Pittsburgh trip and Benner family times!

Let's see if I can crank out another short blog post before heading out to enjoy an afternoon hike with some close friends, in honor of one of them being on the cusp of 40! It will be another way and time to mark transition and life changes as well as celebrating friendships that have been nurturing and sustaining for me for a few decades now!

But let me go back a ways to our recent family road trip to Pittsburgh. Since many of us wanted to visit Jason's sister and husband in Pittsburgh (I believe this trip will have made a few New Year's Predictions come true), we decided to all convene there for our summer all-family-gathering! Grateful that my parents were available to look after Tangly Woods, we decided to head up a day early to get some time with just them before "the masses" descended, giving our kids time to warm up to a new place and also to make the packing and the road trip feel more "worth it."

Each time we prep for a trip I think that likely we'll have arrived a new phase for Terah and traveling will be easier (quieter, perhaps?). I tried to be very proactive, wrapping up a bunch of toys and snacks to pass the time. It worked, some. But we are packed in pretty tight when going away for a few days and it feels like the "mommy, mommy, mommy" I often hear at home was extra loud bouncing off the walls of the car. A few hours into our trip, we gave up on a nap happening unassisted and I did what many other mothers have confessed to having done - I got in the back seat with her and nursed her to sleep while we sped down the highway (me unbuckled). She is easier to entertain and distract, but when it's naptime she is not yet to Alida's phase which is that she sacks out quite easily in the car!

There was a lot of fun to be had upon our arrival - from the first ride on their porch swing, to the last trip down the blue slide. Most of us had not seen their relatively newly purchased home and it was so lovely to see them make the house and yard into a home that they tend and clearly cherish - Terah was happy to find some fennel growing in the yard to munch on and make her feel right at home! A definite highlight for me was a lovely walk to a park for a picnic soon after we arrived. It's a fun city with interesting architecture so the walk was entertaining by itself, and then there was the excellent company to top it off!

It was bustling with action once all of us were there and I felt like it was good to all be in the same space, but I always feel a bit disappointed when we leave a large family time and I feel like I haven't connected deeply with everyone. I still wish there was some way to ensure that each time we are all together I get to hear from everyone at least one thing that has been significant in their life since we were last together - and more than just the sound bites I might glean from Facebook if I happen to hop on at the right time. But I know there is also great value in just showing up in each other's lives and I also know that for many of us this stage of life is not exactly conducive to long uninterrupted sharing times, so we soaked up the snippets here and there.

There is no doubt that the two highlights for our whole family were walks to and fun at the Blue Slide Park (I think we made it there three times!) and the splash park. And those happen to be the only two locations that I got pictures from so here's a few to enjoy (which do not in any way capture all the people or action of the time together, unfortunately - I was too immersed in what was happening and didn't keep up with my role as family photographer)! If there is any doubt as to what Terah's highlight was, I think this short video will confirm it!