It has been a couple of weeks since our last blog post but there is a lot to cover and a big announcement to be made here on The Indiana Lesnet Blog.
Last weekend, the Indiana Lesnets went on vacation. We left on Thursday, August 23rd at nap time. We loaded up our CR-V and headed over to Bowling Green, Ohio for our first stop at Stephanie's parents place.
On Friday morning, we took Grandpa Eridon with us on a trip up to the Toledo Zoo. We all enjoyed seeing some different animals than we see at the Indianapolis Zoo, especially the primates. The Toledo Zoo has a lot more primates than Indy, they have way more little monkeys and big monkeys like orangutans and gorillas.
As kids, Stephanie and I both went to the Toledo Zoo as our "home zoo" so it is extra cool to see the kids enjoy it so much. Although we are familiar with the Toledo Zoo, it is quite different than it was 20 years ago. For one thing, the old tiger building is now a cafeteria. It was pretty cool to eat lunch in a cage that used to house a tiger...if only the food was better.
After the trip to the zoo, Stephanie and I left the boys with their maternal grandparents and headed East to the great city of Pittsburgh..well, at least that was the plan.
While we were on our way back to grandpa and grandma's house, I received a phone call from the Honda dealer in Bowling Green. We have bought a couple of cars from them that were leased by Stephanie's parents when the leases expired. They called unsolicited a month ago seeing if we were in the market for any vehicles and any way that they could be of assistance. I said that we would be interested in a minivan if they had one. They brought up a 2011 with about 25k miles that had just come off of lease by a couple that are doctors without kids. We talked #'s a month ago but we just couldn't quite come together and make a deal. Anyway, this call was regarding the van that we had discussed earlier and here a month later they still had it. So, before we made our trip to Pittsburgh, we went to the dealership, test drove the van, and bought it.
Now, off to Pittsburgh.
We arrived in Pittsburgh later than we had planned since we weren't planning on buying a car before heading that way. We also didn't plan on getting a little lost on the way and going about 30 miles out of our way. It seems kind of funny to get lost in this time where nearly everyone has GPS on their cell phones but we managed to do it anyway. It was pretty humorous as Stephanie navigated us by using the directions posted on the hotel's website. She had good directions but she was reading the directions about coming in from the East and not the West...oops. Oh well, we were fortunate to see some scenic Pennsylvania and pay several extra tolls.
It was nearly dark when we arrived at our hotel in downtown Pittsburgh. We stayed at the Omni William Penn, which was a nice older hotel with some cool architectural details. The hotel had soaring ceilings in the lobby with amazing details on the walls and ceilings with ornate chandeliers. Our room was nice and our bed was comfy. If you are staying in Pittsburgh, you can't go wrong at the Omni William Penn.
Our Saturday started off with a buffet breakfast at the hotel then a walk to the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History. We thought that it would be a nice walk as it was around 3 miles or so but we were wrong. There were several reasons that we should have ponied up the cash for a cab or figured out how to take the bus. Those reasons are; 1) The walk was entirely up hill 2) You had to walk through a rougher neighborhood to get there 3) It was hotter than we thought it was 4) Walking 3+ miles just to go and walk around a museum is a silly idea...better views at the museum than on the way to the museum.
The Carnegie Museums were fantastic. They had a special exhibit of impressionist era paintings which was amazing. The other art exhibits were awesome too. They also have a lot of dinosaur fossils on the Natural History side. Definitely a place you don't want to miss.
Here is a picture of a painting we really liked at the Carnegie Museum.
After the museum, we went to an Asian joint called Lulu's Noodles. It was cheap eats and it was delicious. If you are in that area, a great place to grab lunch.
After lunch, we decided to take the bus back to the hotel. It wound up being a failure as we ended up going the wrong way and went to the end of the line where we had to get off the bus. We finally caught the correct bus and made it back to the hotel about an hour after we got on the bus...we could have walked faster but we would have been much more tired.
That evening, we went to PNC Park to see the Pirates take on the Brewers. Wow, PNC Park is a fantastic park and moved in to our top 5 favorite parks in Major League Baseball. The good guys won too so it was even better. Below is a shot from our seats at the Pirates game.
Sunday morning we packed up and drove to Cleveland to see the Indians host the New York Yankees. Cleveland has a nice stadium but way too many Yankees fans. It sits outside of our top 10 but you can tell that many of the parks that we like better were built after Progressive Field and that they copied much of their ballparks from what the Indians did in Cleveland. Good guys lost here to tough Yankees team. This park marked our 16th park visited together, so we are more than halfway to our goal of visiting all 30 MLB parks.
Stephanie is an amazing wife. I have said that before but sometimes she just needs to get bragged up a bit. Stephanie let me get fitted for some new irons and also let me buy some new ones. My old ones are nearly 10 years old and although I hit them okay, I really wanted to be fitted to clubs and get some the fit me perfectly. So, here are my Titleist AP1's...very nice!
Football season is here! Yesterday we went to Purdue's opening weekend where they crushed the Eastern Kentucky Colonials. The boys did a good job and we made it half way through the 2nd quarter. We probably could have made it further but the sun came out and made it too hot to stick around. The remnants of Hurricane Isaac was in the air which made the humidity about 100% and the temps were in the mid 90's...whew...sticky!
So, here is a picture of the Lesnet family of 5 at beautiful Ross-Ade Stadium getting ready to root for the Boilers.
Wait...what? Did you say family of 5? Yep, I did say family of 5. Stephanie is currently about 12 weeks pregnant with a new Indiana Lesnet due on March 19, 2013. We are very excited and thankful for this new addition. Stephanie is feeling pretty worn down and tired and although she has been nauseous, she hasn't thrown up nearly as much as she did with Kai and Eli. Many people think that since this pregnancy is going differently that we must be having a girl this time. Well, we don't know yet but we will find out when we get to the point of the journey when we can know.
Stand firm and you will win life. - Luke 21:19
