Weekend in Pittsburgh

We just came off one of the best weekends that we've had in a very long time.  You know the people that are just downright good for your soul?  Well that is exactly how I would describe my sister-in-law and brother-in-law.  They are such great people and hanging out with them was the perfect thing for us this weekend.

Work has been absolutely, without a doubt, complete and total madness.  So much is going on and every time we put out one fire, 3 more pop up.  I know that's what happens when you work at a small start-up, but yikes!  I know it's great experience, but we were in desperate need of a getaway.

So Friday afternoon, we flew into Pittsburgh, where Em and Mike whisked us to a delicious Thai food restaurant.  (I would have loved it even more if my stomach didn't hurt so bad afterwards...a sad side effect of Thai and Indian food.)  The rest of the night we spent relaxing in each other's company and just generally catching up.

Saturday afternoon (after a shopping spree at the greatest craft store ever known to me), we headed to the Pittsburgh Science Center, which houses a huge model train layout.  And since I have a (much smaller) layout in my basement, my very cute engineer wanted to check it out.

 

Turns out, this layout is *really* impressive.  It's huge and has all kinds of different little details.  From Mr. Roger's Neighborhood (no seriously - the man was from Pittsburgh so there's a corner with his house and the neighborhood trolley goes around), to an old time Main Street with a parade, to shipping, to an working amusement park, nothing was left out of this train table.  Even the train doubter (me!) liked it.

We also got to see an ice cream demonstration.  Unfortunately we didn't get to have a taste, but it was still funny to watch how excited the little kids got in the making of the food.  When the worker asked the kids what their favorite flavors were, one adorable little boy said, "um, I like the delicious flavors."  So cute!

Later that night, we headed to an old train station (keeping with the theme) that's been converted into a beautiful restaurant.  The food was delicious and we even celebrated my birthday!  (Which is not until April but everyone wanted to do it now...so who am I to deny a fun celebration? :))

I have no idea why Hubster looks drunk in this picture...I swear he wasn't! hehe

 

 

 

Some of our very best friends, who also happen to be family!

We headed back to NY last night with heavy hearts, because we knew that we just didn't feel like coming back without Em and Mike.  The good news is that we have dates in March, April, and May that we will be seeing them, so at least our next hang-out isn't too far away.

(Note:  I took much better pictures on my real camera but left them at home.  So perhaps I will get ambitious and finish the upload later tonight!)