SATURDAY IN SAN FRANCISCO (02/16/08)

Several people have been asking where I am in all the pictures . . . here's one of me!

A friend told us about this GREAT park/gardens etc, right in the middle of the city. Flowers, a cool playground (with HUGE slides that were fun for us as well as the kids), moving statues (in the slide show, the earth with a person on top--if you sat in this one bench the person on top of the earth would sit. If you stood up, it did the same!), ice skating rink, bowling alley, kids museum, waterfall you could walk behind (actually a Martin Luther King memorial waterfall) a carousel--you name it they had it!! The weather was beautiful and we had so much fun with the kids. They even made it through an art museum!!

----------Yerba Buena Gardens

----------Carousel

Notice which animals we're riding? Nicole & Isaac picked them out
for Ryan. :)

----------SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art)

After the park we skipped on over to the SFMOMA--very fun to say. :) THIS WAS SO COOL. The Kids and Curt loved it too. There is too much to tell about to write it all here, so if you want to know more send me an e-mail. Also, if he ever has an exhibit in your area, I highly recommend going!!



(Above is a Kalaidascope hallway that you walk through, which is suspended over a several story foyer you can also look down and see people walking around etc.)

A few highlights
(Top middle) A room with mist coming down and a light source. Depending on where you stand in the room you could see different shaped and angled rainbows . . . the kids loved walking through the mist too!)
(Middle left) A round room made from a thin screen, with very bright light behind it that changed colors. The idea here was a loss of depth perception. You stand facing the screen a few inches away and you can't see the screen, nor can you see peripherally, and it feels like what movies portray when someone passes away and are in a totally white space with no points of reference. Did any of that make sense?
(Middle right) This structure was actually 9 or 10 feet tall. From the outside you could look in the end of the points and see inside. You could also go inside and look at all the people looking in and it made a Kalaidascope of their faces on the inside.
(Bottom left) When you first step off of the elevator onto the floor of his exhibit you are in this yellow foyer, which makes everyone and everything look black and white, instead of in color.

If you want to read a little about the artist read the fine print below. :)

Widely heralded as one of the most important artists of his generation, Olafur Eliasson nimbly merges art, science, and natural phenomena to create extraordinary multisensory experiences. Challenging the passive nature of traditional art-viewing, he engages the observer as an active participant, using tangible elements such as temperature, moisture, aroma, and light to generate physical sensations. The works assembled for this presentation — the first U.S. survey of this Icelandic artist's oeuvre — date from 1993 to the present and reflect all facets of his creative practice. Encompassing sculpture, photography, and large-scale immersive installations — including a newly commissioned kaleidoscopic tunnel that envelops the Museum's steel truss bridge — these groundbreaking projects are intentionally simple in construction but thrilling to behold, sparking profound, visceral reactions designed to heighten one's experience of the everyday.

----------All Tuckered Out

Ryan usually is down for his nap at 11:30 and wakes up around 1:30 or 2. We were barely leaving the park at 2! We rode the carousel last and the motion of the carousel was putting him to sleep. He was doin' the head bobbing sleep the whole walk to our car. Poor sleepy guy.

Raff the Giraffe

Ryan won't let this guy out of his reach. "Raff" is how he says giraffe. It's a pretty cool name too. The rest of us also refer to it as "Raff." It's pretty much his favorite animal.

Silly Screen Monsters

Brotherly Love

I had the boys sitting on the couch by each other so I could put on their shoes to go outside. Ryan looked over at Isaac and then just put his arms around him and hugged him. It was adorable! He didn't let go for quite some time, which
is why I was able to grab the camera for the first shot.
After a few pictures the hugging turned to wrestling. Definitely boys!!

Don't Forget Your Valentine!

My Herd

I did a quilt exchange with my extended family and ended up making 30 buffalo! Mine were a little late, but I FINALLY finished them a few weeks ago!! AH! I thoroughly enjoyed learning how to paper piece, but maybe starting out with 30 of the same quilt block was a little much. Nicole helped me rip the paper off the back of some of them, and Mom helped me finish them off too. Thanks!

Now THAT'S a CAMERA!!!

At the synchronized swim meet we went to this man was taking pictures for Stanford, he had a neat little badge and everything. He was sitting just below us to the left, and I was watching him pull out bigger and bigger lenses every few minutes. This one took the cake.

Synchronized Swimming still going strong!

Nicole and I went to Stanford's synchronized swim meet last weekend. I guess Stanford's team is the defending National collegiate champions. It was raining lightly but there was a big overhanging above the bleachers keeping us dry. It was a great mommy-daughter outing!

Preschool Fieldtrip --Seymour Marine Discovery Center

Some Interesting Things . . .

• Isaac holding a "Sea Star"--when we asked what the difference between a sea star and a star fish--"Well, starfish aren't fish."
• When sleeping, half of a dolphin's brain shuts down, the other half keeps alert for predators and is the auto pilot for taking the dolphin up for air when it needs it.
• I'm not sure who was having more fun, me or the kids. :)
• An Elephant Seal's gestation period varies from 12 to 15 months. If the mother's body is unable to support a baby, then it can hold the fertilized egg, until her body is healthy enough etc.
• Elephant Seals and Sea Lions etc, sleep on their sides, in the water, with one flipper in the air.
• An Elephant seal's milk is the consistency of cottage cheese!
• Skeleton of a Blue Whale--in '79 a dead blue whale washed up on the beach--unusual since they are so heavy, they normally sink.