Mariano Rivera Foundation, 2nd Annual

Last spring, Julia's special needs baseball team had the opportunity to have Mariano Rivera pitch an inning to them during one of their games.

This happened as part of the day's events that were the first annual Mariano Rivera Foundation 5k run   as a Brandywine Youth Club event.

BYC Phillies with Mariano Rivera

We were lucky enough to get a repeat of this as part of the second annual event. It was a rainy day, but rather than cancel the game part of the event, they moved it to a school gym in Wilmington. The baseball game turned into a wiffle ball game.

Julia and Mariano

None of that mattered, as the kids had a lot of fun. Julia, leading off for the BYC Phillies, lined a nice single into the outfield, and can claim to have a perfect 1.000 batting average against the best relief pitcher in baseball history. Go Julia!

It's a shame that Rivera pitched for the hated Yankees, but he's a really nice guy nonetheless. If there's a third annual next year, I'm sure we'll be involved.

Fallingwater

After leaving Grace's Xcel states gymnastics tournament, we had plenty of time left in the day, and were able to do something that we (especially Amp) had been wanting to do for a long time - see Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. The Wikipedia entry for Fallingwater is here, and is worth a quick read. I won't recap it in any great detail other than to say that it was designed and built in the 1930's as a vacation retreat for a wealthy department store owner and his family.

Fallingwater is best known for its use of cantilevered concrete terraces built around a central fieldstone core. This was an ambitious and new construction technique, and was not entirely successful. Immediately upon the removal of the construction supports, the cantilevered terraces "showed significant deflection" (they sagged pretty badly). It got worse over time. A major renovation in 2002 fixed this.

Fallingwater from the main entry bridge

The main things that struck as we went through the guided tour were (1) this place is super cool, and (2) this place is TINY.

Girls at Fallingwater

The house looks large from the outside, but almost all of this square footage is contained in the public and private terraces that are attached to every different space (common areas and bedrooms). The common area on the main room that is the dining room, living room, sitting room and library is one open space that would still be considered small by modern standards.

Three levels of Fallingwater

Compared to the common areas, the bedrooms were tiny and would be dwarfed by many college dorm rooms today. The design was really interesting, the way things flowed was fascinating, and the overall vibe was amazing. But everything was small. And this was a rich family's retreat house. The whole thing highlighted how different things were in that time than they are now (with regards to size/space).

Iconic view from downstream

This house is on many "places you need to visit before you die" lists, and I would agree. I like visiting special places such as this, and it was a treat.

Photobombing the iconic view

It also isn't a huge commitment to visit, if you happen to be near Pittsburgh. The cost of the guided tour is not excessive, and goes to the conservancy that maintains the landmark. The tour is less than an hour in length, and there isn't a whole lot else to do here, there than wander some paths through the wooded property (which in and of itself isn't any different than any other stroll through some paths through the woods anywhere...). A single morning or afternoon is all you need to do this.

So you are really just here for the one hour tour (which is the only way into the house).

You should do it if you can, and you like design or architecture or history.

Pennsylvania States - Xcel Gold - 2018

We knew that Grace had qualified for States, and would be going no matter what, but we didn't know exactly what date and time her Xcel Gold group would have their reporting time. It turns out the answer to that question was 7:45 on Friday morning. So that meant a day off from school on Friday, and a departure after school on Thursday afternoon.

The trip out the turnpike was uneventful (other than the fact that Grace doesn't like tunnels, of which there are 3 or 4). We had picked both girls up around 1:30 and were on the road by 2:00. This got us to the hotel in the northeastern suburbs of Pittsburgh by about 6:30.

Running into a teammate of Grace's, and one of her good friends, they told us that their family had eaten at a Primanti Brothers chain outlet just a few minutes down the road from the hotel. We went there to do the tourist thing. I know that Primanti Brothers is the famous place in Pittsburgh where you get a sandwich and they put cole slaw and french fries in the sandwich.

A Primanti Brothers chain store...

We pretty much universally agreed that the classic Primanti Borthers sandwich was....meh. Not bad. But not particularly good either. Bland. Nothing special. Meh.

...and an overrated sandwich.

As for the meet itself, Grace did very well. 9th in beam. 13th in the all around. No bad for a state-wide competition.

My baby's name in lights at States!! 9.2 in Floor.

As always, I am happiest knowing that she is part of a team, doing the best she can, and having fun doing it.

My baby at States!!

This will be a great memory for Grace.

Grace and teammates

The meet started around 8:30, and all the awards ceremonies and everything were done by about 1pm.

We left the Pittsburgh Indoor Sports Arena and headed southeast to Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater... but that's a story for the next post.