El Museo de Vidrio

We can't stop talking about our trip without a blog on the Museum of Glass.  We went on a whim (we're museum people, what can I say?  Plus it really was cold!), hoping it would occupy a day and fell in love.  They actually had the glass-blowing studio right there and we spent literal hours watching them create sculptures.  Joaquin now says he wants to be a plumber, engineer and glass-blower when he grows up.  This picture shows Joaquin and I on the balcony overlooking the hot shop.

The museum had these cool sculptures designed by kids.  We actually got to see one of them being created.  A child enters a picture (they get thousands of applicants), they pick one, and their artist recreate it in glass (twice, once for the museum and once for the child).  They're amazing!  It very impressive how accurately the glass sculptures reflect the drawings.  And the colorfulness of the drawings make for some great art.  This is Joaquin and my favorite, the firebird.  Or, as Joaquin immediately said, a phoenix!  Look at my son knowing his mythical creatures. :)

When we finally got tired of the hot shop, we climbed on to the bridge that went over the freeway.  Unbelieveably enough there is a huge shelf  along this bridge filled with Chihuly sculptures.  It's almost a ridiculous amount of beautiful art in a random place.

To compound it, the next part of the bridge was covered (which was fortunate as it started to rain) and the ceiling was filled with Chihuly sea forms.  It was like a surfeit of gorgeous glass, I started to get blase about it.  It was honestly one of our best museum experiences ever.

Tacoma

After our adventures in Seattle, we retired to Daniel's cousin's beach house.  (See I told you we're flush with friends and relatives there.)    It was lovely to be relaxed and peaceful. Plus the luxury of being able to put the baby down for a nap occasionally! 

Joaquin and Daddy enjoyed the amenities, managing to make a fire despite the drizzle and wetness.  The point of this fire?  S'mores of course!

We also had fun on the beach, where Joaquin and Daddy took many many many pictures of rocks and barnacles.  I have not included them for the obvious reasons. :)  But it is noteworthy since it shows Joaquin's burgeoning interest in photography.  His choice of subjects still leaves something to be desired however.

There were several small parks and some beautiful state parks nearby.  It was very interesting and semi-amazing to see the massive amounts of plants everywhere!  Especially the trees!  I was actually excited as a little girl by the ferns growing naturally.  They need so much water that they never grow anywhere near where I live. 

They even had trees growing on the stumps of old dead trees.  So we wore lots of layers (very necessary, Seattle is cold in May/June!) and enjoyed the extreme green.  Joaquin even managed to make a friend at a playground and enjoy some good kid time.  We ended our time in Tacoma with a visit to some other old friends and their new little boy.  It was unfortunately marred by Joaquin getting sick (stomach bug) our last evening, but we'll just gracefully draw a veil over that unpleasantness.

El Acuario

Seattle turns out to be absolutely full of old friends and family for us.  Once we started thinking of vacationing there, we couldn't fit in all the folks we wanted to visit.  Fortunately we were able to spend a day with my old college roommate and her beautiful little girl.  (By the by, doesn't Daniel look good sporting a diaper bag?) We went to the aquarium, apparently one of our favorite activities when we go on vacation.  But since we live in the desert, it's really hard to skip aquariums actually on the coast!  It's not a beautiful or impressive as the Monterey aquarium (that's actually worth the money, expensive as it is), but it was still charming and turned out really fun because we were there in time to see them feed the octopus!

Both kiddoes where entraced the octopus, it was a particularly active and large one.  It kept pressing itself up against the glass and we could see all the suckers, totally cool.  Then they had a fun ceremony where they feed the octopus and talked about it.  It was great!  Afterwards the octopus actually changed color and laid down to digest and eat.  Joaquin (and Daddy) were fascinated.

I love this picture, because it shows that they are true children of their mommies.  Despite the beautiful array of marine life around them, a corner with books and stools caught their fancy.  Only the lure of seals was sufficient to pry them loose.  :)  We then had dinner with her husband as well and spent a long evening catching up.  It was absolutely lovely and proves that good friends never really fall away from you.

Seattle 2011

Yeah for our trip to Seattle.  We started off by attending my cousin's wedding, which was quite fun and the kiddos behaved pretty well until they were just too tired to function.  We also had fun seeing family.  You can see Joaquin sporting the mask he got at Ivers (apparently a local chain) while dining with my family.  Probably all more fun for the adults though.  So after the festivities were over we tried to sight-see with Joaquin in mind.  Several museums and the space needle are all in one area, so we spent several days going back there.  Joaquin enjoyed running around on tons of grass!  We kept pointing out the verdant lushness and trees all around us, but he was pretty blase about it.  So here are a few pictures from the science fiction museum, they had an interesting exhibit on instruments and recording studios.  Joaquin and Dad learned to 'play' the guitar. When we came back the next day we went to the space needle.   Joaquin loved looking at the city through the telescopes, even a little drizzle didn't deter him. 

Little Gym Primavera 2011

We come to the end of another Little Gym semester. Unfortunately, our Seattle vacation coincided with show week. So Joaquin's teacher were kind enough to let us stay after the week before and help Joaquin show us his 'routines'. You can see from this video that Joaquin, while not independent, is considerably braver about the beam than he's been. He's saying, "dip, dip, dip" at the beginning, because part of the pretend of their routine is that they are dipping their feet in a stream. It was actually really nice this way, without the distraction of all the other kids and their parents, he was much more focused and actually enjoyed showing us what he could do. He got to show off for Mommy and Auntie Boo-boo and receive his medal. Perfect. He even started to get excited and tried to show us his crazy moves. We had to drag him out of there

El Tornado

Tia Lina and her girls came to Albuquerque recently, so of course we had some fun with them. Currently the amount of craziness that Joaquin and Bella can cook up between them is quite high. Bella was pretty blase about it, which I found very amusing. We put them all (even the dog) in the bed of the old truck and they ran around like crazies. My favorite part of this video is the fact that Joaquin is describing them as a tornado (same destructive power) and then calls them "Two storms that are running into each other". A good description of a tornado and Allie and Joaquin!

Primavera

Finally, the long awaited pictures of Joaquin in his Easter outfit. Oddly enough, after Easter the weather got cold, so it was actually hard to find time to photograph. But eventually we found time, and there were flowers blooming in my mother's garden so we took pictures. Joaquin was actually very cooperative and helpful, which was nice b/c Jamie was crabby. Joaquin always makes her happier, and the pictures of them together are super adorable (sorry, can't post them). He even posed smelling the flowers, although I didn't keep those pictures since they're mostly just his butt in the air. I must say, he looked absolutely adorable both on actual Easter and during the photo session. I love his shirt and his little white linen pants. Seems wildly impractical, white pants on a four year old, but surprisingly they are still unstained. This final picture is a representation of what my life consists of lately. Joaquin is very into 'mixtures'. He always asks to mix things, at home, at restaurants, at other people's houses, etc. Fortunately, I keep a lot of old glass jars around, so there's plenty of vehicles for his mess. He has learned that salt and sugar dissolve in water, while pepper and flour do not. Did you know that? Well my budding chemist has branched out to more elaborate mixtures and considers it a bonus if they are 'icky', especially if they smell icky. Sigh, I hope this stage goes quickly.