Since I used all of my vacation time this year to take my maternity leave, we weren't really able to do a big family vacation this summer. Back in March, I decided that we'd spend our "vacation" in Pittsburgh with Josh & Danila. We'd visit with them, go to Idlewild Park, and have a pool party at my Aunt Patty's house. We randomly picked a weekend in July and I invited Susan, Karen, and Rachel to join us. In the end, only Susan ended up coming.....and Josh ended up being out of town with some college friends, but we had a great weekend -- with perfect weather to visit an amusement park.
After working ALL DAY on the 4th of July, I was able to take Thursday as my "4th of July" and take the day off, so we left for Pittsburgh during nap time. Apparently, as I went back in the house to check the back door to make sure it was locked, Hannah told Jon "let's leave her"....quite the way to start off the trip -- especially since I was stuck in the backseat between the two carseats. We had so much stuff that Abby couldn't ride in the trunk (2 strollers will do that) and the girls wouldn't sleep if she was between them, so Abby rode up front with Jon while I was in the back with the girls. Danila fixed us a great dinner when we got to their house and she even volunteered to sleep with Hannah the bed hog so we didn't have to sleep with either of our girls!
Friday morning Danila went with us to Idlewild and we met Susan and Aunt Patty and Jaidyn there (Gary had to work). I highly recommend when taking little kids to a park like this that you bring MORE adults than children -- we had a great ratio going on! Hannah had an absolute blast. She kept asking to ride the roller coaster (like on TV - she's seen ads for Cedar Point), and after she rode a "kiddie" one and we asked her if she liked the roller coaster, she promptly told us that it wasn't a real roller coaster. We had great weather and couldn't have asked for a nicer day. Enjoy the pictures....there are a lot!
Hannah
If you look closely to the right of Jon, you'll see Hannah, jumping in to the ball pit. Isn't a giant ball pit every kid's dream?!
Hannah -- swimming in the ball pit
We spent the morning, before lunch, at Storybook Forest. When we were kids, my mom and aunt used to bring us kids.....and to be honest, it hasn't changed much. In fact, I'm not sure it had been painted since we were there last in the 1980's. But, Hannah enjoyed it. She knew some, but not all, of the nursery rhymes. 
This girl is so excited for school
Hannah & Aunt Danila
Hannah & Jaidyn
She really worked on the sword!
Lauren was SO GOOD all day!
Jon & Hannah
One of Lauren's favorite activities - chewing on Aunt Patty's water bottle
Hannah was excited to ride the train
Train ride!
(I think this was right before we rode over the river and Jon got excited about fishing...)
Lauren & Mommy
Hannah & Jaidyn
Hannah loved riding the rides. Jaidyn loved the thought of riding the rides, but she didn't actually enjoy many of them.... The nice thing about the park is that there are a lot of things for little kids to do, and the park isn't huge, so we could get around pretty easily and we weren't walking miles upon miles to the different areas.
Loves to drive.
Jaidyn & Susan
Hannah & me
Hannah on the dragon
Teacups!
(I didn't actually see them on this...I think I was off feeding Lauren)
Toward the end of the afternoon, we went to the waterpark part of Idlewild -- Soak Zone, but I didn't get any pictures over there. We all went in the wave pool (where the water was MUCH colder than expected!) -- Hannah loved it. When the waves stopped we went to this giant climbing area that had a giant bucket of water that would fill and tip. It made a loud noise when the water would come crashing down. Jaidyn would open her mouth and run screaming into the water, loving every minute of it, while Hannah would cover her ears and run screaming away from it. Hannah and Aunt D ended up leaving that area and finding a smaller kiddie pool that Hannah really enjoyed until we shut the place down at 6pm.
We hit up Eat n' Park for dinner on the way home and Hannah ate more than we'd ever seen her eat. She had 2 very big pancakes, tons of fruit and other stuff from the salad bar, and a few other things. She must have burned a lot of calories because I think she ate more than Jon did! We had so much fun I'm glad Jon agreed to the trip.
On Saturday morning we got up and headed the 45 minutes to Aunt Patty's house for a pool party. We had a great day there -- Josh ended up getting back from his trip in time to join us and we spent a relaxing day in the pool....and the best part for us is that there were plenty of other people to help watch the girls! Jon & Josh got to dive for pennies in the pool and drink some girly wine coolers, so they had a good day together. Hannah spent a lot of time in a floating ring in the water, as did Danila and me (although we had rafts, not little rings). It was a great way to spend the day.....so relaxing that I totally lost track of time and had to pull a "we're outta' here" dash out the door to get the girls back to Josh & Danila's for dinner and bedtime!
It's nice that we can vacation by staying with family and have such a great time....I consider this year's vacation a success!
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