The 6-by-9-inch brown envelope with the distinctive hand-printing arrived in my Pittsburgh Post-Gazette mail slot with no return address.

The Dysons just want "to be the family we are." In the back row, left to right: Doug (dad), oldest daughter Casey, 17, and Heather, 15. Second row: Shayne, 9, Linda (mom), and Christopher, 8. Front row: Samantha, 7, Daymon, 6, Tyler, 8, and Evan, 8. Listen in Linda Dyson says she and her husband and eight children will use their family passes often. Related article Museums fail family math test

Inside were three business-size envelopes, each of which contained a one-year family membership to the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh.

On the outside of each envelope were the words "A Gift for You."

A note that secured the flap of one of the envelopes read:

"As a museum member, I have acquired these over a few years. Please distribute as you wish."

The memberships from the anonymous donor arrived after I wrote about the problem a Punxsutawney family had with the museums and the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens.

Doug and Linda Dyson have eight children, six of whom are foster children they adopted. When the couple tried to buy family passes for both institutions, they were turned down. It seems their family exceeds the criteria -- no more than two adults and four children -- for a family membership at both facilities.

The Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, which includes the Carnegie Museum of Art, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Carnegie Science Center and The Andy Warhol Museum, sells its family passes for $130. It recommended the Dysons pay $200 for a premium membership that grants admission to two adults, up to eight other adults or children, and one caregiver.

The Dysons said they should be able to buy the family membership because they are, after all, a family, albeit a large one. If the museums insist on imposing a restriction on the size of a family, the couple said, the museums shouldn't advertise it as a family membership.

They feel the same way about the $75-a-year family membership at Phipps. If the Dysons didn't want to buy two family memberships, the institution said it could pay an additional $6 each for the four "additional" children every time they visited.

"I am tired of places saying they have a family pass when it is actually only for what they say can be a family," Mrs. Dyson said. "We are a family, not a random group."

She was delighted yesterday afternoon when I called to tell her about the gifts from the anonymous donor, and that I would be sending them to her.

"That's fantastic," she said. "We know another family who will be able to use the third membership. This is so awesome."

In addition to two adults and four children 3 to 18, each family membership admits one designated caregiver who must be 18 or older.

Other benefits include reciprocal admission privileges with more than 260 participating science and technology centers; invitations to members-only events; and programming including exhibition previews.

Also included are discounts on classes, camps, standard Omnimax films, lectures and special events; a 10 percent discount on purchases in all museum stores; access to the online member center and e-mail newsletters; and a subscription to Carnegie magazine.

"That's wonderful," said Mrs. Dyson, who home-schools the children. "We'll visit as often as we can."

She said the only facility in Pittsburgh that "allows us to be the family we are" is the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium in Highland Park, where a family pass is only $55.

For more information on the museums, conservatory and zoo, go to www.carnegiemuseums.org, www.phippsconservatory.org and www.pittsburghzoo.org.

Street cleaning

Pittsburgh's annual street cleaning campaign is under way and warnings have given way to fines for parking on the wrong side of the street when the big machines come along to do their thing.

And, although there still are no signs warning motorists not to park between 8:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. on the second and fourth Tuesdays on the right side of Bartlett Street near Murray Avenue in Squirrel Hill, you may be tagged anyway. The parking spaces are frequently used by those patronizing the adjacent state liquor store.