Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Santa Barbara and birthday week


I turned 31 last week...

D instituted Birthday Week when we were first married. The tradition has lasted these 12 years and I think my birthday week 2010 was the best yet. I'll post more of the week's festivities later but we finished the week with an overnighter in Santa Barbara as part of the festivities celebrating the blessing of Ryan and Whitney's twins (though we couldn't make it to the actual blessing on Sunday).

Ryan and Whitney's families rented a beach house for the weekend and they offered us their extra room Friday night. (Chris had his last weekend of MBA school at UCLA - we missed him but are excited for him to be done!) The weekend was awesome - staying up late Friday talking and laughing, brunch on the beach Saturday and a trip to the Santa Barbara zoo included feeding the giraffe! Not to mention the delicious coconut birthday cakes Whitney made for me and the best part - holding those cute twin boys all weekend.

Little S took this picture of D and I - she's becomming quite the photographer.

Little S chickened out and wouldn't feed the giraffe after the giraffe shot its tongue out a good 8 inches at her. D stepped in to help. Apparently, the tongue felt like sandpaper.
The lion was sunning right in front of us - Baby J, Izzy and a random kid were posing, though Izzy doesn't like any kind of cat including giant ones.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Getty Family Art Days '10



We braved the crowds and traffic to attend Getty Family Art Days - Leonardo da Vinci themed this year. It's the third or forth time I've gone and I must say that the budget constraints hitting the art world were apparent at the Getty festivities. All the kid projects were paper or cardboard - nothing too fancy, but fun, nonetheless. Projects included sketchbooks with Leonardo drawings on each page, horse models (out of said cardboard pieces), frames, and decorating a postcard that the Getty would mail to anywhere you wanted in the world. Oh, and a guy dressed as Leonardo was wandering the Getty campus answering questions and posing for photo ops - Little S thought it was kinda like Disneyland. I'm sure that's what the Getty was going for.

We attended with my friend Cass and her 3 kids - all 8 of us piled into her van for the trip. She got a speeding ticket on the way there but that didn't dampen our spirits. 81 mph, come on, it's the flow of traffic! Good thing she didn't get caught when she was going 95 on the way home. Clearly tickets really make drivers think twice before speeding again.

Cass's kids getting the instructions for sketch book construction.
The boys with their finished horse models. Colin tore pieces for the legs so they would bend accurately - what an artist!
Little S wouldn't pose with her horse, but here is its portrait - three legs and all. She insisted on not attaching a 4th leg.
Baby J is obsessed with writing utensils. As soon as she saw the big kids drawing she had to get right in there, too. The Leonardo skull drawing is a bit morbid but Little S kept telling everyone that it was no big deal, "it's just the bones in your face."
Helping tie the sketchbook together - I just liked how the sunlight was falling into this shot.
We had 3 strollers between us and Cass tried to carry her 2 up four flights of stairs. I was laughing so hard when I looked up and saw her trying to load all of this like a burro. A passerby took pitty on us and helped carry one of the strollers (D was outside with Little S otherwise he would have helped).