Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

A few months ago, I supervised Henry's field trip to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond. They had been learning about ancient cultures in social studies, so the main point of going to the museum was to see the Egyptian exhibit there. It was pretty cool! Including an actual mummy.

You can see the mummy in the middle right, behind the headless statue.

Henry was pretty interested - was right up front while the docent was talking to them, engaged - I was proud of him!

After the Egyptian part, we chaperones each took our small groups (I had Henry and two girls) to whatever part of the museum they wanted to see. We wandered through some more ancient cultures.

And then I took the kids into my favorite part of this museum: the Faberge exhibit! For a relatively small arts museum, they have a huge collection! These were two of my favorite eggs; portrait mode on the iPhone really makes them pop.

 

In addition to the eggs, they also have a ton of other things made by the Faberge family, including these adorable little animal figurines

 And flower vases! These are tiny miniatures - the work is absolutely stunning.

Really glad that I got to spend a couple of hours there with Henry; Natalie has never been and I'd like to explore more, so I think we're going to try to get back there this summer. 

NYC April 2018

In early April I went to NYC for work for two days, although I managed to get some fun stuff done during the trip as well! On the first morning, I had to take Metro North up to my client north of the city. I walked to Grand Central Station from my hotel - it was a gorgeous morning, and I had to stop and take a few pics like a silly tourist.

First, as I walked along 42nd street - the Chrysler building.

This was taken as I was passing Bryant Park. Because so few of the trees had leaves yet, I was able to see the Empire State Building across the park.

I hadn't been to Grand Central in a very long time - I loved this shot of the outside, with the Chrysler building behind.

Of course the inside of Grand Central (the main terminal) is one of the most iconic, but I failed to capture that at all! I was in work mode at that point, I suppose.

That evening, once work was done, my friend Kathy and I (she was also there for work!) saw our favorite lady, Brandi Carlile, touring for her new album. I'd never been to the Beacon - it's a fabulous location! More on that in a later post.

After my client visit the next day, Kathy and I had some time before taking our train home. The weather wasn't great, so we headed over to the Met for a couple of hours! I hadn't been there since we lived there, oh-so-many years ago, so it was a lot of fun to revisit.  We started in my favorite wing: the Egyptian wing.

 

The kids thought it was very cool when I explained that there were mummies in these sarcophagi!
Weird side note: the guy on the left above looks like a Sesame Street character that SUPER creeped me out as a kid. Anyone else remember that guy?

I love, love, love this part of the museum - they actually transported an entire tomb over from Egypt in the '60s, and built this gorgeous room to hold it.

The British and French who found these in the 1800s were pretty jerky with the graffiti. C'mon guys!

Still, quite impressive.

We then walked through the American wing, where I really enjoyed looking at all the Tiffany glass. Absolutely stunning windows!

Another gorgeous room (more than a room, really, but I'm having trouble thinking of words tonight. Gallery? is that better?).

We made our way over to the modern art exhibits. Modern art is one of those things that's sometimes cool, sometimes WTF, and sometimes something that a 2 year old could make. But I did like this exhibit, particularly the way the shadows were created by the lighting on the hangers.

When we left the museum, the weather was a bit better (not raining anymore!), so we decided to walk across Central Park to the west side. While walking, we stumbled across these fellas playing in the Park - it was quite lovely.

New England Aquarium

I managed to post up our activities from our first day in Boston, when we visited the Museum of Science with Scott and Amanda (how I got that up so quickly I don't really know!). Before I posted the rest of our adventures in New England, I wanted to get through the giant backlog of posts from January, February and March! Now that is done, I can get through Boston (and then hopefully get April done before we're too far into May...might I catch up at one point? We can only wait and see).

Our second day in Boston (Sunday) was spent primarily at the Aquarium.

We headed there with Scott and Amanda, and met up with our friends (from UVA) Emily & Andy  with their two little ones Dorothy and Ben. We actually had never met Dottie, so it was nice to finally do that! Who doesn't love a trip to the aquarium? I know we all had a great time. I think this is the third time I've been to the New England Aquarium, and it's totally worth it each time - it's a really great place! Even with the crowds (and it was crowded for sure), there's so much to see that you almost don't notice it.

We of course started out with checking out the main exhibit when you walk in: the penguins!

They're so freakin' cute (or maybe I should go full on Boston and say they're "wicked awesome"?).

Noisy buggers, too!

We saw all kinds of marine life: leafy seadragon, lion fish, cuttlefish, clown fish, and more! I don't really have room to show them all here (I'm sure I'll get a blog post up on the photography blog with my favorites soon), but I did want to show the other place where we spent a lot of time: the top of the giant tank! If you haven't been to this aquarium, the entire thing is built around this gigantic circular tank, and you walk up the ramp around it, to the top. Inside of the tank, in addition to the other creatures, were 3 giant sea turtles. While we were there, they decided to hang out near the top, including coming up for air repeatedly.

Then we got to see two of them right next to each other! They were really fun to watch, and in general the tank itself, especially lit at the top, is just beautiful.

After heading out to the market to get some lunch, we went back to the aquarium to see a few of the things we had missed. Just outside is a seal exhibit, and this time (unlike when we arrived), there was one lovely lady lying there sunning herself! She was very cooperative for photos. 

 

You know, you almost forget how deadly those seals can be until you see their mouths open like that...

We then hit the outdoor sea lion pool, which I couldn't really get any good photos in and it was really cold, so we went back in. That led to one of my favorite parts: the touch pool! This one had lots of rays (as they almost all do).

But also small albino sharks! Which I touched, multiple times! It's crazy how compact and powerful it feels (and also like sandpaper). Natalie and I were super excited for that...and this one kept coming back to us a lot!

 

Outside I had Scott take a family photo for us...definitely a fun day!

Boston Museum of Science

On Saturday, we spent our first day in Boston at the Museum of Science. I hadn't been to this museum on any of our previous trips, and my sister in law Amanda was able to get us coupons for discounted admission, which was great! We all had a blast there, checking out the various things at the museum. The first thing that we saw was this fantastic Rube Goldberg-ian structure. 

 Henry had seen the dinosaurs on our way in (there was a window overlooking the exhibit) so we had to head there first. Very cool triceratops skeleton!

 The kids enjoyed comparing their hands to the T-rex "footprint" (yes they were allowed to touch it).

 Loved the giant T-rex model!

 

We then moved on to various other things around the museum. Henry enjoyed spinning this engine to simulate wind through the turbine.

 We watched an IMAX movie on Humpback Whales; this was the coolest IMAX screen ever! It actually extended all the way up and around, over 180 degrees. We were near the front, but laid back in our seat to watch some of the movie on the screen above us! It was very cool and the kids loved it. I couldn't get a good picture of the theater, but grabbed this one of Natalie talking to Amanda and Scott after the movie.

 Outside of the IMAX theater was the Heyden Planetarium. We didn't go to a show there, but we had a great time checking out all of the information on the planets, solar system, and more! Very great interactive displays.

 There were a few random things that caught the kids' attention, such as the giant grasshopper model (the science museum was very big on models and scale) on the left. I asked Natalie to take a photo inside of the picture frame on the right (Henry wouldn't cooperate).

 

Amanda and I then took the kids to the butterfly garden. Henry didn't enjoy it as much as we did (mostly Natalie and I), so Amanda took him out after a bit. Natalie and I loved seeing all of the butterflies! I posted a bunch of my favorite butterfly photos on the photography blog; this photo isn't the best, as the butterfly was moving too quickly, but how beautiful is this one?!

 We then spent some time in the kids "playground" area. There, they use various things such as swings, pulleys, balances, etc to teach the kids about physics. Here we are learning about balance.

 And Henry is using centripetal force to make himself go faster and slower as he spins around.

 I enjoyed taking photos in the various mirrors they had in one part of the museum. Mirrors and camera = fun!

 This one is my favorite!

 The Museum of Science is very cool! I definitely recommend if you're in Boston. The kids loved it, we had a good time, and despite the crazy crowds it was a lot of fun. So glad we got to go!