pittsburgh

The day after Dave and Emily's reception we stayed in Pittsburgh since that is where we were flying out of. Fortunately, Zach's best friend Devon lives there so we got to hang out with him and Nana and Cathy drove up to see us one last day too. We got breakfast at the really great pancake place called Pamela's Diner in Shadyside. They make them just the way I like them: Thin and crispy around the edges. They were close to perfection in my book. I recommend it to anyone in the area.

After that, we decided to go to the Carnegie Science Center for for while. Jimmy fell asleep in the car over on the way there so Nana was nice enough to carry him around for awhile since we were sans stroller, but mostly I think she just liked getting to snuggle with him. When he did wake up, he was pretty exited about all the cool stuff around him. The robots exhibit was pretty cool, although I was disappointed I didn't get to play foosball vs. a robot. These little kids kept wanting to play... jeeze! I guess it was better that way in some sense. I wouldn't want to embarrass the "perfect" robot in front of so many people.

But by far the thing Jimmy loved most was the really amazing model train exhibit. I was pretty impressed by it. It was modeled after things in Pittsburgh, but it was not an exact scale model of the city. It had the rivers, steel mills, an old downtown, and the baseball stadium that is no longer there. I guess I was more interested in all the little buildings than the actual trains (Me in love with miniatures and models? Who would have thought?). It was all divided up by seasons and the time of day would change about every 5 minutes. When the lights in the room went out, all the little lights in the houses would come on. I thought it was great. Jimmy mostly just wanted to watch the one "Thomas Train" that is obviously only included in the set-up to keep little kids happy. He could have stayed there all day. We actually had to go back right before we left just to appease him. He still talks about it and looks at the pictures all the time. The other day he dragged me to the door asking to go see it. It was hard to explain why we couldn't and all I succeeded at doing was reminding him that he misses Nana and wants to go fly on the airplane again to see her. Good thing she is coming here soon.

Pointing at Thomas!

We also went on the USS Requin which is an old submarine docked in the river that you can tour. I had never been in a real sub before and found it both amazing and claustrophobic. I can hardly imagine living in it. Jimmy was getting fussy at that point so we had to sort of rush through it, which also gave me a certain perspective of on trying to work in there with a lot of people around you. You definitely wouldn't want a little kid on board.