Wednesday in the tomb

National Geographic's King Tut exhibit was in town, so we went. This might qualify as a dirty little homeschool mom secret, I was bored. I knew it was something I should appreciate, but the reality was "oh look, its an urn.... and another urn....some pottery....yawn". The kids agreed. John and Grandpa made sure the benches didn't jump up and reanimate. To be fair, Egyptology has never been our thing.

Everyone was expecting to watch a King Tut documentary later at home. I decided they had suffered enough and switched it out for The Mummy movie with Brendan Fraiser. Now that is how to make Egyptology fun!
We headed out to Chili's for dinner. When you have three kids, and it is "free kid's meal night", This is a very good thing.

Ballet Academy Field Trip

John might be all full up on culture for now, he would argue for the rest of his life. After our trip to the Grand Opera on Thursday, Friday we headed out to the Ballet Academy for a performance. Do you see him laying across Emma's lap? The most pathetic. thing. ever. All in all, he was very patient, I was quite proud of that boy.

Afterwards, we had another of those crazy days. We grabbed some lunch with our friends, had to run a few errands, get new tires for the van... We looked at the clock and realized it was dinnertime. It wasn't hard for the kids to talk me into our favorite "healthier" fast food option, pei wei. Chloe put her "wings" on just as soon as she could. We were all so glad to fall into the house at the end of the day.

It seems like we are having so many more of these days. We are getting it all done, but by the skin of our teeth. I am feeling the need to slow down a little more. To have more pajama days (because those are my favorite). Lazy days with more time for talking. Its always a balancing act. On the one hand, we have all these awesome opportunities for fun and education. On the other hand, I am halfway to being a hermit, and need down time. When I have too much activity, without enough down time it jostles me and I lose my sense of center.

Grand Opera: The Magic Flute

I love this time of year, there are so many opportunities for fun field trips. We went to see a production of the Magic Flute put on by our local Grand Opera.

They slightly tweaked the opera to make it child friendly. Instead of the opera highlighting enlightenment, as in the original; this production highlighted green living. Which is somewhat ironic, since it was sponsored by Exxon Mobile.


While the girls found the opera beautiful and funny, John's favorite part was running away from the opera down the awesomely huge hill. He's a boy, I am content with him just being willing to sit through it... most of the time.

No trip to the outdoor theater is complete without a ride on the train through the park!!

Museum of Fine Art - Hands on Art Day

We went for a field trip to the Museum of Fine Arts. They do such a nice job of creating a comfortable atmosphere for the kids. We went on a storybook tour this day. The docent led the kids around the museum stopping at these top two pictures. Then she passed around fabrics that were very much like the ones the man in the painting is wearing to allow the kids to handle them. She discussed with them the painting techniques used in the painting. I brought along watercolor pencils and pastels for the kids to try to recreate what they saw.

When we arrived back home, the kids wanted to make their own art museum. They drew a ton of pictures and then we taped them up in the hallway.