United Flight 93

Ever since my brother moved to Pittsburgh, we have been meaning to visit the Flight 93 National Memorial.  It's only about a half hour from the freeway, but we're usually driving up to Pitt at some ridiculous time of day (or night) and were never able to stop.  Last weekend we went to Pittsburgh at a reasonable hour(!) and were finally able to go see the memorial.

Kiddo knows about the Pentagon attack because of our proximity to the Pentagon Memorial (it's about a 10 minute drive) and we've discussed the reason why it's there.  He knows about the attack on the Twin Towers from several conversations we've had with him about it, and even a children's book that we've read together.  But I don't think we had ever talked to Kiddo about Flight 93 in detail.  I tried to reiterate to him how brave the passengers and crew had been.  It was a good opportunity for him to wrap his brain around what happened in a non-scary way.  It's a really beautiful, peaceful space and I'm sure it will be even more so as the memorial continues to evolve.

The boulder shows the site of initial impact.  

The barren space all around it was the debris field.

The wall is placed in the direction that Flight 93 was going when it crashed.  

On the wall are all the names of the passengers and flight crew.

Crazy Hair Day

Kiddo wanted a mohawk (so he could look like Mohawk Warrior) for Crazy Hair Day at his preschool.

He's a little rock star!

One and a Half

Oh my little girl!  I can't believe she is a year and a half already.

BG's life has already been so different from Kiddo's when he was this age.  For example, she has lived in the same apartment her entire life!  She has only been on an airplane four times and visited eight different states--half of those during our trip to Florida last Christmas.  It makes me wonder whether we were crazy to do all the things we did with Kiddo, or whether BG's life has been too mundane.

BG has always been a happy, loving, independent little girl.  She has a great smile, gives big hugs and sweet "kisses" with her forehead.  She loves to jibber-jabber and sing, but most of her actual words are less intelligible.  She says "aye" for "yes" and "hola" for "hello," and objects are usually referred to as "dada" regardless of what they are.  My favorite is when she says "I did it!" with arms raised up in the air like she's announcing a touchdown.  She'll be quite the chatterbox once she learns all the words she's trying to say.

BG loves animals--especially dogs--singing and being sung to (preferably Itsy Bitsy Spider or Twinkle Twinkle Little Star), and her stuffed animals.  She loves shoes and bags, Mom's belts and jewelry, but has to be tricked into wearing hair bows.  She is always trying to do things for herself, is a master climber, and really adores her older brother.

She is such a sweety and a joy to have in our family!  We love you, BG!  We are so grateful for you!

Kite Festival

We went downtown last weekend to see if the cherry blossoms were in bloom yet.

Nope.

But we happened to be there on the day of the kite festival.  We watched some kite competitions and kite "dancing" and ran around with the free kite we received.  The wind wasn't cooperating until about the time we left, but it was still fun to try to fly our kite and be surrounded by people who were all trying to fly theirs, as well.

And since we were feeling very Americana, we went to Good Stuff Eatery for lunch.

(In case you were wondering, I had Spike's Sunnyside, Brandon had Colletti's Smokehouse, the kids shared a chili and cornbread and we all shared some fries--with four of their dipping sauces--and a toasted marshmallow shake.  It's been a long time since I've had a hamburger, but this one was good.)

Sweet Ride

For his birthday, Kiddo got his first bike.

It's pretty much the best ever.

And he's getting pretty awesome at it.