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?
