Finally some good news!!

If you follow me on Instagram you may have already heard the good news: My husband just got a big promotion at work!  We have been waiting and hoping that he would find something out of the department that he is currently in.  He just has to finish out this month and train someone to replace him before he can start the new position on April 1st.  We couldn't be happier!!

We decided to go out to eat to celebrate, no where fancy, but I decided to dress up a teeny bit, just for him.  We went to Primanti Brother's, which is a famous Pittsburgh restaurant.  You may remember me talking about their sandwiches before.  Sooo good!  We wanted to go somewhere to have a celebratory drink.

I was also given an accent nail from Margaret at Jamberry Nails to try out.  I think I am the only person on the planet that had yet to try them out.  I don't normally paint my nails, but I was really intrigued by these.  She sent me a really pretty floral print, that just so happened to match my outfit. 

I am the absolute worst at painting my nails, so don't judge!!  It's weird, I can paint portraits but I can't paint my nails.  It doesn't make much sense to me!

I also got my Passionfruit ads up over the weekend, so I am now offering different sized sponsorship opportunities on my sidebar.  Since I am just starting out the prices are very low and reasonable; AND if that's not enough, I am offering 25% off my ad spots until the end of the month with the code: SPONSORJM

linked up with: Rhea EtCetera, Pink Sole and Cha Cha the Fashion Genius, More Pieces of Me and On the Daily EXPRESS, The Pleated Poppy

OUTFIT: Date day with my hubby

It's getting chilly here in PA, so I have officially broken out my favorite leather jacket.  I probably wear it 3 or 4 times a week.  I love it!  If you've been around my blog for a while then you already know that I have a little bit of an obsession with tribal print.  I swear almost half of my closet is tribal, if not more!

These photos are actually from a couple weekends ago, my hubby and I actually had the chance to have a date day.  We had my mom watch her for a couple hours just to have some "us" time.  We definitely needed it!  Our plans were to go out to eat and see a movie, but we ended up missing the show time that we wanted so I got to do some shopping instead (thus the Express bag in my hand in the first picture).

We also decided to stop and have a drink at Rock Bottom, a microbrewery located right in the shopping plaza. (How convenient is that?!)  I love playing with my daughter and she is the cutest baby ever, BUT it was sooo nice to be able to have an actual conversation with my husband.  We had a lot of fun just sitting there being goofballs and flirting with each other like it was our first date.

What do you do for your date days/nights? Is the Fall weather kicking in where you are too?

linked up at: Rhea Et Cetera, Pink Sole and Cha Cha The Fashion Genius, More Pieces of Me, On the Daily Express , I Would So Rock This, Still Being Molly, Claire Justine,, The Fashion Canvas, Walking in Memphis in High Heels, Style Elixir

35 Things to do in Pittsburgh

• See the sunset at Mt. Washington overlooks
• Dueling piano bar - Sing Sing
• Comedy shows - Improv or The Funnybone
• Ohiopyle State Park
• Try your luck at River's Casino - www.riverscasino.com/pittsburgh
• Gateway Clipper dinner or sightseeing cruise - www.gatewayclipper.com
• Play games at Dave & Buster's . It's like a Chuck E Cheese for grown ups!  So much fun!
• 'Burg Bits and Bites food tour - burghfoodtour.com
• Color Me Mine - paint it yourself ceramics studio - www.pittsburgh.colormemine.com
• Moonlit horseback rides - Bridgeville - Check it out HERE
• Couples cooking class @ Crate
• Rock wall climbing @ The Climbing Wall
• Visit one of the many art museums - Andy Warhol Museum or Carnegie Museum of Art
• Carnegie Science Center Sky Watch on Friday and Saturday nights - Click HERE for link
• Just Ducky Tour - takes rider on land and water through city - www.justduckytours.com
• Go see a theater production @ Byham, Benedum Center, or Heinz Hall. You can find tickets for shows at any of those 3 theaters at the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust site
• Take a salsa class - www.salsapittsburgh.com
• Attend an improv show - Clo Caberet or Steel City Improv
• Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens - phipps.conservatory.org
• Duquesne Incline - scale Mt. Washington in a cable car for an incredible view of the Pittsburgh skyline - 400ft incline
• National Aviary - www.aviary.org
• Children's Museum - pittsburghkids.org
• Pittsburgh Zoo - www.pittsburghzoo.org
• South Side bar crawl - Carson St. in South Side is full of bars lining each and every block.  If you don't like the atmosphere at one place you could try next door at the next one.  It's almost impossible to make it to every single bar in one night.
• Station Square - This is where you will find the night clubs for dancing, and during the day a few restaurants.  They also host a lot of walking tours that will give you information about the history of Pittsburgh  www.stationsquare.com
• Photo Antiquities Museum of Photographic History - www.photoantiquities.org
• Sandcastle water park - Featuring a bunch of different kinds of water slides (tubes, speed slides, and body slides), a wave pool, a regular pool, a lazy river, and even a kiddie pool and playground.  It's fun for all ages. www.sandcastlewaterpark.com
• Kennywood amusement park - Kennywood is one of the oldest amusement parks in America.  It was founded in 1898 and has been considered a National Historic Landmark since 1987.  Obviously it has grown with the times and features steel and wooden coasters, water rides, and even has a kiddie land for the little ones   www.kennywood.com/
• Frick Art and Historical Center
• Pittsburgh Ghost Tour - hauntedpittsburghtours.com
• Toonseum - toonseum.org
• Laurel Caverns - laurelcaverns.com
• Skydive - skydivepennsylvania.com
• Hofbrauhaus - Modeled after the legendary hall in Munich.  Beer is brewed on site in HUGE mugs.  Everyone is dressed in traditional Bavarian attire - hofbrauhauspittsburgh.com
• Visit "The Point" at Point State Park - This is where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers meet to form the Ohio River - thus "The 3 Rivers" .  This is where you will also find the Fort Pitt Museum, where you can learn about the history in the area.

top 2 pictures: "The Point" Point Park,  Station Square at night

Duquesne Incline, Heinz Feild (home of the Steelers), Gateway Clipper

Sandcastle waterpark, Laurel Caverns, Kennywood Park

If you know of any other places in Pittsburgh that I should add to my list, send me an email or leave it in the comment section below!

How you know someone is from Pittsburgh

Around here we have our own way to talk.  Most of it doesn't even make sense, even to me, and I've lived here for a long time.  I think most of it is just being being too lazy to say the whole word, but I have no idea where the other stuff comes from.

Here are some things you will only hear in Pittsburgh:

We also have our food.....

Up until a couple years ago I didn't even realize that most people didn't know what a pierogie was!  I've been eating them my whole life, so they were no big deal to me.  It is sort of like a ravioli but it is stuffed with cheese and mashed potato (sometimes sauerkraut) then fried with butter and onions.  Sooo good!

source

Another food we are famous for is the Primanti's sandwich.  It is a HUGE sandwich topped with french fries, cole slaw, and all the fixinz.   It's basically a heart attack waiting to happen.

source

Thinking of taking a trip to see Pittsburgh?  Stay tuned, because I will be posting a giant list of things to do around the Pittsburgh area next week.

Have you ever been to Pittsburgh?  Do you have any certain language goofiness or crazy food that your town is famous for?

Pittsburgh Renaissance Festival

The last weekend in August we took our little one to the Renaissance Festival to be a princess for a day and see all of the horses.  She loved watching all of the horses running around.  It was SO HOT that day, if you couldn't tell from her rosy face.

She couldn't decide if she wanted to be a knight or a princess, so she decided to be both!  Daddy had to help her get her head in the right place tho!

How cool is this medieval swing?!  It was the first real ride (other than a merry-go-round) that Paige ever got to go on.  She loved it!  I sort of felt bad for the guys that had to push that big thing in such hot weather...with their costumes on.  Poor guys!

This is a comedy show called The German Brothers.  They were hilarious!  They were "german rap stars", one's name was "White Chocolate" and they had a rendition of Baby Got Back where they rhymed words with schnitzel and schizer.  They did a lot of crowd participation stuff.  At one point they had a man from the crowd on stage strutting his stuff and participating in a dance off.

 This was probably my favorite show of the day.  It's called "Cast In Bronze".  This masked man created an musical instrument using bells and levers to ring then, sort of like a piano.  The music was absolutely beautiful and reminded me so much of Phantom of the Opera with the mask and the theatricality of the way he played it.  Really cool!

Have you ever been to a Renaissance Festival??

We made it to the zoo!!

If you remember earlier this Summer I posted a Summer bucket list and one of the things that I wanted to do was take Paige to the zoo!  We finally made it!  It's been hard with everything to find a day to go between events and rain, but we did it.  She LOVED it too!  I'm so happy we were able to go.

Paige loved the big Kee cats!  They were definitely her favorite!  I think she giggled for five minutes straight when she saw them.

The cheetah enclosure was SO CLOSE too!  There was just the metal fence, about 4 feet of space and then the wooden "rail" that Paige was leaned up against.  It was really cool to see them so close, but I won't lie.... It made me a little nervous being that close.  It really looked like he could have climbed the fence if he wanted to.

Paige really loved all of the monkeys too.  She kept pushing her face up against the glass because she wanted to get to them.

We all had such an amazing time.  Paige behaved herself the whole time even though she had to stay in the stroller or be held most of the time.  I was shocked!  She can't stand not being able to run around. LOL

We even bought her an ice cream sundae to celebrate!

We were a little disappointed that there were no bears when we went tho.  I guess they were fixing the enclosure.  The polar bears have a really cool area with a swimming pool and there is an underwater tunnel that you can walk through to see them swimming above you.  It's super neat and I would have liked to show Paige, but there's always next year!

Here's a photo from a few years ago with my hubby and I went.  Pretty neat, huh??

Did you get to go to the zoo this year??

A rock concert and a rant

For my husband and I's wedding anniversary I bought him tickets to see one of his favorite bands ever, The Offspring. Bad Religion, Pennywise, and The Vandals were also touring with him, so basically it was a punk rockers dream.

My mom came over to watch the baby and put her to bed for us so we could go.  This was our first night out that we didn't have to be home in time to put baby to bed!  I was so ready and excited to enjoy the night out with my hubby.

The Vandals were awesome and had amazing energy.  The singer was dancing all over the stage like a crazy person while the guitarist repeatedly shook his butt at the crowd.  So funny!!

After The Vandals were done playing things started to slowly go down hill.....  First of all, they oversold the concert BIG TIME!  People were practically on top of each other.  Actually sometimes they literally were on top of each other when groups of people decided to start shoving people around....which eventually turned into a huge mosh pit.  I get it, it's a rock concert and you kind of expect people to be going a little nuts, but throwing beer all over everyone and actually pushing over groups of women..??  Not cool.

The biggest thing that got to me was when almost every single person in the crowd around us started smoking pot.....really??  I don't care if you smoke or not but when you force other people around you to inhale your disgusting skunk weed and get a contact high, I think that is a bit ridiculous.  THIS is one of the many reason why I hate the whole "legalize" battle that is sweeping the country.  It's disgusting!  I shouldn't have to worry about whether or not there may be a DUI checkpoint on the way home and the cop smelling pot on me!

Maybe the pot situation just annoyed me more than it should have because, like I said, people were practically sitting on your lap so you had no choice.

There were also, of course, people throwing up EVERYWHERE because they weren't cutting people off.  So now we have people throwing up on each other, people showering everyone in beer, and potheads blowing smoke in your face.

Sooo long story short, we ended up leaving before the end of The Offspring's set because neither one of us could handle it anymore.  I got to look forward to a show that I have been dying to see ever since I was a teenager...only to have it ruined but a bunch of drunk stoners.

 Disappointing first night out...

On a lighter note, Offspring sounds exactly the same live as he does on his cd!  Craziness!  They played great.  I just wish I would have been able to enjoy it more..

I finally made it to a baseball game!

Sometimes a night out with your mom is just what you need.  My mom has always been my best friend and one of the people I call with any kind of problem/news.  We haven't gotten to have a girl's night out in so long, but we finally got our chance a little over a week ago!

My mom is a HUGE baseball fan and loves the Pittsburgh Pirates.  She has season passes and everything.  Earlier in the week she called to ask if I wanted to go to a game with her.  I was super excited because I had never been to a baseball game and it was also a firework night.  I'm more of a football and hockey girl but I love sports so I knew it would be fun.

It did rain on us a lot but my mom is a smarty pants and brought rain ponchos!  Mine was super huge on me but it definitely worked!

She also surprised me with tickets to see the musical "Cats" beforehand.  She knows that I LOVE musical theater (and her boyfriend isn't into it) so she bought us the tickets to the showing before the game.

We ended up spending almost 12 hours together while my hubby watched the little one!  It was a great night out.

And to make the night even more awesome, the Pirates won the game in overtime! hahaha!  Yesssss....

linking up at The Grits Blog and Treasure Tromp

Best night out in a long time

Today is my first time linking up at Grateful Heart Monday over at Ember Grey!  This week I am grateful for a long awaited night out with my husband.

The weekend after our anniversary we were able to get someone (my mom) to watch the little one for us, so we could have a nice night out.

My husband isn't very good at planning things, BUT he did make us reservations for 6pm at the fancy restaurant where he proposed.  Other than that we thought maybe we would catch a movie...   Well, Paige ended up taking a longer nap than expected so we ended up missing the showing time for the movie we wanted to see.  We were trying to figure out what we wanted to do on the way to my mom's and my husband got an idea....but he wouldn't tell me what it was.

We still hadn't eaten lunch so he surprised me by taking me to The Cheesecake factory!  I loooove cheesecake.  And all of their food is amazing. We split a lunch and got a dessert to split.

After we left there we saw that they were having an art and music festival literally right outside!  So we shopped around a little there and then we headed to Hofbrauhaus right across the street.  Hofbrauhaus is a German restaurant/bar that brews their own beer on site.  And wait until you see their mugs.....

Yeah, HUGE!!

Once we finished our ginormous beers there we decided it was about time to head to our restaurant, The Monterrey Bay Fish Grotto.  It is an amazing restaurant on Mount Washington overlooking a beautiful view of Pittsburgh.

Most amazing food EVER!

I'm not going to lie, this was a very expensive night out but it was absolutely amazing!  It probably won't happen again until next year but it was worth it!

Three Rivers Arts Festival

I've lived in Pennsylvania for a very long time and I am obviously a HUGE lover of the arts, so it may come as a surprise to you that I have never gotten my butt out to the Pittsburgh Arts Festival!  The festival showcases over 300+ artists from all over the country!  They also have live bands, a bunch of different food booths, and a craft section for younger children.

This year the festival ran from June 6th-13th.  We went last Sunday and had a lot of fun!  Little miss Paige got a little cranky because she was hot and she wanted to run free but other than that it was great.  She loved the fountain.

I've decided that I am going to try to be a showcasing artist next year at the festival.  I have to wait until open submission time at the end of this year to try to get accepted, but fingers crossed I will get to try it out next summer!

Kennywood Park, PA

I already crossed one thing off of my Summer Bucket List!  My husband and I went to our local amusement park called Kennywood Park!  My mom watched the baby for us because we decided she was still just a little too small to go.  Definitely next year though!  We ended up going on a double date with my sister and her girlfriend.  We all had so much fun!

(another no makeup photo...cringe)

I wish I would have taken more photos while we were there.  I actually had to steal this collage photo from my sister's instagram. (Thanks Tehya!!)

Kennywood Park is one of the oldest amusement parks in America!  A couple cool facts about the park:

• Kennywood Park has been around since 1898!
• The Original Racer was the world's largest racing coaster when it was built in 1910.  It was later torn down and replaced by Kiddie land.  They built the newer racer in 1927
• When the Steel Phantom was built in 1991 it was the fastest coaster in the world (80+ mph) with the longest drop (225ft).

 Do you have any neat historic landmarks around your area??