Busy week with family!

This past week has flown by!! Travis went out of town for his annual meeting (in Orlando) so I decided to take Avery to Pittsburgh and stay at my sister Lindsey's house. We left last Monday - a week ago - and we dropped Ranger off at GG's house on the way (Travis's grandparents.) Avery and I had lunch with them and played outside for a little while.

We headed to Pittsburgh, and Avery napped for almost the entire 2-hour drive over there. When we arrived, we took Avery and Cooper to the playground that is just a 3-minute walk from Lindsey's house. There were a lot of kids there because a day care was there, and of course Avery loved it! It was good for her to have so e social interaction, and good for me to not be a "hover parent." I find myself wanting to be by Avery's side in everything, and I was able to take a step back and kind of let her go a little bit...I am trying to find a happy medium of staying close to Avery, but not too close. She had a small incident on the merry-go-round, because she wanted to go on it with the other kids, but she had never been on one before, and she didn't realize it would spin. A little boy (a few years older) started pushing it, and Avery panicked and tried to step off. She fell and I got there quickly, but she was fine. It was a good learning experience for both of us.

The next day we went to one of Lindsey's friend's home for a play date! Lindsey's friend Katie has twin girls who are 2 days younger than Avery, and a little boy who just turned one. We started outside on their swing set, and it went really well! Avery was social, and her girls did great! Her little boy was amazingly "chill" and I am hoping my next baby will be like him! He was just crawling around and very independent and happy. We had some of Avery's favorites for lunch - macaroni and cheese, chicken fingers, fruit, and pasta salad. Avery taught the twin how to put black olives on your fingers and then eat them. It was pretty cute. Later that day we met my other sister Kelsey for dinner at Burgatory for a burger and milkshake. We had to wait an hour, but Avery and Cooper (my sister's 5-month old son) did pretty well.

The next day was a pool day!! Lindsey and Meesh are members of a country club, so we took Avery and Cooper swimming. On the way, we stopped at Gymboree because Cooper needed a new bathing suit, and I picked up a new sun hat for Avery (see below.) The pool was empty when we arrived, but we headed to the baby pool. We found out a bit later that they were't planning on opening, because there was a chance of rain later in the day. However, they stayed open since we arrived, haha. The lifeguard wasn't thrilled, but it never ended up raining while we were there (from 12-3) and it was sunny and nice out! Luckily more people showed up so we weren't the only ones there.

On Thursday, we went to South Park to walk and go to the playground with Avery and Cooper. Avery  had a great time playing, and we walked 3 miles. I have been dealing with a lot of lightheadedness this pregnancy, and I was definitely noticing it on our walk. I think it has to do with my relatively low blood pressure. Luckily Lindsey took a nursing break with Cooper, and I took a little break too, while Avery went on swings. We put Cooper in the swing next to Avery after he was done eating, and he loved it!

South Park also has an animal preserve with a peacock, and we saw lots of ducks, geese, and turkey's, too! After the park, we had lunch at Lindsey's, then headed back to Ohio. We picked up Ranger at GG's and stopped by Nana's workplace to say hi for a few minutes before heading home sweet home (for less than 24 hours.)

On Friday, we picked up Travis from the airport in the morning. We had lunch, and then headed back to PA, but this time to Edinboro for the weekend. On Friday night we went to Pizza Pub, and I enjoyed it immensely...except for the no beer part haha. Saturday was very exciting. We had been thing about buying kayaks for Edinboro for some time, so we went to the grand opening weekend of Field and Stream in Erie, and they had tons of Kayaks, and an outdoor paddle pool to try them out!! Kelsey and I tried out a few of them, and my mom spoke to someone knowledgeable about kayaks. We ended up buying 2 kayaks - one single small one that you sit down in, and one larger tandem kayak that you sit on top of. Travis and Kai (Kelsey's bf) picked them up a few hours later, and we tried them out that day!! They were really great, and even Avery likes it! Because our family is growing, we can't all be on the boat at the same time, and these are a great alternative! I think I will enjoy kayaking when we are over there for many years to come, and it will be a great activity with kids. My mom and I took Avery on the tandem kayak on Sunday morning, and it was great to go to the shallow areas of the lake and get a different perspective of Edinboro Lake. Then we took Avery on the boat to watch my mom waterski, and Travis wakeboard.

We headed home during Avery's nap, and now we are finally enjoying some downtime/cleanup and unpacking time. We had a great week and I was glad to have Avery do so much and be so happy with my family!