Two Horse Open Sleigh

At Hidden Valley, the tubing area is also the starting point for sleigh rides. We had a noon reservation and left as soon as we turned in our tubes. The beautiful sleigh held us plus another couple and probably would have carried a couple more. The two drivers chatted with us about the area. They even had bells on the harnesses so the effect was complete.

It was pretty balmy at this point in the day and you can even see the pond behind us showing signs of melting. The children had a great time and now we can say we've been on a sleigh ride.

The poor horses at one point in the trail had to pull over mud! Good thing they are huge animals! They didn't seem to mind. We were all exhausted and glad to be heading home after a full morning! It's amazing to think just how close we are to the resort. We all look forward to going again next year.

Snow Tubing

We went to Hidden Valley Resort this past Saturday which is only about 45 minutes from our house! I think it ended up being in the mid-50's by noon, so we were really sweating in all our gear!

The hill for the tubing seemed to be small, till I went down on my own tube. Whew! It was super fun! Grady decided he wanted to go with an adult because he didn't want to end up sliding downhill backwards.

You get a lift ticket for a two hour time span. The first run of the day is a 10 AM -12 PM shift and we were there right on time and were able to go for the full two hours. They eventually opened up the other lift and used up all the tubes they had. I guess that's how they do crowd management. It was pretty neat.

You have to be at least 4 to go because they don't allow doubles down the hill. Each person has to be in their own tube. Pryor for the most part played very nicely at the end of the run with the shovel and bucket I had brought for that purpose. Then he stayed closer in and watched with one of us while the other one went down the hill with the older children.

Here's a video of Alice tubing down the hill. She got tired of all the pictures so you can see her turning away from the camera. Nice. Can't wait till she's a teenager!

Here's a video of Grady and me tubing down together. We're each holding on to the other's handles. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a video of Stephen - but I think you get the idea!

Pinewood Derby - Regionals

Grady attended the Regional Pinewood Derby last weekend. It was a little overwhelming - just the shear size of it all. There were 50 Tiger Cubs racing - so that's just first graders. You can see from the picture above, there were lots of people! They used the track and computer system from our pack, so you can see what the race looked like. Of course since it was run by the Boy Scouts, it was very efficient and went smoothly.


I stood with Alice and Pryor on the Second floor of a local mall and had a good view of the track. I zoomed in as much as I could to get the above picture of Grady talking with his friends.


One interesting thing to note: somehow during the registration process, even though Stephen spelled it in all caps, his name was written down as Grody. Grady's car was green (of course he painted it his favorite color!) and in this race was in the red lane. He ended up coming in second place for this race and you can hear the announcer say "Grody"!! For whatever reason, Grady decided to crawl on his knees to bring his car back to the leaders - so you can see him doing so at the end of the video above.
He got two 2nd place finishes and two 3rd place finishes - not too shabby! He had a marvelous time goofing around with the boys - and there were plenty of those!

Pittsburgh Children's Museum Part 4: The Finale

I promise this is it! I've got lots of other pictures and videos from the last couple of weekends that I'll post soon.

In Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, they had this player piano that also had lots of other instruments in it too. You can see the xylophone behind Grady's arm. The children could pick which of 3 songs to play.

These last three pictures give you the scope of a series of ramps that the children could climb from the first to the second floor. They did this twice and wanted to do more.

On the second floor was an area for little ones with a train table and other toddler type toys. We didn't even make it up there! Grady wanted Pryor to climb up these ramps with him so he could see it. I said we could go to that floor the next time we go. The last thing I need is for Pryor to get stuck in the middle of the floors. I don't think he's quite ready for this particular exhibit!

We thoroughly enjoyed the museum and plan on going back this weekend. (No, I won't post more pictures!)

Pittsburgh Children's Museum Part 3: 100% Pryor

Well, you all may be sick and tired of the Children's Museum, but we had a great time - and took almost 50 pictures (no, I will not be posting every single one, don't worry!)

While Grady and Alice were wood working, Pryor had free reign of the "Garage." They had a full size Mini-Cooper. He even liked to climb into the back seat and be back there while other children "drove."

I showed this picture so you could get a feel for the car (although it is clearly not one of Pryor's best!) They also had a gas tank nearby and he loved to "get gas."

This table was another favorite of his. They had pieces of track, similar to a train table, but they were for matchbox cars.

Here he is at the top of a large slide. He went down this MANY times! Sometimes Daddy went down too - but not too many times as it made him dizzy!

You can see the height of the slide when you compare it to me standing on the floor at the bottom. It must have been two and a half stories tall.

Since Mister Roger's Neighborhood was filmed in Pittsburgh, a large area of the museum was The Neighborhood. Here is Pryor on the "trolley." There weren't any bells or whistles to the trolley and yet he had a blast! He ran around on the trolley more than any other area in The Neighborhood.

I've got one more post with a few last pictures of Grady and Alice in The Neighborhood. Then I promise, no more from this museum (that is unless they are really, really cute! HA!)

Pittsburgh Children's Museum Part 2

Well - there are still so many pictures I want to post - I'll do at least one other post tomorrow or maybe more. Right after I posted the last blog, I got the stomach flu! So, I've been down and out. I was at a MOPS meeting on Friday morning, and 6 women (that I know of) got the bug (or food poisoning - who knows?) this past weekend. Crazy!
Back to the museum: after the water table room, we went into the area known as The Garage. There they have a wood shop and were having wood working participation.
The helper was so patient and show Grady just what to do. Grady decided to make a sail boat. He did everything himself. He LOVED it!

I'm sure I should remember the name of this tool from 8th Grade shop - but I don't. He used this to smooth out the bottom of his "boat."

Here he drilled a hole for the mast. They had all kinds of tools the children could use - even saws.

The final product! We haven't checked to see if it is seaworthy yet - maybe we'll take it this summer to Kiawah!

Alice, not to be outdone, made a "person" by drilling holes for eyes, nose and mouth and screwed screws in. She had a great time, too. If only her headband would stay on her head!

Pittsburgh Children's Museum

We had such a good time - I think I'll do two posts.

We went last weekend, but I've been reading Mansfield Park - I haven't had the time! We took TONS of pictures - I'm trying to narrow it down to just the best ones.

I included this one because it shows all the children plus me! I think this is my first picture on my blog!

This video shows where we spent the majority of our time. They had a whole water floor with three different areas. The video show the area where you can make your own fountain. They have tubes and connectors to carry the water flow from some of the spouts to several "down" spouts. As you can see, they had very nice rain coats - plus crocs for the children. I had a change of clothes for P-man, but not anyone else!

The video above shows a series of locks and the children could float their boat through them. Grady was trying to be helpful and show Pryor what to do.

This picture shows a series of ropes and pulleys controlling a bucket. Grady had as much fun with this as he did with the other areas!

In all, I think we 45 minutes just in the water area. We got to the museum right when they opened, and came almost straight away to the water area. The whole museum is well done but this water area was excellent. My children love this kind of thing so it was perfect for us. We got season passes, so I know we'll be going back there again!