Long Weekend

Had a nice long weekend.  Mostly relaxing, except for my wife being ill most of the last two days.  She and I went to Rise of the Planet of the Apes on Friday after I got back from extracorporeal therapy at the Red Cross.  As she said, "I felt bad for the apes."  I think you were supposed to be a bit conflicted, so a good movie.  Afterwards, we went over to the MIA to see Eryn show off her art projects from the last week.  There was quite a collection of impressionist works, from her own canvas, to a diorama, and half a dozen works based on impressionist techniques.  I particularly liked her bridge, and I'll try to get a copy out here for the grandparents.

Sunday, Eryn and her mother went to The Help while I got in some bicycling and cooking.  I went a little wild with the chocolate chip cookies and put a golden Oreo, a spring Oreo, and a Girl Scout Thin Mint into one of each.  Damn big cookies.

And today, Eryn and I left my wife to be sick on the couch, and we went up to Ming's place to ride the Gateway Trail.  Eryn managed to bike 15 miles.  Before we took off, I took us to Gateway Cycle and bought her a wireless odometer.  I think having the odometer to look at so she knew how far away the goals I was setting were was a big help.  Kyle and Ming (and family) all went to Randy's Pizza to use our Living Social certificates before they expired, which was a nice dinner.  One thing I learned while heading up there to meet them was that putting the bikes on the back of the convertible doesn't work so well.  With the top down, the wind is hitting them from the front and they shake and wobble alarmingly.  Not to mention the rack is a bit of a pain on the Mustang, although perhaps that's just not quite getting it on there right.  I moved my bike in closer to the car on the way home (with one of Ming's socks over the pedal to protect the car) so that I wasn't getting a lever effect, but that left Eryn's bike even more by itself in the open, and it was bouncing all over the place.  I'm going to have to investigate if there's a better way to strap your bikes down for vehicles with a retracted top.

Found It!

I think I found Eryn's painting. Bald guy in the background. Just to the left, two up (from the top of his pate). Kattycorner lower left from the silver plate. That would be Eryn's painting. Click it to get a little closer.

Foot in the Door 4 - Pooteewheet's Painting

Found it, although not in person. We were worried it might be a bit crowded the first week. They used this photo on the front of the Weekend Life section of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. My father-in-law's painting is immediately below the CC in the circle in the lower right corner. Pooteewheet's (my wife's) painting is five rows to the left and about two up (red painting with black, below the white and blue painting that looks like a piece of the sky). I'm still looking for Eryn's Black Sun with Gray Rays.

Art Adventures

Eryn cheerfully volunteered to do a lot of the setup around my next Art Adventures project today. She was taking the many brown lunchbags I purchased and drawing elk hides on either side of them. Having an assistant is the best. She even made a demonstration illustrated hide for me to use with the classes.

This is the orientation they give us before each art adventure tour of the MIA

This is My Seventh Two-Headed Animal So Far...

I mentioned Eryn (and Pooteewheet, and my father-in-law) has a piece at Foot in the Door 4 at the MIA. A short video on some of the submissions: