kdiddy.org

Back during the spring, Shearer’s, the snack company, offered to send me a huge box of chips. My response was something resembling language, but was mostly a lot of exclamation points and grunts.

Shearer’s wanted me to know about two things: the measures that they’ve taken to become a “greener” company and some of the new delicious snacks that they’re rolling out. After reading another blogger’s report about their new manufacturing plant, it’s pretty impressive. Shearer’s earned platinum LEED certification from the US Green Building Council for their manufacturing plants, which feature lots of natural light, rainwater collections, and energy recycling. Awesome, right? Right. Now, what of the chips?

The idea was for me to have a party where my friends and I could sample some of the classic and new Shearer’s chips. I scheduled a party and was really looking forward to it…until the husband realized that he had double-booked himself. Argh. I made a couple attempts to reschedule, but then we started getting into the really busy parts of summer and the opportunity to have a party simply slipped away. But! I still had a huge box of chips and several family vacations to take. I had chips in the car on the way to Conneaut Lake, Washington D.C., and the Outer Banks, and plenty to go around for my whole family. It was cool! I became like my family’s own snack caterer. I would bring bags of chips to the lake or to the beach and say, “Please eat these!” Luckily, chips aren’t a hard sell.

I gave everyone free reign over the traditional flavors like barbecue and sour cream and onion. But some of the alternative (?) snacks were so delicious that the husband and I squirreled those away for ourselves. The two bags of whole grain Shapers in cheddar and cinnamon were quickly gone. The cinnamon started out kind of tasting like light churros, but were sweetened with sucralose which was all that I could taste. However, the cheddar flavor…

Yeah.

They also sent me a few bags of their riceworks snacks, which are so, so good. They’re kind of like rice cakes but chips, if that makes sense. I saved the sea salt flavor for the drive to the Outer Banks. It almost lasted a whole five seconds into the 10-hour trip.

Disclosure: Shearer’s provided me with several bags of their snacks and a $250 gift card to Giant Eagle to purchase party supplies. Since I didn’t have a party, I put those funds toward drinks and dips and whatnot during our vacations.

Aside to regular readers: I know product posts like these are considered increasingly gauche, but I like to support businesses and events that are in or near Pittsburgh. Shearer’s is from Brewster, Ohio. And while their likely allegiance to Ohio sports teams is unfortunate, I’ll support them anyway. 😉

I think it’s safe to say that the husband and the baby and I squeezed the last drops of summer out this weekend. After work on Friday, the husband and I went to see Our Idiot Brother while the baby was at his piano lesson. I strongly disliked the movie and spent the next few hours sulking about why good writing with interesting characters is so impossible to come by. Of course, the last place you want to be when you’re lamenting the state of American culture is the mall, and that’s exactly where we were. I sauntered through the food court, addressing every guy that passed me as, “Bro.” We went to Dick’s to get the baby some soccer stuff, and I lost it temporarily in the entrance. I don’t know why I didn’t take a picture of it, but they had a banner up for this initiative that they’re working on with Jerome Bettis about preventing concussions. Which is great, obviously. But they used this picture of Bettis.

Nothing looks amiss about this picture until you crop his face (and more importantly, his mid-sentence facial expression) and put it right next to the word concussion. Let me illustrate.

CONCUSSION

I also took issue with this product, which was being sold as a Tailgate Toss.

This game, my friends, is not called tailgate toss. It’s called cornholing. I don’t know where it got its name, though I imagine it was thought up by a bunch of Beavises not unlike yours truly. Point is, if you’re going to go cornholing with your buddies before the big game, call it what it is.

Then I went in the store and bought a yoga mat and some soccer stuff, tied my cardigan around my shoulders, and flounced off in a cloud of Soccer Mom.

Friday night, I polished off the last bottle of wine from the absurd number that we consumed at the beach. I spent the rest of the night trying to act like I wasn’t completely sloshed. I don’t think I succeeded.

Saturday, we went to Idlewild to fulfill our quota of Family Fun, Dammit for the season. It was actually a really nice time. I guess since it was 90-some degrees out and a “limited operations” day, people stayed home so we were able to gallivant about without ridiculous crowds. It was some church’s picnic day and I only saw one creepy “purity” shirt on a 9-year-old girl, so that was cool. (Seriously, Jesus fans, it’s great that you’re all about abstinence, but I find the omnipresent discussion about the sexuality of little girls kind of weird.) Limited operations didn’t affect us too much. The ferris wheel and a few other rides weren’t up and running. But what did cramp our style was the lack of lollipops on the Good Ship Lollipop. You know how you pace around the tiny boat on that swampy water and then a junior from St. Vincent’s deadpans. “Yarr. Thanks for visiting me ship. Have a sucker?” Our visit ended with, “Yarr. Thanks for visiting me ship.” And then…nothing. No lollipop. It was really awkward because I was standing there looking at this kid like, “Soooo….?”

I only took one picture because I only had my phone. It’s this:

That’s the husband in the green shirt. He’s in the process of putting his hands up as he and the baby ride the Whip. But I know at some point I’m going to forget what this is and wonder, “Why do I have a picture of the husband being held at gunpoint by an idyllic white picket fence?”

When we got home that night we popped over to my mother-in-law’s house for one final session of nightswimming. R.E.M., would you mind providing us with a brief musical interlude?

Yesterday, we had some vague plans of doing stuff around the house, but when it turned out to be cool and rainy all day, we just laid around and napped. It was nice. I did all of the laundry and put some summer clothes away, so if the cool temperatures upset you, don’t worry. My act of putting the sundresses in the bins in the attic have ensured us three weeks of sweltering heat at some point soon.

The baby took a three-hour nap, which was nice because he was being a humongous jerk prior to that. When he started crying because he couldn’t do something in a Wii game and I couldn’t help but laugh, he told me he hated me. So, yeah, no more Wii for him for awhile.

On a more serious, commie note, I want to acknowledge Labor Day and thank the National Postal Mail Handler’s Union and the Communication Workers of America and all of the laborers who came before them. Because of the NPMHU and the CWA, the husband and I grew up with health insurance and parents who weren’t so overworked that they couldn’t be in our lives. Despite only having high school diplomas, our parents were able to raise children who would go on to receive bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Thank you for fighting for a better life for yourselves, for me, and for my son.

labor
baby’s behavior
putting clothes away/cool weather

The baby started fourth grade today, which is of course blowing my mind. He has this year and next year at his current school and then will move to a 6-12 school, which I’m just kind of not thinking about.

The things that I remember most about my fourth grade year are getting glasses and taking up the flute. Clearly, I was gunning for the title of Coolest Kid Ever. (Spoiler: I lost.) My kid, however, just might have a shot. He wore the Kangol that he got in New York and the Adidas shell toes that we purchased last week. He’s going for a Run DMC/Grandmaster Flash vibe. I couldn’t be more pleased.

I don’t have the traditional first day of school picture on the porch to share because the school bus was 30 minutes late today so I didn’t have time to take pictures off of my camera. While waiting, we got to enjoy the sight of other kids getting on their school buses without difficulty and took in a torrential downpour or two. My shoes are still damp.

Despite having a new bus company this year (I called and complained about the old one as “unreliable” would be too kind of an adjective), I still had to call and get an update on the bus and got the, “Well, there’s traffic and it’s raining,” rigamarole. Sorry. Unacceptable. Saying that there’s traffic and rain in Pittsburgh like it’s some kind of unique set of circumstances is like saying, “Gee, it’s a bit sultry atop this volcano.” We almost gave up after waiting for so long but it seemed somehow important to me that the baby and the bus driver meet on the first day. When the bus finally arrived, I had to do the whole, “Here’s my one and only child. If you could now cease being an idiot from this point forward, that would be aces!” hand off. I’m pretty empathetic to people messing up at work, seeing as how I do it ALL THE TIME. But this has been a constant issue and I am getting pretty fed up.

ANYWAY…what else? The husband and I spontaneously tackled our third floor on Sunday night. It’s served as a repository for anything and everything the past five years. It’s a perfectly liveable space and it’s being wasted right now, so we started pawing through the various bags and boxes that we’ve been toting around with us since our late teens. There’s lots of just random stuff that gets shuffled when you move a lot and also lots of meaningful stuff that I’m really glad that we kept. I found a pros and cons list that I composed while determining whether or not I should go out with the husband (mostly pros, the only con being that we were good friends and I didn’t want to potentially ruin that) and a few of our angsty, early emails that essentially serve as our love letters. He found the scrap of paper that he wrote my phone number on. We don’t seem like the most romantic people, but I guess we are.

I think the start of a new school year has that unavoidable feeling of a new start, and we are, of course, going through some transitions. We’re trying to figure out what we’re doing with our life from here and I think getting the house more in shape is indicative of us finally moving forward, even though things don’t look like we thought they were going to.

If nothing else, I got to laugh at stuff like my old Venus razor.

LOLShaving

I know that the internet is already sick of hearing about this, because it happened like HOURS ago and plus earthquakes happen other places and other things happen, too, and GOD WHY DO WE TALK ABOUT ANYTHING ON THE INTERNET AT ALL JUST BE QUIET EVERYONE. (I’m truly puzzled by this because now that we have all of the communication that we could possibly want, I think we’re realizing, “Oh, right, I want you to shut your face.” More than two tweets in a row about any possible subject and the “Move on, already!” brigade shows up. “Talk about something else for three seconds until I get sick of that and then await further instructions!” Jesus. Go for a walk.)

Anyway, at some point fairly recently, the husband and I were talking about how not into natural disasters we are. I mean, Pittsburgh has its faults, but the worst thing you can say about it, weather-wise, is that winter steps on your neck every year. And aside from the odd blizzard, even that isn’t too bad. We like going about our days not worrying about hurricanes or tornadoes (much). And I think we had watched a video of the earthquake in Japan and were both like, “EFF THAT! I am so glad we don’t have those here. I am not into earthquakes at all.”

Obviously, I had no idea what an earthquake was like. And yesterday, while I was sitting at my desk and felt the building move, a lot of thoughts went through my head.

“I’m pretty sure the building’s moving. That’s odd. It generally doesn’t do that. It kinda feels like how the new Target does when cars drive in the parking garage beneath it. But…we don’t have a parking garage in this building. Maybe they’re doing some kind of heavy construction on this building? But it’s silent. Oh, shit. I bet I’m having a stroke. Or the psychosis is finally taking full control. ”

Then I noticed some of the stuff on my desk vibrating and finally, in a very tiny voice, said, “Um, is the building moving?” Tiny voice because if you’re pretty sure that your brain is imploding, you’re not really keen to announce it. “HEY GUYS! THE BUILDING IS MOVING AND ALSO PUDDING ROGER THAT GOING TO POOP ON THE FLOOR NOW!” But one of my co-workers confirmed that she felt it, too, and had been similarly hesitant to survey everyone else. However, my other co-workers did not feel anything, which put us back to being concerned.

“Could it have been an earthquake?”

“NOOOO! We don’t have those here…Er, well, I guess there was that one about a year ago. Hmm…”

Now, this is, I think, just the cutest thing I’ve ever done: I opened a new tab, pulled up Google, and typed, “earthquakes.”

Just that. Not “earthquakes Pittsburgh” or even “earthquakes WTF?” Like, I went to Google and basically just HURR DURRed at it. But Google knew exactly what I needed and pointed me directly to the NSGS site…which told me that, yes, there was just an earthquake in Virginia and you felt it where you are and aren’t you sweet, just sitting there through it.

“You guys…that WAS an earthquake! Ack! We were supposed to stand in the doorway!” So, I got up and stood in the doorway, even though by that point the earthquake had ended about 10 minutes ago. My emergency preparedness is on a bit of a delay.

Then I got kind of scared. Remembering how it felt made me dizzy and hearing everyone poo-poo it didn’t help. I know that they happen everywhere all the time and are much worse, but the first time experiencing it was pretty scary. I feel fairly certain that West Coast residents might remember being aware of an earthquake for the first time and being freaked out by it, so a little bit of sympathy would have been nice. Just sayin’.

I write to you from day 3 of my juice cleanse and you know what? It’s not bad at all. I’ve been following the travails of the Serious Eats crew, who were one day ahead of me and decided to read the comments, hoping for some input from other people who have done it. The problem was that I forgot that Serious Eats is a huge site and has the douchey commenters to go with it, nearly all of whom ridiculed the juicers for being stupid and buying into fads. My instant reaction: “They hate me, too.” Because that’s the kind of super-sensitive-you-hurt-my-fee-fees week I’m having.

I mean, I get that plunking down some pretty serious bucks on 18 bottles of juice with perhaps little to no scientific research behind their efficacy is pretty dumb, but for me I was really needing to do some serious resetting. The cleanse gave me the opportunity to really examine how I behave about food and what kinds of hunger give me anxiety and what my instinctive reactions are. Do I feel “cleansed?” I don’t know. Physically, I don’t feel wildly different, and I didn’t experience any lightheadedness or other signs that I was without food, aside from an odd brand of dry mouth. (Though I did try to roll up my yoga mat while I was still standing on it yesterday, which was not my finest moment.) Mentally, though, I feel much better and I’ll take what I can get in that arena these days.

My point is, people spend a lot of money on much dumber things.

Just sayin'

Another cool side effect is that my sense of smell is super heightened. And not in the early-pregnancy “Ugh, what is that?” way. But everything smells so amazing right now. I guess my sense of taste is getting something of a rest since I don’t have the juice in my mouth as long as I do food, so my nose is picking up the slack. Yesterday, there was a mobile BBQ truck on campus for an orientation event and I swear I walked past it three or four times just to take in the aroma. Then I scowled at the people in line. “Look at them. Just grabbing the BBQ like it’s whatever. They don’t understand the magical meat that they’re holding in their hands!”

It’s also made me more excited about ramping up my already healthy eating. Like one of the Serious Eats writers, it made me a little more confident to have more vegan days during the week than I already do. Though, obviously, I’m not going full vegan any time soon (see: BBQ lust). This morning on the bus, a guy in front of me was having a frosted honey bun and a huge bottle of Brisk iced tea. It made me feel ill. But not sanctimonious! Eat what you like. Swearsies.

Tomorrow I’m supposed to take it easy introducing foods back into my life, but I don’t think I’ll be able to resist a bowl of oatmeal or my first cup of coffee since Monday (!). The caffeine part, by the way, was not too bad. Last night, I decided to drink some chai and nearly vibrated out of the house. I’m also surprised at my energy level, which I guess is the other physical effect. I don’t feel like I could run a 5k, per se, but I do feel light and unburdened.

Anyway, the husband and the baby are in New York this weekend. I’m excited to have some time to myself, but I do miss them something terrible. Especially when the husband sends me pictures like this:

He fell asleep reading last night. Could you die? Also, apparently one of the first things that he did upon arriving in NYC was to buy a Kangol hat.

I freaking love that kid so damn much.

Oh, hello. We were in the Outer Banks last week and I’ve spent this week so far “not holding it together” as the husband would say. Crappy life stuff knocked me down so I took a few days off of work to recuperate. My recovery regimen has included sleeping a lot, watching Mad Men on Netflix, and doing a juice cleanse.

Yes, god, I’m doing one of those things. A blog that I read did one some time ago. And a few weeks ago, Tracey had expressed her plans for one while she and Charlie were here visiting. However, they were going to be doing the whole shebang with juicing their own produce and whatnot. I was intrigued, but knew that I wouldn’t be a good candidate for the homemade version. Too much work and I’m at the office all day.

Last week, while I was elbow-deep in one of my potato chip lunches, I noticed that I felt really…swollen. I knew exactly what the culprit was: incredibly delicious North Carolina barbeque, wine, chips, wine, chips, candy, chips, fish, wine, chips, wine, and chips. Having been on a similar diet just two weeks earlier while in Conneaut, to say that I felt kind of gross would be an understatement. That’s close to a month of eating like the apocalypse is upon us. So, I busted out my credit card and purchased a three-day Renovation Cleanse.

I had timed my cleanse for when the husband and the baby would be in New York City for the weekend, my reasoning being that I would be less likely to kill them should this whole thing go horribly awry. Also, coming back from vacation our cupboards were pretty bare so I wouldn’t have too much temptation.

My juices arrived yesterday morning and were waiting for me when I came home from a walk. I had planned to start it today but figured since there were already there and I was home, I might as well jump on in.

I find the juices to be just fine. The Pineapple Apple Mint is especially delicious. I have not, however, had the experience of the Serious Eats crew of feeling too full to finish any of them. I wasn’t starving, either, but I’ve definitely been hungry in between juices. I’m mostly dealing with a mild headache which is probably due both to hunger and lack of caffeine. I don’t think I’ve been doing as much extra flushing as I’m supposed to do, as I’m supposed to keep the water and green tea coming in between. Frankly, I’ve been afraid to go into the kitchen, lest I find myself munching on dry cat food.

I can tell you that I’ve noticed just how many food blogs I’m subscribed to, as I can barely stand to look at my Google Reader and all of its delicious things. I’m really excited to eat healthy stuff after this. My mom and I have big plans this Saturday to visit the new Target in East Liberty (it has a cart escalator!) and I’m sure we’ll have to veer over to Whole Foods so that I can stick my face in the salad bar.

By the way, “juice cleanse” is just one of the phrases that’s been falling out of my mouth lately that makes me want to punch myself in the face. Others include, “my therapist says,” “guided imagery,” and “energy.” I fear that I’m a vision quest away from carrying crystals around.

I’m a terrible blog mommy (note: not mommyblogger, though I don’t care if you call me that, but mother to this blog, as I gave birth to it and whatnot…had to get an episiotomy and everything). On August 3rd, this little blog of mine turned four! Prior to my first real entry here, I had been slinging words around on LiveJournal since 2002. That means that I’ve been oversharing on the internet for 9 years. If there’s a strata to the internet, I’m silt…or something.

Anyway, just wanted to say thanks to anyone reading this for indulging me, supporting me, calling me out on my nonsense. It’s cool to have people to talk to.

A few weeks ago, the sister-in-law was in town for the weekend and we took the baby to a class he was taking at Dance Alloy in Garfield. After dropping him off, we ran down the street to grab a cup of coffee. Garfield is an area of town that is currently being gentrified. The people involved in that community I’m sure don’t like that word and would rather I say that it’s being “creatively revitalized and resuscitated from the consumptive plague of urban blight through art” or something. Whatever, I’m not judging, since I obviously participate in it. I’m just saying that building modern, eco-friendly lofts next to a crack house rings a lot of gentrification bells. It’s cool.

Anyway, I noticed that the constant, low-to-mid-level pissiness that seemed to define my personality in my 20s must have tapered off. When we exited the coffee shop, I saw a parking meter that someone had yarnbombed and it made me irrationally irritated in a way that seems to have been absent. Yarnbombing, for those of you with the wisdom to ignore the antics of idiots, is sometimes called “guerrilla knitting” and is basically putting yarn around inanimate objects because…I don’t know. All I know is that I imagine someone saying, “I made this fence a sweater because I’m so full of life and appreciate beauty and yarn lulz!” and I just want to kick something because that is moronic.

I had to ask a homeless guy to get out of the frame so that I could capture my whimsy!

None of this has much to do with anything but I thought of it because I’ve had several shitty days in a row following a kind of okay vacation in Conneaut Lake with my family last week. Don’t get me wrong, most of it was really fun. There was just stuff like the mattresses in our cottage being from the Eisenhower administration, which sort of forced the husband and I to sleep on the floor if we were to maintain any mobility. There was also me taking steps to maintain my healthy eating but getting sidelined by alcohol and candy. Despite noshing on stuff like kale most of the week, around Wednesday evening I snapped and started being that person who’s like, “I’d like a steak a la mode,” and, “This Champagne would be really good with some chocolate covered pretzels in it.” Kind of gross. And I didn’t work out once and I gained like 8 pounds which just made me mad. I also got my period at a restaurant because I’m like 13 or something and can’t handle the bodily function that I’ve had every month for nearly 20 years. Are you there God? It’s me, diddy.

For as good as I’ve been feeling all summer, and as deftly as I’ve handled upsetting moments in recent months, I find myself looking at empty hands where coping skills used to be. Everything’s fine, or rather, everything that needs to be fine is (we’re all healthy and fed and whatnot). Things have just been pretty rough for me the last few days.

That’s all.

How have you been?

I don’t know if you’ve heard but it’s been crazy hot here this week. As such, everyone is becoming a little…punchy.

For example, me taking a picture of myself first thing in the morning just so I can show you how my hair has been acting.

We don’t have air conditioning in our house and this is one of the few days out of the summer where that just sucks. So there’s lots of ice water being consumed and cold showers being taken. Last night, I climbed into bed and realized that there was no way I was going to fall asleep without cooling myself down somehow and de-stickifying my neck and cleavage. So, I hit the shower and then got back into bed. That meant that I was putting my wavy hair to bed wet and then waking up in the humidity. The results were some kind of science experiment.

If it wasn’t so messy, I would have just rocked this Shirley Temple ‘do, but it was obvious that my pillow had styled my hair so I clawed a brush through it.

Downstairs, I set about getting my coffee, breakfast, and lunch together for the day and I was supervised by my cat, who I had forgotten to feed yesterday. Today, he made sure that I wouldn’t make the same mistake.

That’s his food bin that he’s sitting on top of. And he meowed at me in a very direct tone. He’s very subtle.

After I got myself and my hair out the door, we rode in to work. Close to my office, we gaped at a man who was easily over 6 feet tall riding along on a Razor scooter.

Like this, but completely absurd.

The image of him hunched over and kick-pushing his way to, presumably, educate the youth of America has now burned itself into my brain. Imagining him kissing the wife goodbye, all, “Off to bring home the bacon, honey! Hey, son, I’m taking the Razor today,” makes my head hurt. Zombies can’t be far behind.

We went to see Harry Potter last night and the baby got all dressed up for the occasion.

He is currently devouring the books and while I don’t share his enthusiasm for the franchise, I’ve found almost all of the movies to be pretty enjoyable. I didn’t sob through the last hour of the movie like the grown women in front of me, though. I mean, I get being attached to characters that way, but histrionics in public are a little unnerving.

I posted to MamaDojo last week about our impending trip to Kennywood and tried to explain the tradition of the park, Rick Sebak, and the importance of French fries to non-Pittsburghers. I’m not sure if I did an adequate job or not. But the key takeaway is this: the annual trip to Kennywood is an essential part of growing up in Pittsburgh. There are many rituals involved, from attire to the order of rides to what food is eaten when.

Strategy: get a few of the big coasters in right away. Then proceed straight to Potato Patch for a box (yes, a box) of restorative fries.

The husband, the baby, and I made our annual trip last Wednesday and it was one of the best Kennywood visits we’ve ever had. The weather was gorgeous and it wasn’t crowded, which meant no extremely long waits for rides. This was good because I woke up feeling not so great and I ended up riding the bench a couple of times throughout the day, but didn’t risk wasting much time doing so.

When I was a kid, going to Kennywood meant freaking out on thrill rides and shooting furtive glances at boys. Looking back, it was also usually a rare occasion when my parents and I would spend the day together and have fun for the most part. When the baby became big enough to go and actually ride things, I remember being really excited to share the experience with him. And after a few touch-and-go moments on the Pirate Ship, I could tell he was hooked.

I think what he really likes about it is that it’s the three of us playing together. We all pile into the Racer and boo the other coaster or scream throughout the Phantom’s Revenge. I don’t think anyone would ever accuse the husband or me of being overly mature, but we’re definitely parents. And for a day we get to be kids with our kid.

The baby is still too short to ride the Thunderbolt or the Sky Rocket, so we missed out on those. But it was on some of the tamer rides that we had the best moments of the day. He and I rode the Bayern Kurve together and he cracked up the whole time. Hearing him just goofy with happiness for a few minutes straight was just…awesome.

We had saved a few rides for the night because they look the coolest in the dark and with the lights on. One of these was the Paratrooper. The baby and I sat together and the husband was in the parachute behind us. Again, the baby laughed and oohhed the whole time. It was wonderful. He’s getting to an age where he’s trying to appear older and tougher than he is. Hearing the little boy that is still inside of him made me find the little girl that is still inside of me and I laughed right along with him.

At the end of the day, the husband and the baby wanted to squeeze in one more ride on the Phantom’s Revenge. I had had enough for the day and waited for them on a nearby bench. I watched people file out with absurdly huge stuffed animals and kids look for the parents with only the vaguest sense of panic. I listened to that old song that they always play at the end of the day and felt the twinkly lights on the rides warm my skin.

After they had managed to do not one but two final rides, the husband and the baby and I made our way out, too, pausing to document our sweaty, gleeful, fry-stuffed selves in front of the sweet “Goodnight” heart.

Then came my favorite part: walking through the tunnel toward the exit. Everyone whoops and hollers and giggles at the echo as they shuffle along, the mark of a perfect summer day firmly pressed into their memory. Nobody looks back because they’ve all had their fill and the best part of the night is yet to come: that glorious post-Kennywood shower and sinking your tired feet into bed.

Because the folks at Kennywood want everyone to be able to experience a perfect day like this, they want to give you a chance to win four free tickets to the park. To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment below. You can also earn additional entries by posting a link to this giveaway on Twitter and Facebook. Just be sure to leave a comment here with a link to your tweet or Facebook post. The winner will be selected and posted on Tuesday, July 26th. Good luck!

Disclosure: I was provided with complimentary tickets to Kennywood in exchange for hosting this giveaway.

Update: And our winner is…Gina! Congratulations, Gina!