martinimade

We spent this past weekend in my hometown celebrating my father's birthday, which was actually in March but we couldn't all get together then. Before we went to the festivities, the Husband and I took the kids to the Zoo, where I snapped plenty of pictures of the children posing awkwardly in front of stuff.

(Before anyone becomes alarmed, the turtle wasn't hot.)

After the Zoo, we went to the party at the Hofbrauhaus, which turned into an hours-long feast with an ever rotating cast of characters, all of whom were full of cheer.* We had to leave in the early evening because the kids were getting antsy, despite the number of times we walked them along the river.**

We were able, however, to hook up with some of the assembled for brunch on our way out of town. On the way, I took the kids on a driving tour of the old neighborhood. It looks about the same, really, but it's good to go back every now and again to remind yourself where you came from. 

I forced them to listen to stories like "this is where I almost totalled my mom's car" and "five laps around this parking lot is a mile." Good times.

After brunch, we took the long way back home *** and stopped at our Alma Mater for an al fresco snack and to force the kids to get some sunshine. And to pose awkwardly in front of things.

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* and beer. But that was expected.

** Tip of the hat to my hometown: you are doing an awesome job with all of the cool new things. Now if you could do something about the traffic... but I understand that that is your way to keep out the riff-raff who do really, really want to love you. It's like self-sabotage, yes?

*** After years of careful study, I've determined that there is no good way to get to Pittsburgh from Oneonta. Every route is indirect. And the round trip times only vary by 15 minutes or so.