life and death

i have been putting off blogging for awhile now. memorial day weekend, last week, and the two short weeks in between were very eventful. most people who know me already know that my paternal grandmother grams passed away last week. it was neither unexpected nor premature - she had been very ill for quite some time and was just 2 days shy of her 95th birthday. still it has been a very difficult time for the whole family and incredibly sad for everyone who knew her.

starting with memorial day weekend ... we drove down to louisville primarily to visit grams because we knew she wasn't doing well and wouldn't have many (any) more chances to spend time with her. before we went to see grams, everyone warned us repeatedly how poorly she was feeling and that we might not be able to have any "quality" time with her. but grams was amazing and managed to put on a smile for us and talk to us for long stretches at a time. we overwhelmed her with kids (erik plus my three nieces all at once) and love and tears, and she responded with 1000 times more love right back. she was truly amazing and we are so grateful that we had that time with her, reminiscing, holding hands, and sharing hugs. this was the first and last time that erik got to spend with her while she was alive (which i truly regret), but i think it meant a lot to both of them. when we got to her room, erik climbed right up on her bed to hug her without any prompting. as usual, i was very emotional and didn't take many photos of our visits with her (which i also regret), but here are a few from that weekend:

erik with her pennsylvania great-grandkids:


my mom and grams (this one breaks my heart):


grams with my mom and morgan:


the whole weekend was pretty much non-stop family visiting. aside from spending time with grams, we also visited the tinchers in waddy, ky, the schumakers in corydon, in, and the laemmles in louisville, ky.

i wasn't much in the mood for photography, but did take some pictures of our visits (look back to one of my earlier posts for some of my photos of flowers at the tincher's house in waddy).













it just happened to be anja's birthday:


mmm ... frisch's




erik and maggie watching yo gabba gabba (most psychedelic kids show ever):












during the short time between that visit to kentucky and our return for the funeral, there was a lot going on here in pittsburgh. i got to go out with some of my girlfriends for a yummy chinese dinner at chen's in cranberry. we had an awesome time gabbing and being VERY silly, which i really needed. i'm lucky to have these girls!





i love this one of jamie in the bamboo. i told her to look confused and she was very convincing!


there was a big event that i think was largely for the kickoff of the carnegie library's summer reading program down in oakland. we took erik down and got to see my mom there too since she was working. it was a really nice time ... there were lots of neat things to see and do, and free stuff too!









i know i already posted this one, but i really love it!


and erik's daycare was closed one monday for an in service day so i took him to the children's museum, which i already blogged about.



this post is getting rather lengthy, so i will finish up another time. the really heavy stuff will follow later on.

yes we can!

obama's rally cry or bob the builder's? i think bob the builder came first. today erik's daycare was closed for a random "in service" day so i stayed home with him and took him to the childrens museum. he had an awesome time as usual. that's such a neat place to take a kid. he did a couple of paintings and made paper and explored the new bob the builder exhibit and of course played with the cars in the garage and the trains. he also had fun getting soaked in the water play area. here are some pictures from today.









he tends to hoard as many trains/cars as he can get his hands on:

erik and his granny

we had a nice time at the festival down by the carnegie library in oakland today!

italy

i was very fortunate to visit italy several years back for vacation, and it looks like perhaps one day in the not too distant future i might get to go back for school-related reasons. at least i am hoping so. tonight i decided to go back and look at some of the first photos i uploaded to flickr, and was again reminded of the breathtaking beauty of the places we traveled. now that i have a better grasp on photoshop i should probably go back and process these all over again, but even with my limited knowledge at the time (of photography and photo processing), and an inferior camera to what i have now, i got some shots that i really love.













i need to go back and upload more of my photos from that trip. in my early days on flickr, for some reason i didn't want to upload pictures or people. but now i like to upload anything and everything. well, almost anything :)

bridging the gap

as usual, it's been a busy couple of weeks and i have yet to blog about any of it. instead i have been looking at my pictures of the hot metal bridge (well, at least the ones that i have actually tagged). i don't know what got me to thinking about that particular bridge. maybe it's the fact that i see it every day and that i've been across it many times. actually i've been kind of fascinated by bridges in general lately. they often have a beautiful symmetry that i find attractive, and the sheer mass of them is so impressive. here are a few of my shots of the hot metal bridge:









here are some other bridges from over the years (in no particular order). this exercise has reminded me yet again how nice it would be if all my photos were properly tagged an titled.

bridge of sighs in venice:


smithfield street bridge in pittsburgh:


panther hollow bridge in pittsburgh:


bay bridge in maryland:



bridge near skagway, alaska that is interesting because it is anchored completely on one side:


bridge going into wheeling, west virginia:


these two were in cincinnatti, ohio:



minneapolis, minnesota:


fort pitt bridge, pittsburgh:


while more of a overpass than a bridge, i include this one of yet another dumbass trucker who got stuck on bates street in oakland:


the ponte vecchio in florence:


i think that's all for now. maybe soon i will write a real blog. GO PENS!