The 'Burgh

We're out of order here, but we started out on our Michigan trip on Tuesday afternoon and drove for hours and hours and hours across Pennsylvania.  We ended up spending the night just East of Pittsburgh.

In the morning, we went to downtown Pittsburgh to see what we could see, including Pittsburgh's rush-hour traffic and this mult-lingual elevator:

It's not a Sooy vacation unless we see a funicular!

We let the kids run around Ft. Pitt while we snapped pictures of the city.

The kids really liked the fountain - the morning was already getting hot so it offered a refreshing mist.

We also got a nice view of PNC Park and Heinz Field:

After a loooooong walk back to the car, we drove over one of the many bridges in Pittsburgh and headed Northwest towards our next stop - Cleveland!

New Trail

We found a new network of nature trails near our house - we spent a (HOT) afternoon exploring one of the trails and we can't wait to go back!

Did I mention that it was a hot afternoon?  We made sure to take a lot of water breaks:

One of the trails took us to a makeshift bridge over a muddy patch:

Another took us to this bog:

Sean helped Clare over/under a fallen tree branch:

Weekend

The Sooy kids had FOUR late nights in a row, starting off with Thursday - a screening of "Big Hero 6" outdoors at a local farm:

Friday after camp, we spent some time playing Pokemon and baking before watching "Night at the Museum" 3 for our traditional Friday night movie night...

On Saturday, we took the kids to the Delsea Drive-In to see a double-feature: "The Minion Movie" and "Inside Out"!  Coloring in the trunk to pass the time before the first movie starts:

The kids even made a friend and threw a football and played games under the screen before the sun went down...

Finally, the movie started!  Both kids stayed awake for both movies and we got home super-late.  Sean slept in the next morning but Clare was up pretty early because she was very excited...

...to go to a birthday party for two of her best friends.  The party was at a tumbling party at a gym - Clare had a blast tumbling, balancing, jumping, and swinging!

 

The highlight of the party was when Elsa came for cake and cookies!

As Clare and I drove back to the boys, we kept spotting these signs (for a family reunion?) around town:

Which was a perfect segue to our next activity - watching the CONCACAF Gold Cup Final at the Linc in Philly:

"Boo Eagles!"

"Go Jamaica!"  "Go Mexico!"

 Even Miss Picklehead Bun-Bun was getting into the game:

Ending the night with Rita's before heading out to the car.

Picking

On Father's Day this year,we took Daddy to our favorite farm to pick cherries, strawberries, and BLUEBERRIES!

Waiting for the hayride:

First stop, cherries! It was the last week for cherries, so it was literally slim-pickings but we got enough cherries to satisfy Clare.

Next up was blueberries. Sean showed us that if you want blueberries in a hurry, then he's your man!  The kid is a natural.

And our last stop was strawberries.  Again, it was the last week for strawberries so we really had to look hard for "good" strawberries and Clare was up to the task...

After all that hard work, we stopped for ice cream of course!