LACMA

We went to LACMA a couple of weeks ago and had a fabulous time. 

 There were long yellow noodles to wander through...

...and a necklace made of legos.

I liked this nose jewelry. It was a cast of Lois Boardman's nose by Gerd Rothmann.

 

Sir Edwin Henry Landseer

Camille Pissarro

There was an exhibit of prints by Picasso which I found especially interesting because of the printmaking class I am taking.

I love Kandinsky...

...and Mondrian...

...and especially Calder!

Because of all his cubist work, some people think Pablo Picasso couldn't draw, but not true. 

This work by Mungo Thompson was fun...

...and we all enjoyed Chris Burden's Metropolis II.

It was fun (don't be fooled by the lackluster expressions) to watch from up above.

Cousins and Friends - July 2015

Now that I have a little more time, I thought I'd catch up on some blogging. Last July, my niece was baptized in New Mexico, so the kids and I took a road trip. It was great seeing my brother, sister-in-law, their three darling daughters and my parents. We went to Window Rock and visited the Navajo Nation Museum and Navajo Nation Zoo. I tried steamed corn for the first time. It was delicious :)

Michael and two of his cousins.

"Bob"

 

"Mo"

All the cousins. I love those smiles...

...and the bear faces. Notice the signs in the two pictures above? Yeah, well, somebody chose to ignore them and here...

...is the bear she PETTED. I am glad no one needed to have their fingers stitched back on.

On the way home, we saw a sign for a souvenir place where you could also feed the ostriches. The kids had SO MUCH FUN feeding the ostriches :)

 

I love this pictue of Gwen.

One of the other great things about this trip was getting to stay with and spend time with my BFF. 

San Bernardino County Museum

A couple of months ago, the kids and I took a trip to the San Bernardino County Museum. It was good for a day trip with just enough exhibits for us to see everything. There was a paper ephemera exhibit that everyone else had a hard time dragging me and Heather out of. The bird and egg collection was amazing! But...I don't have any pictures for you.I have gotten really lazy about photographing stuff. I think my blog backlog is sabotaging my subconscious. Anyway, the kids took pictures of each other, so I have a few to show you. We bought a membership, so if you want to see more, we'd love to go with you :)

We started with a picnic lunch outside. Summer and Rachel were both with us, but this hand of Rachel's is the only evidence I have of either one of them.

To quote their website, "The San Bernardino County Museum... is a regional museum with exhibits and collections in cultural and natural history." There was an old stagecoach with a pile of stinky dress up clothes that the younger kids LOVED. They spent more time messing around there than at any other exhibit.

My favorite picture of the day!

December Catchup

Here's a bunch of stuff that went on last month. Stan took most of the kids to a grand reopening of a park near his office. They had a free pancake breakfast, balloon animals, cookie decorating and standing in line waiting to ride the trains. This park has miniature (but still large enough to ride on) steam powered trains.

I didn't go because it was my first time teaching bookbinding at our local art museum. I stressed and worried and had so much fun when I finally got to teach :)

Heather and Gwen took part in their piano teacher's annual Christmas recital.

Here are snatches of each of the pieces they played.

I took Michael to the Kindergarten/First Grade Christmas Party at school. Each kid made about eight different projects. This is a wreath made out of smashed Shredded Wheat cereal, Elmer's glue, green food coloring and beads.

Later in the month, Michael, Naomi and I went on a field trip to the International Printing Museum. It was fascinating.

This is their replica of the press that printed the Gutenberg Bible.

The linotype was amazing. I loved the clacketty sound it made.

I got a kick out of the juxtaposition of technologies we saw in the break room on the way to the restroom.

One of the best parts of last month was getting to spend time with Summer (who, of course, I don't have pictures of). She caught a ride home from the Y with one of her roommates and her friends. They stayed a couple nights while they went to some tourist attractions. they were all so nice and a delight to have as guests. I thought this was a fun pictures of the three girls, Veronica, Christina and Maggie with their Macs.

Henry favors Apple products, too :) I probably got to spend the most time talking to Henry for two reasons. One, he slept in the living room on the couch and got woken up earlier than anyone else by kids running around and, two, he spent awhile each day waiting for three females to finish getting ready. He is a great guy.

I went to Stan's company Christmas party with him. His coworkers are all so nice. This picture was during the white elephant gift exchange which I counted as a rousing success because the gift we brought was taken from one person by someone else and because Stan got the books he wanted. Can you tell I am a dyed in the wool introvert? Even though I was having fun, enjoying conversations, relishing the food, my hands are still twisted in a knot trying to survive being around all those people :)

Last month, we made 50+ treat plates. It is a good thing I have so many capable people working in the kitchen. This is definitely a group effort each year.

Heather wrapped her Christmas gifts beautifully.

For New's Year Eve, we ate fun food and played board games. Here is Naomi poking some caviar to see what she thinks of it.

Happy 2012!

Provo

Last month sometime, I don't even remember which week without looking at the calendar, the five youngest kids, Summer, and I (Stan was in California and Rachel was in Indiana) stayed with my brother and sister-in-law in Genola while we worked on getting Summer settled at BYU. There may also have been some (a lot of) fun going on that week, too.

I remembered that there were fish tanks in the basement of one of the buildings on campus, but I didn't remember which one, so I asked at the information desk, "Where are the fish in the basement?" She had no idea what I was talking about, but after we looked around the wrong science building for a few minutes, a more informed person sent us to the Widstoe building. Besides seeing the fish and crustaceans, we saw a student working in the growth chamber and I was able to tell the kids that that is what their dad did when he was at BYU.

We also went to the Monte L. Bean Life Science Museum. More than one kid was confused when I excitedly told them that we were going to the Bean Museum. They caught some of my enthusiasm when they realized we were looking at animals instead of legumes.

I really like this picture of Summer, but I couldn't tell you why. Maybe I am just sentimental about anything Summer since we all miss her a lot.

There were walls of child eye level heads that lent themselves to the following silliness -



I also got to see some college roommates and had so much fun! Michelle fed us lunch and my kids played and visited with her kids. It felt so nice to be in her home and it was wonderful to see her and her family :)

Summer, Naomi and I also went out to a long, delightful lunch with Karla, Kathleen, April and Kelly. Summer understood that much better why I had so much fun in college after she hung out with these wonderful women for a couple of hours. My cheeks hurt from smiling and laughing when we were done!

Some of the other, non-photographed things we did were to help Summer get a state ID, a bank account, books and food. We ate at the Creamery on 9th and at the Wilkinson Center. We went to the Museum of Art (no pictures allowed) and helped the girls who were moving out of Summer's new apartment clean the bathrooms (strangely enough, that was part of getting Summer her state ID!).

I started following a blog a couple weeks before our trip and the blog author was teaching a class the week we were there. I was SO excited to be able to take a class from Karleigh Jae! Here is the book I made.

It was sewn using a double needle Coptic binding. I hope I said that right!

I love the endpapers :)

The day Summer was in Freshman Orientation, I took the younger kids to Cascade Springs. The road was closed, so we went around the back way. It was kind of nice because I got to stop on the side of the road and show the kids some lilacs, one of my all time favorite flowers, which don't grow where we live.

The most exciting part of the day was seeing a baby moose, just a few feet away. We kept hoping we wouldn't run into its mother, and we didn't - whew!

We also saw a snake :)

It was a lovely day and a lovely trip, but it turned bittersweet as we said goodbye to Summer.

We can't wait to see her again!