It’s been a long time since I’ve been up north for 4th of July – about 11 years! When we started looking at weekends to have a baby shower with our Northern families, making a long weekend out of the holiday made a lot of sense. We spent the day amongst friends and family and it was lovely.

We’d flown in to Pittsburgh the night before the 4th. Stella is a pro traveler. 😉

And then she wanted my dessert. No chance, fluffy.

We stayed with our friend Eric in Pittsburgh on Tuesday night and he made us a really nice dinner. He has a great house in Edgewoord next to a park and we loved being able to visit with him. 🙂

After breakfast on the 4th, we drove up to Sean’s family’s farm just north of Butler, PA. We visited with his cousins and their spouses and kids, played with their dogs and kitten, and got to see his Aunt Elaine and Uncle Jack. Aunt Elaine made a delicious apple pie!

On our way out of PA and over to OH, Sean found the spring where they used to get water from and stopped to fill up some bottles.

It was so nice to see my mom, Ron and dad. I don’t often miss living in Ohio but it really has it’s charms, especially the nearby farming towns and beautiful land, rivers and lakes in the summer. After a yummy dinner of Sunrise Pizza (the best!), we headed to downtown Warren to hear the WD Packard Concert Band play lots of 4th of July tunes at the amphitheater, and to see the fireworks. It was a warm night with no rain – perfect for being outside all evening.  Growing up, we always went to this concert and fireworks display and I loved sharing it with Sean this year.