Kate and Peter's Treehouse

This evening Jordan and I attended the second of three Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy meetings focused on Kate and Peter's treehouse. You may recall I blogged about the first meeting before it happened, and was not even sure we would end up going, thanks to Jordan's reaction to Kate and Peter's death. I am happy to report despite my concern, Jordan seemed to accept what happened, and that meeting went well. Here is the treehouse masterpiece she and a friend's daughter created that evening:

Tonight's meeting was held at Frick Park. On our way to the three areas we were to visit, all the treehouses the kids had created from that last meeting flanked the pathway. I thought it was pretty cool. Jordan is standing near hers. Not nearly as cool is my shadow!

We then went to the site of the future treehouse and wrote down our ideas on cards hanging from/on wires as well as on trees. At first, I kind of struggled with this creative process. I worked at a design firm for years, but I did boring stuff and was quite happy doing so, thank you very much. But after a few minutes both Jordan and I had come up with what I think are good ideas.

Here are some photos of Jordan standing by the cards. [Amy and some members of her family are in the background.]

Jordan's suggestions included a tire swing and a tube slide (both of which she tried to incorporate in her treehouse design during the April meeting). I suggested having various levels to explore and adding some educational nuggets about nature, trees, Pittsburgh, etc. I also said it should be a meaningful tribute to Kate and Peter (though I am not sure how to do that, I am certain Amy has some ideas, and she does have input).

I wish I could remember the other ideas J and I had come up with. Perhaps Ginny, from That's Church, happened to snap some pics of our cards while she was taking a bunch of photos. Yes, I finally got to meet Ginny, who is one of my absolute favorite bloggers. She is pretty much the same as she is in her blog. Really personable and down to earth. When I introduced myself as Facie, she remembered that I was the one who directed her to one of Amy's blog posts about pigeons. She thanked me for making her aware of Amy's story way back when (a year and a half ago; I checked).

Before we left and said our good-byes to Amy, Jordan and I took a 20-minute walk in the woods on this spectacular evening. The only thing that would have made it better would have been my wearing tennis shoes rather than sandals. Regardless, Frick Park truly is a gem in this city. If you live in the area or are planning a visit, I urge you to spend a few hours there. There are so many trails to walk on. And if you have kids, you can always head on over to the Blue Slide Park area.

I am definitely looking forward to the completed treehouse, which will make Frick Park that much better.

Until then...

Summer in review

This summer I made it a point to try to take at least one pic of Jordan whenever we went somewhere, which most often was a park. I wanted to capture all the great, fun things we did this summer, knowing that it was probably going to be my last summer not working for quite some time. So here goes. I have expressed my love of Frick Park, particularly Blue Slide Park, in other posts ; it really is one of our favorites. And this summer marked the first one I did not feel the need to follow J around like a little puppy dog. I actually let her run around and explore, though, admittedly, I would panic if more than three minutes went by and I had not seen her. In the pics above, J is at the end of the blue slide, and then hanging several feet above concrete (which scared the crap out of me). We also visited another section of Frick Park, the area on the corner of Braddock and Forbes, a few times. There is not as much to do as Blue Slide, but we go there to mix things up a bit. In the p...

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Facie’s Ramblings

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