Weekend in Pittsburgh

This past weekend we took a family trip out to Pittsburgh to visit my niece Erin.  She is a freshman at Duquesne and most of Jean’s family made the trip out west to see her.  Jean’s parents went, her brother Mike and his family, her sister Kate and her family, as well as the five of us.

Abby, Jake, Emily, Michael, and Erin

The kids went out on Friday with the inlaws and Jean and I followed them out early Saturday morning.  The ride to Pittsburgh was quite eventful as Jean and I almost died on the trip out. Luckily we somehow escaped being sandwiched between an 18 wheeler (who never saw us) and the divider. It was easily my finest bit of driving.

We spent the day in Pittsburgh hanging down in the Stip District.  After that we ate at the Double Wide Grille, a barbecue joint built inside an old gas station with a car/gas station theme. It also happened to be a stop off on a very cool Santa Claus pub crawl. I’m guessing it was a little confusing for my four year old niece Haley as she tried to figure out where all of these Santa’s came from.

Emily, Hannah, and Brett

Jim and Haley at the Doublewide

We finished Saturday at the Duquesne-Penn State basketball game, which was played in the Consol Energy Arena which was right across the street from our hotel.  Sunday morning we had brunch at Primanti Brothers before heading home.

I have to admit, Primati Brothers was a bit of a let down for me.  I had the Pitts-burgher but I wasn’t overly impressed with it.  The fries were a bit of a letdown and I wasn’t a big fan of the bread either.  I generously gave it a 3 out of 5 rating.  It didn’t live up to all the hype.

Hannah, Brett, & Jim with a Fun Christmas Tree

Abby, Hannah, Haley, Brett, and Uncle Aaron

Mike and Jake with a Pub Crawl Santa and His Helpers

The one humbling part of the trip was when we were taking pictures of the Santas in the Double Wide.  They started asking if we could share them with them on either Facebook or Twitter.  They were giving us their info for both of the sites when one of the Santa’s in the crowd piped up, “nevermind, they’re probably still on MySpace.”  Do we look that old and out of touch?

Memorial Day at the Noorigian’s

Sunday morning we woke up bright and early to make the trip to see Kate and Aaron.  The kids were whupped from their day in the sun on Saturday and we struggled to get them out of bed and into the car.  We had a big day planned with the girls hanging on the beach while the boys went out on Aaron’s fishing boat.

We got there around 11 am and proceeded to go our separate ways.  Aaron had been out since 5:30 in the morning and had gotten a full day of fishing in before we even got there.  He met us at the dock and we hopped right on board.

Once we got out to sea, there were some mixed reactions.  Jake hopped right up, grabbed a rod, and started fishing.  Brett on the other hand was very apprehensive, he was struggling with moving around on the boat and focused on sitting down and checking things out.  I wasn’t sure if he was sea sick or not, but as time went on he got more and more comfortable.  By the end of the trip, he was bouncing around all over the boat.

On the other hand, I got greener and greener the longer we were parked.  I’ve been out in the ocean before with no problems, but at the time I was on much bigger boats.  The longer we stayed out there, the worse I felt. Luckily I was able to keep from puking, but needless to say I didn’t enjoy myself too much.   The fishing wasn’t too great; Jake ended up with our only catch of the day, a fluke that was about 1/2″ short of being a keeper.

Once we got back to shore, we had a nice evening hanging out at Kate and Aaron’s house. Kate made a nice little dinner and it was great spending some time with family.  Jake may have been a bit bored because he didn’t have anyone to hang out with, but everyone else seemed to really enjoy themselves.

We were supposed to leave first thing Monday morning so we could get home to handle our chores (which we had neglected the entire weekend) but after looking at the weather we decided to stay the rest of the day.  We went out to breakfast and poor little Haley ended up getting sick to her stomach, so Kate took her home.

Aaron ended up taking Brett, Hannah, Abby, and Jake out on the boat for a little more fishing and Jean and I ended up going to the beach by ourselves.  Talk about a great break for us.  We had a nice peaceful four hour window all to ourselves.

The kids had a good time fishing with Aaron, although Abby ended up going through the same thing as I did dealing with sea sickness.  Next time we’ll both be better prepared to go on the boat (we’ll make sure we’ve got some Dramamine).

Happy 41st!

I was out of town for Jean’s birthday on business in Salt Lake City, so I missed the big day. Jean ended up having a nice sized party at our house in my absence. It ended up being an impromptu event. Jean never actually invited anyone, but whoever called to see what she was up to ended up coming over.

Dinner consisted of takeout from California Tortilla.  Jean loves the chips and salsa they have, and those of you who know her are aware that she actually could eat a meal that consisted of nothing else aside from chips and dip.  It’s not my kind of meal, but it wasn’t my birthday dinner.

The guest list included: Jean’s parents, her brothers and sisters (including Kate and the girls), her cousin Nancy (with her two boys), as well as my family (Katie, Mom, and my brother Casey).  It sounded like a great time and it was a bummer hanging out with the Mormon’s in Utah instead of being home to celebrate.

Christmas Eve 2009

We spent our traditional Christmas Eve with Jean’s family over at Mike and Dot’s house.  All her brothers and sisters were there with family, so it was a full house (23 of us).

In previous years we’ve had seafood or roasts as the main fare, but this year we went with an Italian theme, which is my dream setup.  Jean’s mom made a lasagna and Jean made pork cutlets. The meal was fantastic and the best Christmas Eve dinner I can recall in quite some time.

After dinner, the kids sat around and opened gifts.  They end up getting two gifts, one from Jean’s parents and one from their Aunt’s and Uncle’s.  It’s a fun night for them and a great tradition.  It’s been going on since I started dating Jean back in 1991.  We do the kids as a pollyanna so it’s not that overwhelming; for example, since we have three children, we draw three names out of the hat, Kate and Aaron have two children, so they draw two names.

We were home a little after 9 pm, which left us plenty of time to prepare the house for Santa’s arrival later that evening.  Brett made sure to get the milk and cookies set up in front of the fireplace as well as sprinkling reindeer food all over the front yard.

Soccer, Jewlery, Pizza, and Johnny Dangerously

Saturday was a busy day in the house, and we were all going in different directions.  It took some planning and a little bit of help from others to make it all happen, but we got it done.

It started with Brett’s soccer game at 8:30.  The Haffey’s stuck around until 10 the night before, so the little man was impossible to get out of bed for his game.  He was barely comatose as I tried to get his uniform onto him while he lay in his bed at 8:15.  He ate a yogurt bar in the car as his breakfast and struggled his way through the game.  He took one shot to the face early in the game which brought tears, followed by a shot below the belt a little later on.  Breakfast at McDonald’s following the game seemed to finally lift his spirits.

Jean missed Brett’s game because she had a spinning class to teach, and she went straight from the class to meet her friend Danielle Murphy for breakfast.

From there, we went to Abby’s CYO game at 12:00.  As soon as the game ended, Jean ran Abby over to Gran and Pop’s house and it was the last I saw of Jean until 9:30 that night.  Aunt Kate, Hannah, and Haley had come home for the weekend for Natalie’s birthday party, so they ended up taking Abby with them.  The first part of the party was at a jewelry shop in Exton, before heading back to Tom and Carole’s for pizza.

I took Jake and Brett to Jake’s game in Norristown, and from there we drove up to Tom and Carole’s house to celebrate Natalie’s birthday with the rest of the family.  After some pizza, ice cream, and cake it was after 7:30 and time to head home, but Jake and Abby managed to beg Tom and Carole for a sleepover with Nate and Natalie.  Leaving those two behind, Brett and I headed home and I enjoyed a riveting 20+ minute discussion on Anakin, Obi Wan, General Grevious, Yoda, and various other clones.

Jean had a busy day on her own.  After dropping Abby off at her mom’s, she went back to Sacred Heart to work the snack bar for a couple of hours with Dana Rosenblum.  Once they wrapped that up, Jean went home to clean up and then was right out the door to meet her Rosemont friends Mo and Lynne for dinner.

Once Jean got home, we ended up watching Johnny Dangerously together.  I forgot how much I enjoyed that movie (I’m guessing I hadn’t seen it in at least 15 years).  I wasn’t sure if Jean would enjoy it because she’s not a big fan of stupid humor, but it was a nice way to end the evening.  I love the guy that keeps butchering all of the English cursewords: “Sominabatch!  Farging icehalls!”

Labor Day Weekend-Aunt Kate & Uncle Aaron

Monday it was off to the beach and a trip to see Aunt Kate and Uncle Aaron. Jake and Abby didn’t start school until Wednesday, so we wanted to do something a little fun their last few days.

The trip started a little later than we were planning on. Monday morning we had to finish off the summer book reports (argh!), but once the yelling and screaming ended we had a great day on the beach. For some reason the ocean was really rough. We saw at least five different lifeguard rescues in the 3-1/2 hours we were on the beach. I don’t think I’d seen that many before in my entire life.

We had a nice cook out on the deck, with the highlight being fish that Aaron had caught earlier in the week. He grilled up some sea bass and some fluke, both of which were excellent.

We woke up on Tuesday morning, had a nice breakfast, and spent a couple of hours on the beach. It was really cool being on the beach the day after summer officially ended. There were barely any people on the beach, and we were able to park with no problem. As rough as the surf was on Monday, it was very placid Tuesday. We left the beach and had lunch at Surf Taco, which the kids love, before heading home.

Hannah had her first day of school on Wednesday, and the Wynne’s had been planning to travel up to see her get on the bus. They were going to have Brett for the day on Wednesday, so the asked if we could leave Brett at Hannah’s for the night, and they would bring him home the following morning.