"Today is a Good Day to Drive!" .....Van-Go

Phipps is located in the Oakland area of Pittsburgh. They recently added the front dome and entrance keeping with the Victorian style of the older buildings. Inside the rooms explode with greenery and color. The theme for the summer is Mystical Monsters. We loved unicorn, dragon and three headed dog made of wire covered with greens. As we walked the room we looked for plastic owls, another mystical symbol, and found only 36 of the 47 hidden about. The orchids were in bloom. The look so dainty, but are actually very stong flowers. The miniture train was set up in one room with Godzilla standing with train cars in his massive paws. We programed the fountain a few times and watched it play out our order of spraying water about. The butterfly room was quiet today; they don't like to fly about so much on cloudy grey days. We did see a few, the Julia is bright orange. And we did see a few that had just pushed out of their crystalist and were hanging on to it drying their fragile wings. ...

We spent a few hours walking around exploring the north shore of the city. The preseason football games end this weekend so festivities were being set up inspite of the call for rain. The booths were set up for a ribs cookoff and smelled so good.

Check the Movie Gallery to the right!!

We have a membership to the Gladyes Porter Zoo in Brownsville, TX which lets us also go to other zoos around the country including the Pittsburgh Zoo. While we have been in Pittsburgh we have gone several times. Today the Snow Lepard was pasing along the window and stopped to examine Kathy sitting close to that window. He was very curious, but also tring to act as though he was not. Several White-tail deer are kept in a pen you can walk through. They were hurt and can not return to the wild and are somewhat tame and adjusted to humans. This guy was on the walk where you are permitted to pet them. He licked all the salt off Will's hand then moved on. We tried Dots. They are tiny balls of ice cream. The flavor just explodes in your mouth! Check the Photo Gallery for more zoo pictures.

It was a grey rainy day so we decided to go to the Carnegie Science Center for the day. It was great we saw the Omimax movie, Roar, about the lions of Africa. Then we went aboard the submarine and explored all through it. Will saw the clocks like the ones he use to have to set for each watch and showed Kathy how he did them. We spent time walking around the train exhibit, trying our hand at magic and then went over to the new building where they have all the sports exhibits. It was a fun day. We ended the day playing a little trivia at Buffalo Wildwings.

It was a beautiful outdoor ceremony at Green Gables in Jennerstown, PA. The ceremony not only united Sueann and Don, but their families as well. They had their children surround them during the ceremony and family and friends sat spell bound in this fairytale moment. See more pictures in the Photo Gallery

Kathy's sister, Sueann, is being married tomorrow here at Green Gables in Jennerstown, PA. Today she and Don have both of their families with them preparing. Tomorrow we will be joining them for an outide service, lunch, a trip to a winery then back to their house, Sueann's old house, for some quiet time. The happy couple will be departing for their honeymoon in Rome, Chechenia and Italy on Sunday. We are excited to visit with Forrest& Crystal, Jen& Troy, Jill, Nate, Stella and baby Silas, and all the guests.