A Trip To Phipps

This week has been incredibly stressful and difficult.  I feel like I've lived through 3 months worth of crises in the space of seven days and, frankly, I don't like it very much.  Neither does anyone else in the house and we're all pretty cranky.

So, this morning we took the kids and went to Phipps.  We haven't been in several months and this is usually a very relaxing family outing for us.  It wasn't so awesome this morning (if you saw a woman carrying a yelling, screaming red-headed demon toward the exit, that would have been me) but we did our best to enjoy it regardless.

The fall flower shower is in full swing and the place is stuffed to the gills with mums - all colors, shapes, sizes, and statures.  The main room off the rotunda has been turned into a massive train display.

This was Jamie's favorite room.  Hence the screaming when informed it was time to leave.

"Choo-choo!"

As usual, the display designers at Phipps have left their unique twist on things. Left amidst the idyllic scenes of farms, the country store, and outdoor activities we find a barn...

...with dinosaurs.  RAWR!

And oh, the colors!  Reds! Oranges! Yellows!

If this isn't the definition of fall, I don't know what is.

As we left, a quintessential Pittsburgh scene greeted us.

The Cathedral of Learning against a perfect sky

The most exciting part of our visit (for me) was that I took my very first fully manual picture on my DSLR.  I wanted to get a picture of one of the waterfalls in the Tropical Room and I wanted to slow the shutter speed down enough to get some nice blur on the water.  

I did it!

It might not be the most interesting or most perfectly composed shot ever but I used the full manual function and I got the camera to do what I was hoping to make the camera do.  Holy cats, I'm not a complete camera imbecile!