Oopsies....Forgot Two!

Pittsburgh Pics

These are sorta categorized, but not in order of how they happened. It's kinda tough when I have a lot of pics in a post to get them chronologically placed. So....just deal with it :)

ALYSSA!

ERIKA!

ALYSSA AND ERIKA!

PITTSBURGH!

Duquesne:

Some neat architecture:

Pitt:

There was a disabled car in the tunnel ahead. Traffic came to a total stop. I was regretting our plan to drive into Pittsburgh at this point :)

After sitting for about 10 minutes we heard a siren behind us. The road was two lanes, there were already cars on the shoulder. We had to make enough room for that huge fire truck to get through. I could have shook hands with the guy sitting in the passenger seat, lemme' tell you! I really should have folded in my side view mirror!

We stopped at the Monroeville Mall (our hotel was actually on the complex of the mall) for Alyssa to get a planner at Barnes and Noble. We hadn't had lunch at that point (it was like 2:30 pm), saw this alongside the book store and decided to take a chance. Man....were we glad we did!! It was phenomenal!

Chicken bowtie festival! We all had this...it was delicious!!

At one point we were just kind of randomly driving around and ended up in front of this church. You ask why would we be excited about this?!?! Well.....it was the church our niece got married in several years ago! As big as Pittsburgh is, it was amazing we ended up here!

Erika loves dinosaurs. When the girls saw this, they made me stop so Erika could have her pic taken with it. It was in front of a TV studio....we think it had something to do with Mr. Rogers.

Alyssa caught this on the back of the bus. The electronic sign alternated between the bus number and what you see below:

A beautiful building:

Way cool rhino:

Self explanatory :)

Neat pic:

Cool bridge:

We were at a traffic light and I caught this:

Heinz Field:

**Several of these pics were borrowed from Erika. She has a great camera....and great picture taking ability :) Thanks, Erika!

Alyssa's School!

All the schools are in the same complex. The building off in the distance is the high school where Alyssa'll spend her next three and a half months.

Black Bean Mexican Chicken

Mix one can drained black beans, one bag frozen corn and one regular size jar salsa (mild or medium):

Place chicken breasts in crock pot:

Place bean and corn mixture over chicken:

Cook on low for 6 hours. Turn crockpot off 20 minutes before ready to eat and add cut up brick of cream cheese in pot:

Stir after 20 minutes:

Our latest favorite-spinach, dried cranberries, sliced strawberries, glazed walnuts or pecans, poppyseed dressing:

Serve over rice (or with tortilla shells):

YUM!!

Alyssa's New 4 Month Abode

These are the steps to get up to Alyssa's apartment:

I'm standing outside their front door looking in. Straight ahead is a coat closet. To the right is the living room:

I'm standing in the living room. That is the front door. The little window looks into the kitchen:

More of a close-up looking into the kitchen:

The kitchen:

The dining area:

The dining area the next day, with tablecloth and new folding chairs at table. Alyssa's desk to the right had been in the bedroom, but there was just so much in there that she moved it out:

The living room:

The bedroom. There's a sliding door that goes out to a small balcony, but with the girls only living there until the end of April, they probably won't have reason to go out there, so Sierra put her clothing rack in front of the door:

In the bedroom looking out the door towards the kitchen:

Small closet with washer/dryer. They are paying $20/month for the washer and dryer:

Straightening up:

Here's the bizarre part :) To the right of the main bedroom door, there's another bedroom door (shown here). With trying to fit all the bedroom furniture in the small room, Alyssa has her bed up against the door (it's really not needed anyway):

I'm standing in the bathroom, looking out....you can see the door straight ahead that has Alyssa's bed up against it:

This is looking down a small hallway towards the bathroom. To the right is the (real) door that goes into the bedroom and to the left is the closet with the washer/dryer:

And last but not least....the bathroom: