Last time I blogged, I was spending a solo weekend in the Twin Cities while my fam was up at the cabin.
This weekend, Joe has been getting sun in San Diego and Los Angeles. To entertain ourselves while he’s away, there has been a great deal of dramatic play here at the homestead. Car races, haunted houses, Boxcar Children mysteries, etc.
Saturday, my fellow grad-program members and I put on a workshop for middle schoolers at the Weisman Art Museum. My contributions happened before the big day, so I was free to single parent. We still stopped by to see how things were going, snap a few photos and enjoy the museum.
The activity my group planned involved drawing one’s own money. Henry was SO ready to participate in that.
After the boys were quite patient with me, it was time to explore!
This is one of my favorite parts of this museum. It’s a mock apartment lobby and hallway that you can walk into.
If you lean in to each of the doors, you can hear a soundtrack of what is “happening” inside.
Henry wanted to take a “weird” photo together in the weird place.
Sculpture paintings! They look different from every vantage point.
Oh yeah! Here’s Henry’s money. I like that Joe’s hanging upside-down from the top.
Sunday was the final day of the Art Shanties 2020 on Lake Harriet. We had to figure out some way to get there. The trouble was…we woke up to 5 inches of snow that magically fell overnight. We put in our work shoveling sidewalks and our driveway, but the alley beyond our driveway itself would have been impassible. We waited and waited for the plow to come through, but it wasn’t going to happen in time. So we walked to lunch and then took a Lyft from there. Based on the trouble our driver had with his sedan in the snow, I’m glad we didn’t even try ours.
I liked this artist painting art shanties.
Henry knew for sure that he wanted this to be our first stop.
It was really cool! They rigged up a camera obscura so once inside the fully dark room, an image of what was happening outside the shanty lit up the white table in the middle. Hard to explain, but it was great.
This was Charlie’s first pick. We each got a little envelope and got to fill them with seeds of plants native to Minnesota for planting in the spring.
The shanty this ship was Henry’s favorite by looks, but he did not care for the theater that was happening inside. Luckily, the helm was outside, so he could enjoy it undisturbed.
Honestly, sometimes a snow mound is more fun than anything.
Coloring monarchs
A dark shanty with marbles letting in specks of light
and mirrors up above
The far and away winner is the ever-beloved Rocky. It’s shaped like a ship, and they rock it for you, so you feel like you’re at sea.
The 2-mile walk home was definitely longer than that for the boys, because what child can walk across fresh snow on a lake in any kind of straight line? Henry even doubled back so he could follow Charlie’s pretty pattern.
I love that I caught Charlie mid-jump!
A “sword” found growning on a recycling bin.
We stopped half-way for dinner, and the restaurant had on live coverage of Crashed Ice. I’ve been to the actual event several times, but have never watched it on TV. Crashed Ice is sport, and every year, one of the events is hosted in St Paul. Competitors put on hockey skates and race down a long, treacherous…slide? Again, hard to describe. Here’s a short video
I am, as you know, NOT a sports-viewer. I have zero attention-span for watching a game, match, bout, whatever. This, however, had me on the edge of my seat. We three had a blast watching and discussing. I don’t think I have ever been happy to walk into a restaurant and find TVs, but tonight, I’m so glad there were.
And then, after we were all fueled up again, we continued the walk home. The boys’ old preschool was on the way, so they took a few nostalgic minutes on the oh-so-familiar playground.
A waaaaaarm bath was just the thing to end this day. So we made that happen, too.
