Disaster at the Art Museum...

On Good Friday,
our friends from the 'hood
were out of school,
so we decided to take a trip to our local art museum...

Oh boy, just by looking at this picture, you can tell
we were off to paint the town red...

Now, let me preface this adventure by saying
I had not been to our art museum since college...

Back then, we had traveling exhibits come,
a room dedicated to hands-on activities for kids,
and a pretty awesome museum gift shop.

So, my friend Becky and I thought this was gonna be a
a great hands-on experience for the kiddos...

Well, we were right...

In way...

We arrived at the museum,
greeted by this beautiful glass sculpture
created by a local artist.

We were also greeted by a museum curator.

She explained the rules and exhibits on display...

("Now kids, make sure the adults don't touch the exhibits,"
she said...
I am foreshadowing a bit here...)

Then, we were turned loose.

In the first room was the featured exhibit
about weaving.

It contained a pretty cool sculpture
of glass bobbins (?) used in weaving...

Now, please note something.

The sculpture is on the floor,
with NO ROPE or ANYTHING ELSE around it
to say, "NO TOUCHING."

(More foreshadowing...)

Can you guess what happened next?

My friend's 5 year old son,
saw those pretty glass bobbins and,

(It was if this next part was in slow motion...)

He reached down and
TOUCHED ONE OF THE BOBBINS.

The curator was in the room with us at the time.

As Becky reached down quickly to correct her son,
you could hear the curator say,

"Oh God, no!"

(Sorry for the profanity, I am only giving a direct quote...)

"No touching. In fact, let's move back from the exhibit right now.
You're too close."

Becky and I looked at each other and quickly
moved the kiddos to another room in the museum.

In this room, the weaving exhibit was continued
and WAS interactive...

Here, the kiddos got to wind string onto a bobbin.

If they did it correctly,
the bobbin will be used by local weavers in
a project that will be on display in the museum when it's finished....

(I think that only Jungle Girl's and Becky's eldest's
will be used,
but the kiddos DID enjoy this process.)

The only other interactive part of the museum was
a room the size of a galley kitchen
which contained...

...a couple of easels with paper and crayons...

...an old fridge door with a few magnets...

...and a table with wooden blocks.

OK folks, I have all this stuff at home...


We also WISELY decided to NOT take the kiddos to look
at the landscapes, but we did go look at the room with the miniatures in it...

...and we ended up touring the Sculpture Garden...

...BRIEFLY......since my kiddos were frightened... ...by the wasps.

And that about did it for our BIG 20 minute tour of the art museum.

It was a bit of a let down for us moms,
but I think the kiddos had a decent time,
and I also think they learned to NOT TOUCH the exhibits...

(at least when the curator is around...*sigh*...)

We then hiked down to a playground to have
a picnic lunch...

...and the kiddos saw a Smart Car along the way,
and were VERY IMPRESSED with its "smallness."

After eating...

...the kiddos played for a bit...

...and then Becky tried to "educate"
the kiddos over at our local
war memorial near the park.

It really IS a nice memorial...

...but the younger kiddos were starting to melt...

...so we decided to bring our field trip to a close...

...by saying the pledge of allegiance
to the United States of America.

Oh boy.

What a day...