Little Emily, BIG City

Last week Emily went to one of our favorite places, the Brookfield Zoo (and no, I am not talking about my High School). However, Friday was a very important day for Emily as a part of this family; on Friday, she went to her Mommy's absolute favorite place, The Art Institute of Chicago.

Friday was S.I.P. Day (School Improvement Day, What improves the school more than having the kids stay home?) for Christa and the rest of school district U-46. The teachers have meetings, but the Elementary Art Teachers all went to the Art Institute to see an exhibit and learn about the Teacher Resource Center. After they did the "educational" portion of the day they were allowed to do whatever they wanted. Their bus was leaving at 1:30, but they didn't have to be on it if they had other travel arrangements. So Emily, Auntie Mandy, and I drove down to meet Christa. (Every year Grandma Roberta gives Christa a membership to the Art Institute for Christmas, and as a result we get free admission and free tickets to the special exhibits, like the one she was there to see.)

Emily was very excited about the Art Institute, and also about going back to Chicago, as that is the city of her birth. Auntie Mandy, who had just finished her finals last week, was excited about enjoying herself without worrying about doing homework later. I was excited about having someone else to change Emily's diapers. Christa was excited about seeing Emily in the middle of the work day. As a group we all seemed to be excited about something.

When we arrived at the museum, we were a little early for our rendezvous with Christa, so we wandered around the museum so that I could tell Emily the things about paintings and those who painted them that her mother never would. I also had the opportunity to tell her the real way to pronounce the artists names. Mommy always gets them wrong, especially Degas and Monet. (phonetically... Deee gas, and Mahn it) Emily was very thankful for my help and promised to remember what I had told her.

Just as Auntie Mandy, Emily, and I were heading over to the special exhibit to meet Christa, she went walking by carrying a stool!!! The art teachers had finished their tour and were now free for the rest of the day! Instead of heading right off to the exhibit, we all decided to eat some lunch. After lunch, we went to see the special exhibit: Cezanne to Picasso. To be honest, I wasn't all that excited about this one. I don't know much about Cezanne (season), but I do know that I am not a big fan of Picasso (Pick-a-Sew). What I hadn't been paying attention to was the subtitle of the show, "Ambroise Vollard: Patron of the Avant-Garde," mostly because I had no idea what it meant. Apparently, what it meant was that a lot of really cool artists would have artwork in the exhibit, including my favorite, Vincent van Gogh. Also in the exhibit was Gauguin (go ghen) who, as I learned from a previous exhibit was a jerk. This exhibit reaffirmed that belief, let's face it, the guy was a no talent hack and a big jerk. Van Gogh, on the other hand ROCKS!!! Emily also came to this conclusion, as she was enthralled looking at Van Gogh's incredible works; she cried and slept through Gauguin's paintings.

As we went through the exhibit, Emily added to her fan club. In one of the galleries a little old lady was looking at Emily. She then turned to her friend and said, "come here and see something really beautiful." She then pointed at Emily and said, "She is more beautiful than any painting." You may be thinking that I made that up, but that is the truth, and the truth is better than fiction. (Emily has this effect on people wherever she goes.)

After finishing with the exhibit, Christa wanted to look around a little bit and "teach" Emily about some art. Christa tried to undo everything I had already taught her, but thankfully, Emily held tightly to the "good" information I had given her and refused to be swayed. Christa is still a little miffed about this, so it is best if you don't bring it up. After her horrible defeat, Christa wanted to leave and show us something she had seen outside . . .

. . . We left the museum and walked down a couple blocks to see a really cool mailbox. That's right, a mailbox. Now, this was no ordinary blue mailbox, no, this mailbox looked like R2-D2. It was very cool and Emily loved it. (The force is strong with this one, no wait--she just needs her diaper changed!)

After the mailbox, we headed back to the car so we could go home. While walking, we were all really enjoying the people who were smiling and laughing about seeing Emily strapped to my chest wearing her sunglasses. I think we really brightened people's day. (It wasn't just the ladies, even men were stopping to smile at her.) Before we got to the car, we were stopped by an amazing street performance. Normally, I am simply annoyed by the street performers because no matter what instrument they are playing, or the time of year, they all play the same two songs. One is a medley of unrecognizable Christmas songs and the other is the theme from the Simpson's. I understand that they are trying to make some money, but I won't pay until they learn a new song. This performance however was different, it was a puppet theatre built on the back of a tricycle. The puppets who were performing when we first got there were a tiger and a monkey, dancing together to zydeco music. When that song ended two cats took the stage and did their own little dance. It was fantastic, the puppets were having a great time. A sizable crowd had gathered, and they were having a good time. Not to mention, we were having a good time. If you are curious, the puppets have a website, http://www.puppetbike.com/, they were really great. We watched them for a little while and finally tore ourselves away to go sit in traffic.

On Saturday, we went to do a little Letterboxing. This was Emily's second letterboxing excursion but as her first involved a mystery box we couldn't tell you about it. Unfortunately, due to some badly written clues, we were not able to find this box, but we promised Emily that we would be going back soon.

There is more exciting news on the Emily front but I will leave that for the next post (you know what they say, always leave 'em wanting more). Also stay tuned for our Mother's Day recap next week.

After having an afternoon snack, and a diaper change, Emily was very happy and gave Auntie Mandy some snuggles before heading out to look at some more paintings.

Emily got to see Grant Wood's "American Gothic" since it was back at the Art Institute after having been on loan to another museum.

She also got to see one of Mommy's favorites, "The Bewitched Mill" by Franz Marc. Mommy really likes how colorful this picture is; something about it makes her happy.

She also got to see a really famous, and really big painting, by Gustave Caillebotte called "Paris Street, Rainy Day." Wow, this picture is even bigger than Auntie Mandy's feet!

Here we are with a self-portrait done by Vincent van Gogh, Mommy & Daddy's favorite artist.

Emily really liked this picture by George Seurat called "Sunday Morning on La Grande Jatte". She really liked how you can see the whole picture from far away, but if you look really close, all you see are dots of paint.


Another one of Mommy's favorites is "On the Terrace" by Pierre Auguste Renoir.

Outside of the Art Institute by those famous lions.

Hey look, Uncle Johnny, this mailbox looks like R2-D2!! This is sooooo COOL!

On our way back to our car, we came upon this street performer on a "Puppet Bike." We had a really fun time watching him perform.

Here is a close up of the dancing puppets.

Emily asked Daddy if they could give the puppets $1.00 because she was having so much fun.

Daddy & Emily continued to enjoy the puppets after they put in their $1.00. The puppets even went down into the money box and pulled some money out to dance with. Emily thought that was HILARIOUS!!

Here you can see the entire Puppet Bike.

After all of the excitement downtown, Emily enjoyed some quiet time with Grandma Kathy making faces.

On Saturday, we tried to do a local letterbox. Here we are getting ready to go. Emily was wearing her new watermelon t-shirt and was really looking forward to her second letterboxing hunt. But first, she wanted to snack on Mommy's fingers. It always tickles when she does this.

Here we are on the hunt, bush-whacking our way over a small hill.