Bosch is celebrating 125 years this year (1886-2011) and the Anderson, SC manufacturing plant is celebrating 25 years. That makes it a good year for a celebration and that's exactly what they did today. In the past 10 years, the Anderson plant has only had 3 company picnics, this being one of them. The plant is running 24 hours a day to meet demand and employs 1800 people, so it's vital to the Anderson economy. Today was a rare day for the plant because they shut down production so that everyone could enjoy the festivities.
The picnic was planned for 11AM to 3PM, so we headed there at 11, because we knew Brady would get tired before the end and we could leave when we wanted. The first thing we did was check out the robotic Wall-E. Brady couldn't get enough of him. We had a hard time dragging him away to let other kids have a turn.
We then got into the line for face painting. While we were in line, one of Andy's co-workers came up to us and asked if Brady wanted a Bosch tattoo and we figured why not? He was really good while she put it on his cheek and he didn't try to rub at it. Waiting is very hard for Brady and honestly, what toddler has an easy time waiting? They had an adopt-a-pet area right next to the face painting booth, so Andy and I took turns waiting in line, while the other one took Brady to look at the animals. The kittens were particularly playful and Brady was laughing out loud. He loved reaching a finger into their cage to pet them and he was very gentle like always with animals. When it was finally his turn to get his face painted and the lady asked what he wanted, and we thought a football would be appropriate since Penn State will be playing Alabama at home later this afternoon. He sat very still and didn't swipe at it afterwards. He didn't want to hold still for me to get a good picture of it, but I got one anyway.
We headed over to the main area where we noticed the booth for our favorite frozen yogurt place, YoGo Express. They also had a photo booth so we got to go in and get some pictures taken. Brady wasn't very cooperative, so there's only one of four shots that Brady is looking at the camera. He did love the frozen yogurt, just like always.
Brady then noticed the inflatables. He's in love with bouncing. The first one was just for playing. It had little tunnels, a play pool (no water), and a little Jeep. He was having so much fun he didn't want to come out, but we headed over to the bouncy castle (his favorite). Andy was nervous because there were several big kids playing and jumping and he thought Brady would get trampled. Brady held his own and had more fun because the other kids bouncing launched him up. He was really upset when he came out and it was time to eat.
After we ate lunch, we decided to tour the plant. There are no pictures from the inside because they were not allowed. It wasn't working because they shut it down for the picnic, but it would have been much cooler to see it in action. Andy's building was near the car and we decided that we'd have Brady play a carnival game so he could win a prize, then check out his office. Brady has become a pro at the pick a duck game and we chose the Tazmanian Devil blow-up bat. The best part was Bosch picked up the bill for everything. There had to be 5,000 people there easily.
One the way to Andy's building they had a classic car lineup. It's always cool to look at old and souped up cars. We check out Andy's office before we headed home and it was cool to actually see where he works.
Shortly after we got to South Carolina, we bought a gate because we finally had the room and Brady was starting to climb out of his Pack N Play. I usually only use it when I have to leave the room to take a shower, bring in the groceries, etc. He now knows that certain toys stay inside the gate (mainly to keep him interested while he's in there), so he wants to go in at least once a day. When he's done, he will pull on the bars with all his power and start to move the sides. One day, he got really into it and almost completely collapsed it on himself.
Brady is always coming up with new and crazy things to play with around the house. He's always been particularly fond of the Wii Fit board and its box. We keep the box under our coffee table, but it has a handle on it, so Brady grabs it and pulls it out to play with. He also likes to get up on the couches and push all the pillows off onto the floor. On one particular day, he had the pillows all over the floor and the Wii Fit box out. Before you knew it, he had the box balanced on one of the pillows and was standing on it, rocking back and forth. He looked like he was surfing! It was really cute because he can keep his balance. Too bad he'll be too little to take surfing lessons when we get back to Hawaii.
Normally, we head home to Pittsburgh for Labor Day weekend, but this year we're a little too far from home to make it possible and my parents took the weekend to visit my Oma (German for Grandma) in NYC. We had thought of making a weekend trip somewhere, but decided that we've done enough traveling recently and have plenty more planned before the end of the year. We're starting to get tired of those long drives.
I saw a commercial on about the Upstate SC fair being this week and thought it might be fun to check it out so we don't just sit at home all weekend. It was between where we live and Greenville, so it only took us about 25 minutes to get there. The first thing we did was check out the petting zoo. Brady loved when we went to a petting zoo in April, so we figured he'd like it again. I had a few quarters, so we got a couple of handfuls of animal feed. The animals know when you start getting the food and swarm. Brady laughed while they ate the food out of his hand and he quickly caught on that the food came out of the machines, so he went around to every one, opening the latch to see if there was any food still there. He let the baby goats suck on his fingers which made me a little nervous.
We got a list of rides that Brady could ride as long as he was with one of us and got some ride tickets. The first ride was the Ferris Wheel. He liked it for a little bit, then wanted to walk around and get near the lower part of the door. We swear he would jump right out if we didn't stop him. Because we kept him seated, he started to get angry.
The next ride was the Fun Slide and Andy was a little nervous because he could see how fast kids were going down it. I told him it would be fine. He climbed up the stairs with Brady and sat on the sack they provide. He pushed off and Brady let out a single scream halfway down and when they got to the bottom, he looked like he didn't know what to make of it.
I went on the Dumbo ride with Brady. He was eager to get on, but once we were buckled in, he wanted it to move and didn't want to wait for other people to get on the ride. He started to cry, but as soon as the ride started, he was happy. We could control the Dumbo up and down and unlike Disney, our controls weren't broken. He really liked it and wanted to keep riding.
The Carousel was next on our list. He liked the one at Sea World, so we figured this would be a hit. Andy went on with him to help him stay on the horse, but it turned out he didn't need much help. He held on himself the whole time and Andy just help his hands on him to make sure he didn't let go and fall.
We all went on the Dizzy Dragon. It's set up like the teacups at Disney, but inside a dragon. There's little air flow so Andy and I started to feel the effects of the heat. Brady liked spinning the center wheel to make the dragon spin and at one point the spinning made him lay down on Andy's lap.
Our last adventure was to go through the House of Glass. Things started off well, but then I got stuck and Brady walked full force into one of the glass walls. He hit his head pretty good and Andy had to watch him until we got out of it. After we got out, we saw the lady running it cleaning some of the glass walls with Windex so the next people would have just as hard a time as us getting through it.
Brady was hot, cranky, and hungry, so we decided to call it a day. We headed to Cracker Barrel for lunch and Brady had a good time. He colored and ate pancakes.
We have a habit of waiting until shows are almost done or finished, before sitting down and watching an entire series. We watched the first 5 seasons of Lost right before the final season aired and it helped us from getting "lost" because we got to watch episodes back to back. We then moved on to The Sopranos, Rescue Me, and The O.C. (which I'd seen before). Recently, Mad Men, was placed on Netflix, which we stream through our game systems. We'd heard really great things about it and it's won several awards so we thought it would be good to watch. It was the first 4 seasons and they are currently filming the 5th. It's really cool because it's set in the 1960s and in the world of NYC advertising. I think one of the coolest things for me watching is that we have a window into the world our parents grew up in. Don Draper (the main character) has 3 children and his oldest would have been Andy's parents' age and his middle child would have been my parents' age.
When we get into something, we see it through as fast as possible. We blew through 52 episodes in less than 2 weeks. We needed to get through it before football started and fall shows began premiering because then we wouldn't have any time to spare. We have a few shows we are saving for Germany because we won't be getting cable since it's in German. We have lined up the last season of The Tudors, Breaking Bad, and Boardwalk Empire (which will be especially cool because we lived very close to Atlantic City the summer of 2009).
Being born in Pittsburgh, means you have no choice but to be a Steelers fan. Not that you would choose differently if given a choice. Six Super Bowl wins speak for themselves (the most of any team in the league if you're counting). Pittsburgh is often called "A drinking town with a football problem" and that pretty much sums it up. We bleed black and gold. Pittsburgh is also home to the Pitt Panthers, who have 9 National Championships (much more than Penn State's 2). It's also known as the city of champions and we don't take losing very well. I can't even begin to count the number of times Andy has walked out at half time saying the game was over, when we come back and win (mainly in our last Super Bowl victory season). We are coming off a tough year with a Super Bowl loss, but we can't be too upset, seeing how hard it is to even get there.
This is going to be an interesting year for Pitt football. This is the first year for a new coach since my sophomore year, which was 6 years ago. I was happy with the coach they fired last year, although there were times when I would have made better coaching decisions than he did. We watch every game all weekend and I swear the commentators have my house bugged because they repeat everything I say (opinion and otherwise), literally 30 seconds after I do. Maybe if I was a former cheerleader like Erin Andrews, I would have had a shot at a career in sports. We fired our coach before the bowl game and hired a new one. Unfortunately, days before our bowl game (he wasn't coaching it anyway), the coach we hired was involved in a domestic dispute that had him arrested. This threw us back into a state of chaos. Right after our bowl game, we hired a new coach. He wasn't the first choice, but everyone in the world of sports is saying he's one of the best coaches in college ball and turned around his last team, Tulsa, from one of the worst teams to winning 10 or 11 games each season he was there. I was still uncertain about him until I read an article about him and he's serious about no-huddle, high speed offense and expects our offense to snap the ball every 15 seconds. That's hardly any time to breathe for both sides, so we might just have the element of surprise and wear down the defense. He was also an assistant at WVU for a period of time, so that might help us when we play them. I can't wait to watch the first game on Saturday night and I wish I could be there. It's going to be wild!
4 Days old
6 Months - We hope that someday this will be shown on TV when he's playing for the Pitt Panthers
6 Months - First Pitt game and meeting Roc
7 Months - with Dubby on the ferry ride to the game
12 Months
Tonight marks the beginning of the college football season and next Thursday will start professional football. The Pens lost during the Stanley Cup playoffs in late April, so we've been in a sports drought even since then. It's time for some yelling and screaming. Brady was also born in Pittsburgh, so he's obviously a big fan (not that we don't help). He's been well equipped with the right sports paraphernalia since the day he was born. He was born two week after a Super Bowl, so it worked out that his first ever Super Bowl was this past one in which the Steelers played. That's quite monumental since I was almost 10 and Andy was almost 13 when we first got to see the Steelers play in a Super Bowl and it was a loss. We had to wait another 10 years to see them go again and this time win the one for the thumb, which they'd been working on for 30 years.
7 weeks - Gotta start them young
6 Months - Making some noise during a goal-line stand
7 Months - Excited to go watch the Steelers!
7 Months - Watching the Steelers play until he passes out.
11 1/2 Months (Day of the Super Bowl)
18 Months
The Steelers hat came to be in August of last year. We were buying Brady a Steelers jersey and he grabbed a hat off the rack. We tried to take it off of him to put back, but he wouldn't have it so I bought it. He didn't mind hats at that time, but later it was impossible. He has recently taken a liking to it again and wants to wear it all the time.
6 Months
7 Months
18 Months
Charlie Bear was purchased for Brady by my mom last September and he was named Charlie because Brady's middle name is Charles and we like to call him Brady Charlie. He has always worn his Steelers hoodie and I refused to pack him during our last move since it was the middle of playoffs and I felt it would be bad luck. Brady loves him and can identify him out of his pile of stuffed animals when we ask for him by name.
7 Months
11 Months (day before the Super Bowl)
18 Months
