Too many candles on the cake!

This past Sunday we celebrated Nana's 97th birthday.  Wow!  That is a true accomplishment especially when you think about all that has happened during that time.

Born on the Southside of Pittsburgh, she worked as a chorus line dancer in the movie theaters in downtown Pittsburgh while she was still in high school.  Once while dancing on the vaudeville circuit, she once had to scrape together bus money to travel back from Albany when the promoter bolted out on her crew.

Later, she worked for the War Department during World War Two and volunteered at the canteens at both the Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh & Lake Erie stations.  After the war she was the secretary to the President of Harris Entertainment, owners of the Ice Capades.  She was full of stories of the theater business in Pittsburgh.

In the early '50s she met Johnny her husband and started a family, and the rest is history.  Quite a life...

Field Trip Friday, this week

Yesterday was Field Trip Friday here at the Little House. That means the kids get to pick where they want to go for a day's educational activity. The unanimous choice was Phipps Conservatory with lunch beforehand at Szmidt's Old World Deli, a new restaurant in Greenfield. Bobbie wanted to get a nice photo of all three in one of the garden areas. Well they didn't cooperate, so Bobbie just kept taking pictures and here's the result.

Honk Jr. - John

Here's John with his friend AJ, in the recent Saltworks production of Honk Jr.  John played the lead goose as the flock tried to migrate south.

Honk Jr. is a musical version of the ugly duckling story. It's a great kids production not only because of the nature of the story, but also the dialog and songs.

Great kids entertainment works on two levels.  A simple story for the kids and one level up for the grown-ups.  That way the whole family can enjoy the show and talk about it later.

The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle is a great example.  First created in the early 1960s, it had the usual good guy/bad guy kids story but with an overlay of cold war spies.

Hmm, John's costume even looks a bit like Rocky the flying squirrel...

Father/Daughter Dance

Janine and I went to the Girl Scout Father/ Daughter Dance a few weeks ago.  We both had fun.  But we were one of the "older and bigger" couples.  Most of the other girls were quite young, and many of them were running all around the dance floor while the dads chatted on the side lines.

The best example were six girls acting as a team.  The other five would lift one of their group up above the rest on the dance floor.  We almost bumped into them once.  I didn't expect a Girl Scout dance to resemble a rave!

After the dance we went out for pie at Eat n Park.  Overall, a good time was had by all.