A Few Playground Playdates

On Thursday, Tavin, Penn and I got together with my dear friend Bethany and her two boys.  Will, her oldest, is a little younger than Tav, but they had so much fun playing together.  Probably the best ever in the times we've hung out.  It was great to see!  We met at Settlers Cabin Park and it was a lovely day and a great change of atmosphere.  They both specifically liked the train...

...and the swings of course.

It was a great visit as Bethany and I are such kindred spirits, we always have tons to catch up on and discuss.  So much so that it's hard to pull ourselves away and end the playdate, but finally we left around 1:30pm to get Penn down for a late nap.

On Friday, Doug worked most the day, but he had the van, so helped he helped me out by getting Tav from preschool and then taking him to his speech appointment.  We had a window in between the two for him to eat his lunch and we decided we'd all meet at Osceola to enjoy yet another gorgeous September day together for that brief time.  It was lovely.  Doug brought Tav's bike and he had a blast perfecting some skills.  Can you tell how happy this kid is?  He comes home smiling ear to ear from preschool and then is so proud to be showing off his continuously improving 2-wheeler biking skills.  PS - Penn's having a blast in the background working his way across the bumpy bridge.

I got a video too of how Tav continues to get better at getting himself started.

Proud Tavin went on to speech therapy in these great spirits and was able to show off to his therapist, Miss Christal, the fact that he has pretty much mastered the "th" sound in conversation in the last few weeks.  It just finally clicked and he got that he needed to correct himself and pause to get it right and it's been amazing to watch these last few weeks.  Christal was so impressed that she moved him on to his next focus sound.  Great job, Tavin!

On Saturday, we spent the morning at a favorite playground in Schenley with some dear friends visiting from out of town. This is a busy weekend for Doug and I with Doug having a lot of work events around some visiting artists he brought in for a lecture on Friday night and then they are contributing to the worship services this weekend.  One of the artists in the lecture is a friend in the music industry who know lives in NYC with his wife and 4 kids.  We wanted to spend some time with them all and help get the kids out into the gorgeous day, so we thought the playground meetup would work and it was a huge success.  We adults got to catch up and the kids thoroughly enjoyed the playground.  I didn't get a chance to take many pictures though.  Here's the one I got of their oldest, Evie, enjoying the twisty turny things the boys love.

I only wish we had more time to spend with these guys and let our kids get to know each other more, but we'll take what we can get!  Thanks for spending the morning with us!

As you can see, we've been taking full advantage of Pittsburgh's amazing weather week and its parks and playgrounds.  Love this city!