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Sorry I've not been here lately... I had a rough fall & then the Christmas season sneaked up on me, I had hand surgery and am still recuperating.

Enchanted

I went to E.C. not too long ago & snapped a few shots of this historic spot... Some of you may recognize it. The Enchanted Forest entry castle. Although the park has been closed for many years, the shopping center that is there now still maintains the castle. You cannot access the grounds as it is gated behind the shopping center. There isn't much to see there anyway, most of the parks attractions have been removed and restored at nearby Clark's Elioak Farm.

Here are a few more snapshots for you:

If you have kids I highly reccomend Clark's Elioak Farm, they have a petting zoo also!

Garden Bounty

Here are a few of the wonderful veggies that we have received from our garden:


We've had spinach, arugula, sugar peas and romaine already, and now we have Broccoli, green beans cherry tomatoes and regular tomatoes. Yum! The cherry tomatoes are so good, I had already eaten half of them before I took the pictures!

We have also had Squash and zucchini...and some more squash and zucchini....and even more squash and zucchini! I made zucchini bread, zucchini fritters, grilled zucchini.....and look at how much more I still have!!!!!
Next year we will only plant ONE zucchini plant!

Last day in the Burg

Thursday was our last day in the Burg, so we did a little more sightseeing & picture taking. (Well I did sight seeing & picture taking, while DH cringed at my obvious"tourist" behavior.) I saw some great architecture including this beautiful blue building with vases and scrolls on it in relief.
Image is from Robin Rombach/Post-Gazette

After a bit of research on teh intarwebs, I found that this building is called the Buhl building and it was built in 1913 and designed by Pittsburgh architect Benno Janssen. We saw the Allegheny courthouse and jail which is a gorgeous castle like building. (too pretty to be a jail!) There is a bridge between the courthouse part and the jail called the bridge of sighs. It was modeled after the Bridge of Sighs in Venice.

Image is from About.com

We headed toward Market Square and my favorite building, the PPG building otherwise known as the glass castle. DH relented and let me take lots of pics at that point. (he did stand a few feet away from me though!)



There were some kids playing in the fountain in the PPG Plaza:

I wanted to play in it too but I would have been wet for the rest of the day...not the best idea if I was planning on walking around downtown. Besides the fact that DH probably would have left me there on the spot! As I was watching the kids play, he said "don't get any ideas". Does he know me or what!

By the time we got over to market square, all of the outdoor vendors were packing up their stands from Market Thursday. No matter, I was hankerin' for another Primanti's Sammich! I gotta get 'em while I can!

Admittedly the sign & building aren't quite as cool at the one 'down the strip' but the sammiches are just as yummy!

After filling our bellies, we headed out to meet up with our friend who has a cabin out in Somerset county. He grows hops on his land!


We drank a few beers and just chilled out (literally, the temperature had dropped to the 40s) on the wrap around porch, and caught up on old times. I just love being there, it is so relaxing.

Kennywood!

Kennywood is so awesome! For those of you lucky enough to grow up near here....you're, ... well... LUCKY! It is very refreshing to see an independent amusement park... I had Wild World, which then changed to Adventure World, when I was growing up, but it is now owned by Six Flags. Kennywood has some of the oldest (and best IMHO)roller coasters around!

The first thing we did when we got to the park was to get in line for the Skyrocket, the brand new coaster that just opened up this summer. It is right there as soon as you walk into the park (where the Turnpike used to be). The line wasn't too bad yet since the park had only been open a few minutes before we got there. The ride was fun, short (fast) but smooth with lots of loops and you can really feel the Gs! We rode Garfield's Nightmare next, then headed over to the Jack Rabbit. Famous for it's double dip, this wooden coaster was built in 1921! It hasn't changed much since then either! I just love how you pop up in your seat on the dips!
Then we headed over to the Thunderbolt, my favorite! This one is fast and long too! Great hills & drops! Both the Thunderbolt(originally called Pippin) and the Jack Rabbit were built along ravines, so most of the tracks are along the ground, very cool!
We hit the Racer next and then the Phantom's Revenge (formerly the Steel Phantom) and the Exterminator before getting all of the flat rides. The racer is another awesome old coaster, built in 1927, where two trains race each other side by side. Even cooler than the racing aspect...you end up on the opposite side from where you started...(if you start on the right track, you end on the left track).
How is that possible you ask? One word-moebius.

Then we grabbed a refreshing fresh squeezed lemonade & some lunch by the dandelion fountain and clock.
You may notice that my pants look wet in the fountain picture...they are. DH didn't want to get wet so I quick hopped in line for the Pittsburg Plunge(that is right no h) and got a decent splashing! (Nothing compared to my complete and utter soaking a little later from the Raging Rapids when I got hit with the waterfall!)

We made our rounds again and hit most of the coasters twice, ending the night with my favorite the Thunderbolt.
And then it was time to go home...

I love Picksburgh!

DH is starting a new job and therefore took a week off in between leaving the old one & starting the new......Soooooo we went to visit the 'Burgh, specifically to go to Kennywood, but we also went dahntahn n'at.(for those of you who don't know Picksburghese, that means Downtown and stuff).

Now I did not grow up in, near or around Pittsburgh, but I truly love the city and its burbs. The city is beautiful, it has interesting architecture, the people are nice and there is so much to see and do! I do not need an excuse to visit this gem of a city, if you asked me tomorrow, "wanna go to Pittsburgh?" I'd be in the car faster than you can say Monongahela!

We got in to town on Tuesday & went to the Clark building first, (Diamond district peeps!) I had bent the prong on my ring & wanted to get it fixed. From there we went to the top of Mount Washington. I just love looking at the city from up there!
Pittsburgh has a reputation for being "partly clahdy" (read mostly cloudy)but the weather for our trip was as beautiful as could be! Blue skies, fluffy white clouds, and temperatures in the 70s! So awesome!

Since we were at the top of Mount Washington, we rode the Monongahela Incline down the Mountain and walked over to Station Square, an old train station from the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, that was converted into a shopping mall.
We walked around a bit and then headed back up the hill...

And then we went to "The Strip" (the strip district-not what you're thinking!) to eat at Primanti's! YUM!

All of their sandwiched are served with french fries, coleslaw & tomato on the sandwich! It sounded gross the first time someone had told me about them, but it is absolutely delicious!

After lunch, we checked into our hotel and changed clothes to meet with some friends who live in the Burgh. We stayed at the Holiday Inn because it was inexpensive and near Kennywood, our destination for the next day. The room was nice and clean, the sheets were bright white and clean and the staff was friendly and welcoming.


We even got a bonus with our room...Skittles!
When I stood on top of the bench in our room to get a pic I saw these two lonely skittles on top of the TV armoire! As I said before our room was clean, I just think that housekeeping missed this on the last cleaning, since the top of the armoire was dust free, they hadn't been there long. I found it amusing & left them there!

Then it was off to dinner with our friends then to bed anticipating Kennywood the next day!...

Can anyone tell me anything about this sign?

I found this great Madison Ave street sign.... not sure if it is from New York (Manhattan) or possibly Chicago. It is double sided, yellow with black lettering and black edges. It measures 9" x 36" and is metal. If it is from Manhattan it would be from the 1970s. I was hoping somebody out there might know something or could point me in the right direction. Either way it is a very cool sign, just wish I could find out more about it!

Fathers Day and Fish!

For Father's Day this year I went down to my folks house by myself, DH had to finish a work project & couldn't come. Early this summer my dad had completely re-done their fish pond. (Last year the pump went out, the waterfall had lost many of its stones & the irises had taken over. They lost all of their fish when the pump died. ) He put so much work into it it looked brand new! When I saw it I knew right away what I was getting him for Father's day! Fisheeeees!

When I got there, Mom and I went to the store to get them, we didn't tell him yet what we we were getting. I knew he loved his Shubunkins from the pond at their old house, which BTW my Dad & I built(the pond, not the house), so that was what I wanted to get. I personally love Koi, so when I saw that they had some that were very reasonably priced, we got one of them too. All told we picked out 3 Shubunkins and one Koi. Dad loved them, he was so tickled. He said he would have never have thought to ask for them but thought that was the best idea.

I love to make my dad happy!

I didn't remember to take a picture of his card for some reason. I recently learned how to use distress inks from Tim Holtz, so I had made some great background paper in blues and orange-ish browns. I can show you the card I made for my FIL though:I distressed the Dad and cream cardstock using Tim Holtz's method. The black cardstock and patterned paper came from DCWV. That cream cardstock was almost a buttercream yellow before I distressed it, not the right color at all. The distressing made it the perfect color!

I also made a birthday card for one of my niece's:


Isn't that blow-fish the cutest! He was a $1 Snag-em stamp from Imaginisce's Splash Dance line. I colored it with copic markers and used Glossy Accents from Ranger on his eyes. The water paper is from DCWV and the letter brads I found on clearance at Joann's. It says "Happy birthday to you!" inside in aqua ink. I didn't have the right color green paper so, once again, I used Tim Holtz's method to color my white cardstock green! I like the way it gives it a mottled appearance as opposed to a solid color.

I hope all the wonderful Dads out there had a great Father's day too!

Mom's b-day card & mini disaster

So my Mom recently had a birthday, and I made her this cool birdie gate card:

The tag for the envelope:

The Front:The inside:

The gate stamp and birds are from Hero Arts. (I love their stamps!) the Sakura blossom was an altered die cut flower, and the words were cut on my craft robo (designed in inkscape). I even made a fold out stand attached to the back so it could stand up on its own. That was interesting to design on my die cutting machine!

For her gift, I got her this really cool ceramic birdhouse.... Its kind of hard to describe, it looked a little like a mushroom, but the bottom of it ended in kind of a point of graduated rings...like an upside down honeycomb. Here is my crude rendition of it:

She absolutely loved it & told all her girlfriends about it. When she got home & went to get it out of the car, she dropped it & it shattered. :( She was so bummed about it she must have told everyone about it, twice. Her girlfriends were like "we know, you e-mailed us".

If anyone who sees this knows where to find another like it, please let me know. I'd love to replace it for her. I found it at Home Goods, but have not seen another, and I've gone to all of the Home Goods, Marshalls, TJ Maxx stores, etc. in my area to no avail.

Spinach! And roses!

I had my first harvest of Spinach a couple weeks ago. It was sooooooo delicious. I also had an arugula harvest too. DH enjoyed his arugula salad! I harvested some extra and washed, dried and bagged it for my wonderful neighbors too. When I went over to drop off the lovely leafy greens, I was treated to some beautiful roses from Mrs. Neighbor's garden! She gave me so many that I actually was able to make 3 arrangements! Here is the main one I made:


The darker pink ones are called "knockout roses" and they bloom all summer long. The pale, pale pink ones she grew from one single rose by rooting one of her MIL's flowers. That was 25 years ago and now the rose bush covers the entire fence on the side of the house. (it's a climbing rose)