Epic Birthday/Anniversary Weekend

Can i just say, that this summer is shaping up to be completely amazing already. We have been blessed with some truly beautiful weather lately, and it has almost made waiting out winter worth it. This weekend was Frank's 28th birthday (yesss, he's older than me again!) as well as our 3 year anniversary. We took full advantage of the mid 70's and sunny weather.

On Friday (his actual birthday) we started the day out with presents and then a shopping trip to exchange some of said presents because I suck at picking out gifts. I was supposed to by the Adidas marathon shoes but accidentally bought the trail-running version. We came home in the afternoon, packed up some sandwiches, chips, and beer and then headed downtown with the usual suspects for our first Pirates game of the season. The tailgating, as always, was the best part. We realized by the fifth inning that baseball is basically the most boring sport ever.



Frank recently switched his allegiance from the Pirates to the Phillies. I think he's doing it just to get a rise out of Pittsburghers. For the most part, Pittsburgh people hate Philly, and many of them have never even visited the city. My sister lives there and we love Philadelphia. Bonus points if you understand his shirt. It says "Yachts on the reg."



With the birthday boy and a few of my brothers in law.



The Phillies hat totally matched my outfit, I feel like a traitor!



These are the new kicks I got Frank, once we exchanged the wrong ones!

The next morning, we headed out to see our 5 year old nephew, Zack's, tee ball game. It was hilarious to see all these little kids' first foray into the world of team sports. At the beginning, they would be eager to get out there and hit the ball, run the bases. But as the game went on and their patience started to wane, they would start to get whiney and clingy, and mommies had to go out and stand with them in the field. Its funny how they can seem so grown up one minute and then morph back into toddlers when they get tired. I kept thinking about how I used to rock him to sleep and give him his bottles when I babysat. How did he turn into a little boy?







On Saturday, after watching Zach's tee ball game, we decided on an impromptu trip to Lake Erie to get away for our anniversary. It's only a couple hours north of us, but I had never been there.



(Frank couldn't figure out why there was a straw attached to his Rockstar. Then he realized that it probably had something to do with the fact that it was hot pink and obviously marketed to girls . . . )



Lake Erie is so big that we could almost pretend we were at the beach.









My husband :)



3 years strong!

After lounging on the beach for a while, we drove around the town and then headed to dinner. We picked a restaurant that was on the beach, called the Sloppy Duck. The food was delish and the view was incredible. The best part? The duck pond in front of the restaurant that housed their mascot ducks. They even had their own little duck house, complete with a heat lamp and a little black and white TV that showed vintage Donald Duck cartoons!



Even though we were stuffed, we headed to Erie's annual Wild Rib Festival. There was not much to do around town, so we figured we would just walk around and listen to the live music and check out the local scene. It smelled so good, we kind of wished we had come there for dinner!



The trophies people had won were pretty ridiculous. Barbecue chefs from all over the country came to show off their goods.

The next morning, we got up and headed about 30 minutes east to one of my favorite places in the world, Lake Chautauqua. When I was growing up, we came there every summer for a week-long vacation with my family. My mom went there when she was little and my grandparents went there when they were first married. We stayed at the same spot every year until I was 18. Sadly, we stopped going. My grandma was getting too old to take the heat and all the cousins were starting to get jobs, and get married, and we could no longer find a week that worked for everyone. I really hope that one day we get it going again.

Anyway, I got kind of emotional when I saw the lake for the first time in almost ten years. So many childhood memories came back and I kind of wished for that simplicity again. But I was so excited to show all my favorite spots to Frank!










I miss this place.