Pittsburgh

Post for Saturday, July 14
 Rachel Speaking

On Friday we started the day by meeting up with the birth family. You see Christian was adopted as a newborn. So every once in a while, we get together with them. Since we were driving through Pennsylvania, we arranged to spend some time with them. Both birth grandmothers, one birth grandfather and the birth father live in Pennsylvania. The birth mother, the other birth grandfather, and even a birth great-grandmother came from far away to meet us. We are even staying at with Elissa and Reed, some birth grandparents, here in Pittsburgh for three nights.

Anyway, we met them at Falling Water. We got there before everyone, and because my mom had misplaced her cellphone, we had no way of contacting them. Just as I was begginning to worry, they arrived. It turned out they had tried to call us, but as I said, my mom didn't have her cellphone. We went on a tour of Falling Water, one of the most famous houses architectural wise in Ameria. It was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. When I was two, I lived in Wisonsin and went to a preschool designed by him. The house has just as much space on outdoor patios as it does inside it. It was built on a waterfall and there are even steps in the middle of the house that go down to the river. It has so many windows. Some of the birth family stayed out with Christian because - well, imagine him on a tour. He wouldn't last more than two minutes.

After that, we were going to go on some natural waterslides in Ohiopyle State Park, but the weather didn't obey our wishes. Instead, we went to Fort Necessity. Fort Necessity was a fort built at the beginning of the French and Indian war. The named it Fort Necessity because - it was necessary to build it. No joke.  It was basically the first time George Washington had ever led troops. In the end, he signed an agreement with the French allowing him to surrender. He happily signed the paper because his army was not in such a good position. It turned out he signed out a paper that said he was personally responsible for some person's death. He didn't understand it because it was written in French. Also, what he didn't know was that the French weren't in such a good position themselves. They were running out of ammunition while George Washington's group still had plenty.

Afterwards, we had a picnic dinner there supplied by Anita, one of the birth grandmothers. It was really yummy. We drove to Pittsburgh to Elissa and Reed's house.

Saturday, we started out by going to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. It was very interesting. One of the things I found the most interesting was that Eskimo girls marry when they are twelve or thirteen. Christian really enjoyed all the dinosaur exhibits. After the museum, we walked across the street to the Cathedral of Learning. It was super cool and all old-fashioned and stuff. I thought it looked so much like Hogwarts. There was one giant room that even had Dumbledore's chair. - at least it looked like it. Then we went next door to the Heinz Chapel. It had really pretty stain glassed windows. For dinner, we went to this place called Quaker Steak and Lube that had cars hanging from the ceiling. There, we met up with my grandma who had flown in from Utah. She'll spend the next few days of the trip with us.

We finished the day by riding the Duquesne Incline up this mountain where we could see a pretty view of the three rivers of Pittsburgh meeting. All in all, it was a splendid few days.

Here's me petting a hissing cockroach at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History

Don't I look scared of the dinosaur?

We got to go inside the Heinz Chapel

The view from the top of the Duquesne Incline