures... but it was just awesome to sit and enjoy the music.

Saturday night, we went to a ballgame.  "It's root, root, root for the home team..." We sat in the All-You-Can-Eat section and we definitely got our money's worth.  The kids had their fill of hamburgers, hot dogs, popcorn and soda.  And PNC Park is a beautiful ballpark situated on the rivers and I don't care what anyone says, it's super fun to be in a sports town.... and Pittsburgh is definitely a sports town!  Case in point, the Pittsburgh Penguins won the Stanley Cup (NHL) while we were there.... which was pretty cool and completely necessitated the purchasing of new apparel.

Sunday, we had a big party for Jilly.  It was her special day at church and she received a name and a blessing from her dad and it was a great experience for us all to be there together.  Jilly looked so beautiful in her dress that was made from Holli's wedding dress.

The last full day we had there, we took it easy.  We went and saw The Jungle Book, purchased aforementioned Penguin apparel and ended the day with a river sightseeing cruise and dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe.

Tuesday morning we were up early (like 4:00 am early) to catch our flight home.  It was a really long day that ended with all of us in our respective corners at home.... enjoying some alone time after a week together.