Art Museum

Not a field trip with the kids this time.  I went to Crocker Art Museum with a friend.  

These Greek vases made me smile.  Back several years in our homeschool journey, we did several Greek vase projects until we were all a little sick of them.  Time changes perspective, doesn't it?

So, Crocker was one of the "Big 4" in Sacramento history.  Guys with money, who brought the railroad here, and were in business and banking and such.  We'd learned about them years ago at the railroad museum in Old Sac.  The building that houses Crocker Art Museum was their residence.  The photo above doesn't do the amazing ceiling justice.  

There was a whole room full of dishes.  Lots of interesting patterns.  I was a little surprised at the ones with bugs on them.  Personally, I don't want bugs, real or painted, on my dishes, but to each his own.  

Not only was the ceiling detail interesting, the floors were, too.  This one was tiled in a quilt pattern, and there was another floor that was beautifully painted.  

2nd story ballroom.  Note the giant hole in the ceiling?  The 3rd floor has a vaguely donut shaped room that looks down into the ballroom.  It's currently lined with paintings, including a couple that reminded me of the Hanoverians in the British monarchy.  --I've been watching lots of history videos lately.  And the paintings were German portraits.  

The column is more impressive in person, with it's impressive height and it's shimmering gold leaf.  Gorgeous building.  

The dishes above and below remind me of old European heraldry.  

I think it would be cool to have a coat of arms and a seal.  

We could have spent far longer than the 2 hours we budgeted for at the museum.  There's a courtyard between wings of the building.  

This made me smile because I love the colors.  

More neat floor.

And check out this door!  It was probably 10' tall.  

(I'm not *actually* touching the door.  Brianna and I send each other pictures touching things we're probably not supposed to be touching.)  

This is one of the twin staircases that wind down from the 3rd floor to the 2nd.  

Writing desk, photos & other memorabilia.  The gold coins are a horticultural prize.   

Pictures don't really do these justice.  The pitcher is a translucent purple beneath all the decorations.  

More dishes.

These are from modern Native American artists.  

More modern works

This bust graces one of the twin staircases.

And that's it!  It was a fun morning.  We didn't see everything, but it was nice to fill my head with other perspectives.  

Our Spring Break Week

Aside from flying, Spring Break was fairly uneventful around here.  I feel like a bad mom, but I don't have a lovely family photo from Easter, or pictures of bursting baskets or extravagant eggs.  We kinda didn't really do any of that this year.  

Fiona is such a normal cat.  It's kind of hilarious.  She goes, "A box?  For me?  Awesome!" and hops in.  Grumman looks at her like, "What are you doing?!"  

Some of the "filled in" finished circles from the art project I shared the start of earlier this month.  

You know it's almost the end of the school year when the high schoolers build a blanket fort in the library, and you let them.  It was state testing week, and someone decided the kids could bring blankets and pillows to school to be comfy while testing.  Their little brains were empty when they got to my room in the afternoon, so we just kind of rolled with it.  

Caught Miss Hannah at one of the school pianos.

Books.  Our library runs have tapered off a little bit.  I need to step up my hold game, because Hannah has read "everything" we have here, and gets crabby without fresh books.  

A few of Katie's projects from a prior batch of library books.  The popsicle stick fish.

The paper bag penguin.

And the clothespin cars.  Katie was going to race them, but I don't remember that happening, so I don't know how it turned out.

New discovery recently.  Fi snores.  I kept hearing this squeak and couldn't figure out what it was.  Of course every time I try to get a video, she wakes up and looks at me like, "What?"  

Ah, Mrs. Pollifax.  I read the Mrs. P books ages ago, but when I came across one at the SPCA book sale, I thought I'd give it a re-read.  Now that I'm far closer to her in age than I was the first time around, I relate better to her place in life.  I've been re-reading the whole series.  And Hannah has picked them up, too.  Not sure what my 14 year old is getting out of books about a globe trotting senior citizen turned spy, but she seems to enjoy them.  

My Earth Day bulletin board.  It says, "Care for our Earth, it's the only planet with books."  We're going to have a space them up next, so I figure this will last well.  

Some Earth Day books.  I'll be reading Berenstain Bears Go Green to the younger kids this week.  The older ones get Ducks Overboard.  

More Mrs. P books in our latest library run.

Jack and Katie were doing nerf target practice while I was cooking one day.  

And what was Hannah doing?  "Here, go take the cat for a walk."

Hannah's soap carved boat (also from a previous library project book).

Wow, Grumman.  Tell us how you really feel.  

 Jack performed a reader's theater mini production on Easter morning.  

Up Up and Away!

April means birthdays!  

Jack Jack said he wanted to go bowling with his friends for his birthday, so that's what we did.  Fairly decent flock of moosen for the celebration.  They bowled for an hour, then I came back and said, "Pool?  Ping Pong?  Pizza?"  They decided on billiards and ping pong, so I paid for that and disappeared for another hour.  

Paul made the cake, Josie is setting it aflame. 

Look at that.  Another grown child.  18.  Wow.  

Not my little Furby any more.

On the way to & from one of Jack's shoots, we passed a little airport.  With little airplanes.  On a whim, I decided to look into how much it would cost for me to score bonus Cool Mom points.  Turns out, it wasn't totally unreasonable.  So I took the two April birthday kids for a treat last week while they were on Spring Break.  

Our pilot was a really nice guy, who took the time to explain what he was doing and why from the preflight to the very end.  

Jack went first, being older (and me realizing I'd never be able to keep him earthbound while Hannah went first).  He was so excited.  

Cute little 2 seat plane.  It's called a SportStar.  

Then Hannah got a turn.  They each went for a 30 minute flight.  

And a good time was had by all.