The kids and I spent the night on a blanket eating dinner at a park/playground and I finally talked Zoe into moving on over to the outdoor stage are where they were putting on an outdoor production of Willy Wonka. We got about 20 feet behind the back row of lawn chairs and plopped down. Roman was interested and wanted to watch, Zoe was lagging behind. We finally got her over and about 10 minutes later she says "I can't see. Why are we sitting so far away?"
Kids.
Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.
We made a pilgrimage to the American Swedish Institute this past weekend. Zero in the way of expectations, which I think is the way to go.
Pleased as punch by the Dala Horse- Zoe was the brave first rider. A real Swedish cowgirl (except she's not Swedish....Norwegian, yes)
Then Roman.
Almost immediately we made our way to the 3rd floor of the Turnblad mansion/house/museum and spent a good deal of time in the kids area. A little kitchen time (not much)
Some time watching a short video on glassblowing and then perusing a book that showed a collection of works created from kids drawings.
Awesome.
It's amazing how close the final product resembled the kids drawings.
And there was a little table where kids could draw their own pictures and submit it for the chance to be made into a real piece of art glass. Wowsers. Zoe promptly drew a unicorn and told me it was named Rainbow. Her description?
It's a unicorn and unicorns are very pretty.
Roman's?
The Eyeless Monster.
It's really cool and it's colorful.
Okay then.
A chance to make their own glass.
Beautiful
And interestingly non breakable ;)
Roman loved these blocks - they were magnetic around the edges and very easy to build with. And I saw him putting them away in nice stacks, with like shapes together. WHY DOESN'T HE DO THIS AT HOME?
Write a letter to Tomte?
Who is Tomte?
(I think I read he makes a Christmas visit, so we may be going back)
Tomte lives at ASI.
He came from Sweden.
He is an Elf who takes care of things around the house. Nordic immigrants brought him in with them.
An invasive non-native species?
Perhaps, but we'll pretend he's harmless. ;)
Roman wrote his own note, I told him how to spell it ( I don't think I did this at almost 5). It read:
Would it be nice to drive a race car
Roman
Time to check out more of the house.
On the stairs.
Onward we went. The exhibit at the moment is glass art, not exactly where you'd think to bring rambunctious preschoolers, but they were okay.
Reminds me of how much Sweden reminded me of Northern MN.
And it was family day, with demonstration of glass blowing on the patio with a real live Swede.
Did I say this was July and we were wearing hoodies? Yeah. A little bit of rain too, but we survived.
Crafts!
Roman and I made magnets - I had a preprinted Dala horse that I modge podged to the glass and Roman made himself a design that he glued. As you see, Zoe designed her own jewelry as well. Let's not talk about how the clasp pealed off before we left the premises, ok? She was very proud (and then somewhat sad). We'll survive.
It was a good day. Go into it with no expectations, folks.
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