Just the Guys

Dusty and Aaron went to a Men and Boy's overnighter at Highland Lakes this weekend. They met up with Paul and Bryson and spent the time doing manly man things like building fires, archery, shooting, grunting, scratching, and the like. Since I wasn't actually there, if you want the full account you will need to head over to Paul's Blog. Meanwhile Rachel & I went to Madelyn's 2nd birthday party. It had a ladybug picnic theme. You know, girly girl stuff. :)

Photos courtesy of Painter El Cinco

I did learn the Aaron attempted to start a coffee addiction!

And now...

for the musical stylings of Rachel!

*First some background - I was practicing a song called "Lift High" a couple days ago and Rachel has since latched on to it and likes to sing...loudly. The only phrases that she remembers are: "lift high, your chains undone", "Jesus Christ", and "lift up your heads". But she sings those parts with gusto!

Field Trip

Let's just say up front, field trips to the art museum and 10-year old boys are not the best combination. Sure, they enjoyed the contemporary art installation of the floor that they could walk on that was made up of thousands of little PVC people holding up a clear floor. That was cool.

But I could have really done with out the snickering and pointing when they would walk past a sculpture or painting where someone was not fully dressed. Not that we were seeking them out, but after all it is an art museum and you're bound to walk past one here and there.

I discovered that the place for us to be was the contemporary art floor because you can't really figure out what you're looking at up there anyway. This is called "Egyptian Barnyard". Sure, whatever!

However the highlight of my day was when we went outside on the 2nd floor balcony and my son just happens to lose his papers over the railing. The papers that he had to turn back in...for a grade! Immediatly came the response, "I'm sorry, it was an accident, I didn't mean to..." What they just jumped out of your hand? We found out after hoofing it all around the museum (on a gimpy foot) that it's virtually impossible to get to the outside ground level on that side of the museum. Fortunately we ran into the teacher and she had extra papers.

We finish up the day in the gift shop. Why? No one has any money! But hey, we need to look at the overpriced souveniers. After several minutes I heard one of the boys in my group say, "Hey Aaron, come here!" I see the boys in the back corner of the shop. Sure enough they're pointing and snickering at the art books with the, you guessed it, nude paintings on the front. "All right! Time for everyone to clear out." Mercifully the buses pulled up not too long after that and we were gone.

Adventures in Modge Podge

I admit that I was less than thrilled when I found out that we were doing paper mache as the art project for Cubbies tonight. And "yes" I know that isn't how you're supposed to spell paper mache, but the real spelling uses a bunch of fancy pronunciation marks and looks French. I am neither French nor fancy so paper mache it is! Back to Cubbies. So we let sixteen 3-5 year olds loose with paper and glue to make a pinata using a balloon.

I'll admit, it was not the unmitigated disaster that I thought it might be. (No really, I'm having a wonderful time!) It was even, dare I say it, halfway fun. By the end of the night I was only partially covered in glue.

But at least I didn't have a manicure earlier in the day, right Jackie! :)

Tomorrow I'm off with Aaron on a field trip to the Indianapolis Museum of Art for a little culture with a group of 4th graders. Fun times! Since the foot is still giving me problems, I believe I will face the day with an ACE bandage and an Advil to boot!

What?

You've never wondered what your family would look like as M&M's?

If you want to burn up at least 30 minutes, Go Be An M&M!

Tonight's musical entertainment....

provided by Rachel - the 4 note wonder. :)

We have a winner!

Several days ago I noticed that my site meter was getting close to 1,000. So I decided that visitor #1000 would get a prize. I didn't want to tell it ahead of time because I figured some of you out there would just hit refresh until you got to the magic number. It hit 1000 around noon today and the winner is - Sarah Bohrer! Congrats and I'll get your surprise to you soon.