Pt. 4, or Father's Day in Pittsburgh

Since we're members of the Science Museum of Virginia and can visit many other science centers and museums for free, we decided to travel the 50 miles from Ligonier to Pittsburgh and visit both the Carnegie Science Center and Children's Museum of Pittsburgh. We visited the first of these on Father's Day.

Overall, I thought the Carnegie Science Center better suited to the boys (including Jim!) than to Clementine, Charleigh, and me. Many of the exhibits were a little "old" for the girls and of no interest to me; I'm not at all into guitars or robots, and I wasn't impressed by SeaScape.

I did love the Miniature Railroad & Village and regret not taking any photos of it; I was too busy trying to keep the girls from climbing into the exhibit. I should add, too: Jim, the girls, and I never made it to Highmark SportsWorks or the USS Requin Submarine (not sure about the boys).

Jim and I watched the planetarium show One World, One Sky: Big Bird's Adventure with the girls, and they loved it. In fact, when it ended, Clementine protested with such a sudden and loud wail that I assumed she'd pinched her finger. And Exploration Station, Jr. was a big hit with both girls.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the Carnegie Science Center (again, the boys were mostly separate from us and doing their own thing):

Clementine Playing the World's Largest Playable Guitar

Understatement of the century: the red-headed ninja loves water!

I was very amused by this gigantic Operation table!

Clementine (who's obsessed w/ brushing her teeth) was in heaven.

After leaving the museum, we swung by the Mister Rogers statue on Pittsburgh's North Shore, and the boys and I hopped out of the minivan. They scrambled under Mister Rogers' left arm and into his lap (Cade banging his head on the way). This may be my very favorite photo from the entire trip:

Next, we traveled to nearby Monroeville to try Primanti Bros.' famous sandwiches, each of which is "served on fresh Italian bread with fresh-cut fries, cole slaw, tomatoes and provolone cheese." The boys and I decided to go for Pitts-burger Cheese Steak sandwiches, which are touted as the most popular variety.

My sandwich looks really good, doesn't it? Yeah...I didn't really like it. I should've paid more attention to the description, which says "sirloin beef patty"; I saw "cheese steak" and thought--I don't know--Arby's roast beef? Don't ask me why. But, to me, the sirloin beef patty on this sandwich tasted like meatloaf, and I don't like meatloaf unless it's my mom's. Also, I don't like cole slaw, so I'm not sure why I thought I'd like it on a sandwich.

Anyway.

Our last stop for the day was the Monroeville Mall, which is well known for its Mister Rogers' Neighborhood play area. I'm so glad we fit this into our family adventure because I've never seen a nicer play area, and I love that the girls experienced it. Here are some photos:

Looking Down from Above

I've the Pittsburgh Children's Museum to share with you, yet. Next post!