Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Family Vacation - #3 - Museum-ing

Y'all know I love me some museums!

...so we spent an entire day doing just that...

...This is a new museum that we had not seen before - lots of fun there...

...Hillsborough St. was a mess of construction - but here's a wonky picture of the N.C. State belltower...

...Next on to the Museum of Art - Karen and I spent hours and hours here when I was teaching in Raleigh - it was about equidistant from our two apartments - and they had a little cafe where we could have tea...

...somewhat sadly - that little building has been completely replaced by these three sort of art warehouses - very bright and light inside - so nice for viewing...

...did you notice that dead tree - not a tree at all - but a sculture made of metal...

...Once inside - I head for my favorites...

...these were part of the old museum collection - so they're like old friends...

...I love this tombstone (Father Mother and Son) - it was actually one of the pictures in the Latin book I taught from...amazing that it's right here in North Carolina now...

...then on to some oils (Karen's favorites) - there was quite the discussion going on about the lace on the bishop's frock...

...There are no ropes and you can get quite close - it really looks like - well - lace - you just want to reach out and touch it because it looks so real (of course you don't)...

...a pretty Madonna and Child...

...I love the icons - there was an icon painting class when we lived in SC - that I really wanted to attend - but the price was not within our budget...they had a showing of the icons the students created and they were awesome!

...then - Da Ta Da Daaa - my favorite piece of the day - this pixelated upside down Mona Lisa...

...Can you guess what she's made of? - THREAD! - amazing...

...Scout had fun with the little glass orb that smooths the image and turns it right side up...

...so much fun...

...have I mentioned that I love museums...

...next - we walked around the gardens - pretty reflecting pools were alongside the buildings and you could see them through the filmy white light filtering curtains...

...Scout wanted to climb this odd sculpture - of course we didn't...

...and did I also mention that it was HOT in Raleigh...

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Family Vacation #2 - Flying & Sister-ing


Y'all know my sweet sister is a pilot...

...so she flew up to Asheville and picked up Scout and me for a little mini vacation at her house...

...we had to wait on the runway for several planes to land...

...the airport as we took off...the Man is waiting there to catch his flight to his conference...

...climbing through the clouds...

...the scenery was lovely...

...everything was so lush and green...

...Jack slept most of the way - I was so glad that he took to flying so well...

...approaching the runway by Karen's house...

...Touchdown...I was trying to get a picture of the blur of trees as we landed - but I didn't have time to reset my camera and the shutter speed was too fast - so it really just looks like we're sitting still and we're probably going 80 mph...

...this is just a pretty pond beside the runway - the sort of yellow light is caused by an approaching afternoon thunderstorm - they were shortlived and we had so much fun! Thanks Karen!!!

...More at The World of Karen...

Monday, June 28, 2010

Family Vacation - #1 - Driving and Cousin-ing

We always take a vacation in June to visit family down south - and then another one usually in October for just some R & R...

...this trip always involves a lot of driving - 3 days worth - we just thought this sign was funny - it's in Wisconsin...

...once we got to NC - there was lots of 'cousining' - our word for playing with the cousins...

...Man - it was hot - I should say HOT - of course we're not used to that - yet...

...so there was lots of water play...

...Scout took some photos at the hotel pool with his underwater camera - I'll have to get some pictures off of his camera too...

...then Scout's Uncle came with this huge sprinkler ball - so much fun - and Grandma's lawn gets a good watering...

...and some lightening bug catching after sunset - totally catch and release...

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Playing with Fire


Scout took these rather unassuming ingredients and mixed each of the solids with Methyl Alcohol (in the Heet antifreeze) and set them on fire to produce coloured flame...

...There's no real recipe - we used about 3 Tablespoons of the Heet and about a teaspoon of each of the powders - it's a lot of fun!

...not very spectacular during the daytime...

...we could actually see variations of colour up close...

..but we waited until dark and mixed up some more...

...and got some pretty flames...

...green...

...blue...

...and orange...

...This was a fun little experiment - we'll be repeating it on Independence Day too...

Saturday, June 26, 2010

HARICOTS VERTS

I made Julia's Haricots Verts รก l'Anglaise...

...super easy and oh so good...

...All the details are at The Vegan Version ...

Friday, June 25, 2010

Fellowship Hall Progress


Just a quick peek at the Fellowship Hall at Church - the footers are poured - we've had quite a bit of rain - so that's slowing things down a bit...

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Little Garden Update

Thanks for all the Wii love - I really appreciate all of your comments - the Wii has been fun and I think it's going to be a good fit for our little family...

On the garden front everything is up and growing...

...the Italian Salad...

...the lettuce and spinach...

...the carrots...

...the sorrel...

...and even Willy the Willow is sprouting his leaves...