Day 8

I spent much of the quiet morning taking picture after picture of the fog rolling in over the lake.  As the sun rose, the view just kept getting prettier.

A chipmunk family was scurrying around searching for breakfast and birds were all around me chittering and singing. Neither would halfway trust me enough to let me get their picture.  The air was chilly at 52 degrees - such a difference from 12 hours earlier.  It was expected to get well into the 80s today - quite a swing!

After writing about Day 7, I dug into our cold weather bag for sweatshirts and got us ready to go into Pittsburgh for the day.  As expected the kids' faces were stiff and grumpy about the cold morning air so we had breakfast in the car and headed to a much needed stop - laundry!

Many parks have laundry facilities, but apparently I hadn't thought to include one in the first leg of our trip, so I found one on the way into the city to stop and deal with this necessity as we were down to our last sets of clothes.  While quite expensive, I chose the enormous machine as it could hold all our clothes in one load and upon starting it I found out it would only take 24 minutes - wow!  The lady supervising switched on cartoons for Brayden and Laney played a few rounds of the Rush Hour logic game.  Before Ryan and I could finish a game of Trouble, I was moving the clothes into the dryer and out again.  As I was folding the clothes, the lady handed all the kids a popscicle as they watched the beginning of a movie.  I let the kids each tip her on the way out and she made sure to let me know how well-behaved the kids were.  If only she saw their attitudes and arguments in the car!!

Our major stop for the day was the Carnegie Science Museum in Pittsburgh.  We had all day to spend there and the kids were instantly excited once they saw the massive complex.  We tried to get to every activity and show the kids were interested in, but we just couldn't fit it all into 6 hours.

After some play we did a very cool show on liquid nitrogen.

Another show on taste buds - check out the volunteer up there!

My kids love these things....maybe we just need a room full of these at home!

After lunch, we headed to the huge sports science complex next door.  While the girls jumped all around to all the activities Brayden pitched and pitched and pitched trying to get a strike.  It took him 6 tries of 4 ball each as well as a move up to the little league pitching line before he could get it.  He walked away with a very sore shoulder wondering how the major leaguers can do it!

He also raced and raced and raced until he tied then broke the Olympic speed record - not bad for running in bare feet!

Ryan loved doing this yo-yo hang activity - she almost made it to the top!

Kinda cool, kinda creepy.

We all had fun with this one - a huge hockey game!

I checked the time and navigation as we were leaving and noticed it was Friday rush hour with an accident on our way doubling our estimated time home so I decided to stay in the downtown area for awhile.  Always a fan of bridges, I spent about 20 minutes zig-zagging across and back over the Ohio River taking in the magnetic views of the city skyline.  Much like European Vacation, Brayden would look up from his book every few minutes and say, "Hey Mom, look Heinz Stadium!".  

We made it home with time for the kids to play and me to sort the laundry before a quick dinner.  The kids were excited asking every 10 minutes when we could leave to go to the beach playground area as they were showing a movie on the lawn that night.  We headed over shortly before dark and were treated to the movie "The Nut Job".  Definitely a much needed relaxing end to a bustling day with a beautiful lake sunset.

Day 8 - Science, Smiles & Sunsets