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?

Happy 15th

We set up a family excursion down to Center City Philadelphia on May 1st to celebrate Jake and Mike’s 15th birthday. It’s hard to believe how big those two are getting.

Our dinner was a field trip to Fogo de Chao for a meat eating extravaganza. We ended up with a nice size party; I think we had dinner for 14 (Grandmom Phil, Aunt Kate, Pop Mike, Grandmom Barbara, Mike, Dot, Erin, Mikey, and the five of us). Emily was the only one missing because she had practice for her confirmation the following weekend.

For those that haven’t had a chance to visit, Fogo de Chao is a Brazilian steakhouse. It has a neat concept with waiters dressed as Gauchos (cowboys) walking around with a varied assortment of meat on a spear. I think they offer 15 different cuts of meat, including pork, lamb, and chicken. Each cut of meat is perfectly done.

When you are seated you are given a coaster, one side red, one side green. When the waiters see your coaster set to green they offer you more food. When it’s set to red, they stay clear. I’ve now been there four different times and I still struggle to keep from stuffing myself.

I think it’s safe to say that everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

Abby’s Birthday–Part Deux

We had Jean’s family over to celebrate Abby’s birthday on Sunday May 23rd.  We had a crazy week and it was the first chance we had to get the Wynne’s over to celebrate her big day.

We had Mike and Dot’s family along with Carole and Natalie.  Dinner was fantastic once again, although this time I’ll take the credit since I ended up grilling the burgers and dogs.    We also had a little striped bass that Gram and Pop brought back from Kate and Aaron’s house.

For whipping something together very last minute, it ended up being a nice way to wrap up our weekend.

Mother’s Day 2010

The Mothers Day Weekend was a busy one for us. Jake had a couple of games on Saturday, Brett had a baseball game, and Abby had a soccer tournament out in Neshaminy (which included two games Saturday afternoon and one on Sunday morning).

As always, my Mom took a crew of people down to Center City with her to take part in the Komen Race for the Cure, which she has walked in every year in memory of her sister Jackie, who we lost to breast cancer back in 1996 at the young age of 40. This year’s race took on an added significance because of my mother being diagnosed with breast cancer a little over a year ago. It’s been an emotional year for all of us, and my mom has been amazing in coming back from her double mastectomy last June. She’s back as good as she was before surgery and it’s almost to the point where you’ve forgotten how much she’s gone through.

Being the not so wonderful son, I committed to having Abby play in the tournament earlier in the spring without thinking about how important the day was to my mom. To compound things, if Abby’s team had won on Sunday morning, they would have played for the championship of the tournament at 1 pm. Luckily, they lost 3-0 and Abby and I were able to get home at the same time as everyone got back from the race. It’s one of the few times I wasn’t upset watching the Cheetahs lose.

Jean stayed home with the boys to get the house ready for guests because we were hosting everyone for brunch. Her morning consisted of running around getting all the food, which my mom had order earlier in the week, along with last minute prep around the house. Our fare consisted of chips and burritos from California Tortilla along with bagels and sandwiches from Barrister’s Bagels, both of which are located in the Target shopping center.

Brunch was fun and the list of guest ended up being pretty extensive: Mom, Kate, Casey, Jack and Mary Kay Gvodas, John and Nicole Gvodas (who is insanely pregnant right now), Mike and Dottie, Judy and Joy Glass, Alexandra, Sue Krimmel, and Joe Palombit (with Adrianna, Megan, and Ryan). It’s the first time we’ve had Joe over to the house, and we just celebrated our fourth anniversary of moving in.

By the time everything wrapped up around 4:30, we were whupped. We cleaned up and vegged out as a group by watching the movie The Blind Side as a family. If you haven’t seen the movie, I highly recommend it. It’s a nice real life story that leaves you feeling good about people.

Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday was a laid back day around the Mac Shack. We had an early start to the morning because Jake had to serve 8 am mass. It was a bit of a struggle getting everyone out of bed, but once we got going it wasn’t too difficult.

After mass, we came home and Jean cooked up a huge breakfast. It was our normal holiday fare of baked eggs, along with a bunch of sausage links and bacon. My mom is usually around for holiday breakfast, but she went to Kansas to visit my Aunt Virginia. It was a bit weird having holiday breakfast without my family there, but it was nice just to sit around with the five of us with nothing to do.

For dinner, we went over to Jean’s brother Mike’s house for dinner with all the Wynne’s. Everyone was able to make it (aside from Kate and Aaron) along with Dottie’s sister Lori and her friend Mary Anne. The food was to die for; Jean’s mom did a fantastic job with everything.

Christmas Day 2009

After church, my family (Mom, Casey, Katie, and Alex) came over for Brunch. We had our traditional holiday fare of baked eggs, pork roll, bacon, and sticky buns (If Dr. Miller is reading this, I abstained from eating any of this food which is not so good for my blood pressure/cholesterol ). It was a nice lazy afternoon and fun to hang with the group. My mom shot off to Philadelphia to have Dinner with my brother Jeff; Casey and Alex had other plans.

Following that, we ended up having Jean’s parents over for dinner as planned. In addition, we ended up having Jean’s brother Mike and his family as well. They were supposed to travel up to the Poconos to be with Dottie’s family, but freezing rain killed that plan and we were more than happy to have them. My sister Katie also ended up staying, so we had a nice size group.

Dinner was pretty simple, leftovers from Christmas Eve, and seemed to taste even better than the night before. There’s nothing better than Italian food that’s had a chance to soak in it’s own sauce overnight. Along with that, we had plenty of dessert that was left over from the night before.