Living Large

It's Sunday night and I have just collapsed on the couch with a bottle of Pipe Organ Pale Ale...brewed with loving care by the men and women at the local church. The Church Brew-Works that is. This has been a favourite hang out of ours since it opened way back in 1996. I am proud to say that many of the staff seem to know us by our first names despite 3 years of absence from these shores.

We've had a great weekend. We went house hunting on Saturday morning (not so great) but this was followed by a traditional American haircut at an old Italian Barbershop in Bloomfield (think "Soprano's) which is also known locally as "Little Italy", a run around the swing park and then a pizza lunch (oooh....and a pint) at the Church Brew-Works.

After this we headed to Squirrel Hill and had ice cream at the famous Rita's before driving down to the South Side which is a newly developed waterfront community on the shore of the Monongahela River. I bought a new bike (wooohooooo!) and the children pranced around in the fountain. We met Rob and Nancy and listened to the live band and then had fish and chips (even better than the Allerton Fish Bar) and Guiness in The Claddagh (an Irish Pub).

Today we hoofed it out to OhioPyle State Park the center of which is a beautiful riverfront village about 70 miles South East of Pittsburgh. We spent the afternoon paddling around the shallows and jumping between rocks somewhere near here. Robbie came rocketing out to meet us in his Porsche and we headed out to a nearby village called Confluence for dinner at the Riversedge Cafe. Sadly they were full (or at least they were when they saw us coming) so we ended up at the Sisters Cafe down the road. Think greasy spoon without the scallies.



It's 11.20 pm and Adam has just gone to bed. Fab weekend. Early start (yikes) but at least I get to race down to campus on my posh new bike.

Sorry about the pic quality. The camera is defunct so they were taken on Shazzy's phone.

Night night.