Cookie Tour 2013

Last weekend we headed over to the hipster neighborhood of Lawerenceville in the city for their annual cookie tour. This is a great local event -the neighborhood stores all baked a ton of cookies and print out the recipes. Then as you walk from shop to shop and do your Christmas thing you get cookies!  It is a great local idea. 

We started out with a stop at the Roundabout Brewery where we tasted their newest drafts. It is a little craft brewery in town, relatively new to town. They do growler fills of whatever is seasonal. I had an awesome cranberry wheat. I admit I enjoy a good fruit ear but this was tart and delicious without being sweet or overpowering. I would totally drink it again. And again!  We also sampled the poor man's milk stout, which was tasty enough that we brought home a growler. 

We continued up to Upper Lawerenceville to check out the Wild Purveyors -a cool shop selling locally sourced grocery goods. We saw them on Andrew Zimmerman's Pittsburgh show a few weeks ago, so it was cool to actually check out the shop. 

The afternoon continued on with a mosey back to Lower Lawerenceville, stopping at several art galleries, crafty stores, florists, and the card store. The highlight of the trip was stopping at La Goumandine, the amazing French bakery on Butler Street. Everything in the cases looked like it came straight out of a boulangerie or patisserie from Paris. I picked up some baguette rolls for book club later this week and treated myself to an croissant aux amandes (almond croissant). Depspite the blustery snowy cold day in Pittsburgh I was taken back to our honeymoon in Paris before I even tasted it.  I can't wait to go back -I see us stopping there again to pick up some French sandwiches on baguettes before going up to the reservoir for some geocaching this spring. 

We finished up with a stop at Arsenal Cider House.  Arsenal is quickly becoming a Pittsburgh celebrity putting ciders on tap all over town. We sampled 5 different ciders and an orange blossom mead. The mead wasn't overly sweet and had a nice floral nose. They had ciders in Apple, blueberry, and raspberry. The Christmas spiced cider put anything you have had from Woodchuck to shame. David is heading back this weekend to pick up a growler of the Christmas Cider for over the holiday.  Get ready Kate!

This was a great opportunity to do two of my favorite things-eat cookies and shop local! Our walk up and down Butler gave us a3mile hike, making all the treats worth it!  Maybe if you are (un)lucky your gift came from the land of the hipsters!

Nothing much happening

The bed thief

The kitchen assistant

Difficult times around academy ave....

Hard knock life

Welcome to the ACC

They lost but the Panthers were scrappy. I saw a lot of potential watching them play.  The stadium had an awesome energy (until the thuggy FSU fans started being FSU fans) Here is to hoping the rest of the season will be just as memorable as Monday nigh, only better!  

Geocaching Panhandle Power Trail I

We took advantage of the long weekend with very few plans and not much work on tap and planned to go out geocaching. The original plan was to go do some cleanup at South Park. However, last weekend I had gone for a walk on the Panhandle Trail with my friend Laura. I was looking it up online since it was my first visit and noticed that there were a ton and a half of caches there. Clicking on Cache 0 I noticed that they are archiving the power trail of 80 caches in November of this year, so we decided to start working on it to try to capture it before the grand disappearance.  

A long and sometimes winding (rail)road. 

We walked well into Washington county. 

While in McDonald we heard a strange Noise. Nope. Not gang violence, but some sort of historical reinactment with old fashioned shots being fired on the other side of the trail. 

Resting while waiting for fellow walkers to pass us by before the last find of trail for the day. 

Warning: recent flooding has been damaging. 

Took a little longer than this to find some caches and take a short sheetz picnic lunch. 

Success:  5 miles walked, 4 miles cached, 26 total caches!

We grabbed one last cache at dinner to give us a PR of 27 in one day. Go us!

You Go Girl

This month marks the 97th anniversary of  the ratification of the 19th amendment, giving wonderful ladies like me the right to vote. Last week also marked the Pittsburgh Federal Executive Board's annual luncheon honoring  women and their achievements. I was honored to be nominated by the Corps of Engineers for the FEB's Woman of the Year in a Professional Non-Supervisory Series. While I didn't win the Gold or Silver awards, my competition was pretty good - there were about 20 other federal women in our category - and it was an honor to be selected by my office and to win a bronze level award. 

Plus, it's really cool to think of how my great grandmother was a suffragette and four generations later I'm able to win an award for women in a professional aerie job. My how the world has changed. 

The Commander with myself and the two other nominees from the District. 

Garden haul

Today's pickings. I had given up on the peppers, and now we have a purple that made the cut!

Fallingwater

Took a little trip downtown Fayette-nam while my parents were in town to see this gem. It was a beautiful walk and worth the drive. Dad loved it since he grew up in Frank Lloyd Wright's hometown. The rest of us all enjoyed too - somehow this was the first time I went inside a Wright home?!?!?

Vackation Highlights - Yosemite National Park