Our weekend, there was Muppets and Mud!
We went to Washington, DC, and saw some fun things, picked some veggies, played with Muppets, and dug some dirt....
Now, first, I should be honest. I have had several folks comment on how they really enjoy my detailed posts with all the images. I appreciate this alot. I should let it be know that most of this detail is for....grandmothers.
Yes, "Mimi" and "Oma" live quite a ways from us, and get to experience their grandchildren vicariously through my blog. Hence the vast plethora of cute Ellawyn pictures. It's not just that I love her so much and think she is so great. If her grandmothers lived nearby and got to see her more, I imagine that my journal would be a much less glorious place, filled with random posts, trivial entries, and memes. This has been a public service announcement. Wave hello to my Moms.
So this past weekend we went to visit our dear friends, Heather, Pat, Eden, and Anya. I have written about them a couple of times, we stayed with them for Greenbelt Green Man Festival, and there was tons of cute pictures of Anya, their little toddler daughter, in my entry for Spoutwood Fairie Festival. They were going to come out here for a visit, but we realized that Ellawyn was now old enough to enjoy the museums of D.C. so we went there. Unfortunately, their 11 year old daughter, Eden, was off visiting her birth father for the summer, so we missed her. But Anya was as adorable as ever. Here is the gratuitous cute baby picture.
On Friday, when we arrived, something came over us, and after getting the kids to bed, the adults stayed up till after 1:00 am drinking to much wine and talking. This was fun, but we are all fuddy duddies and go to bed earlier than this usually. Originally we were awaiting Heather's husband Pat to arrive at midnight. He is a nut for white water kayaking and paddling and they live near Great Falls, on the Potomac River. We was out for a full moon paddle with a group of friends. I understand that kayakers do that sort of thing. This is evidence that they are all mad. Once he came in with company, well, the conversation was rolling.
Despite the late night, I woke up early Saturday morning for some photography around Heather's lovely neighborhood. It is positively thick flowers. So here are some pretty pictures to entice your senses.
I mentioned in a previous post that Heather was creating a "Guerrilla Garden" on a waste area across from her house. It has come in very nicely and is thick with squash vines, tomatoes and more. Here is close up a squash flower.
This is a flower that I shot as a desktop.
A funny little closeup of dewdrops on the Kale leaves.
Cherry tomatoes ripening on the vine.
A curly bean vine and flower are nice.
The "Rose of Sharon" bushes are starting to flower all over. I love these blooms, and we have a bunch of them on our property. This is one of Heather's neighbors.
An actual rose in amazingly vibrant pink color.
Another unknown flower, with a bumblebee hard at work.
Echinacea purpurea, or "purple coneflower" in it's shining glory. Taking pictures like this is really easy. Nature does the work, I just point the camera lens.
Lots of "Living Flowers" are fluttering about, doing their butterfly thing. Here is a Tiger Swallowtail exhibiting the fact the ventral side of their wings is often more beautiful than the dorsal side.
And a zebra swallowtail in ecstasy on a purple butterfly bush.
I took this one just for my darling wife to use as a desktop. She is my Sunflower after all.
So finally we got going for the day, some of us just the teensy bit hungover, and headed down town to the National Mall. Specifically to see !Dinosaur Bones!, which is what Ellawyn knew was there. When I lived in Anne Arundel County, we used to visit DC regularly, and always took the Metro in. Pat is a Capital District native and guided us to where we could drive around the Mall, gaze like tourist at the buildings and found us parking. Very nice. However, we rapidly learned a very important lesson.
Do Not Visit The Smithsonian Museums On A Saturday In July.
Not sure why we did not come to our senses about this beforehand, but by the time we were in the midst of the vast seas of humanity downtown, it was too late and we were committed to our endeavor.
However, we were immensely glad for our timing. Although our goal was the National Museum of Natural History, we have a family tradition always hitting the Smithsonian Castle to orient ourselves and see what is at the museums. That, and I adore the Gothic, sandstone building.
As luck would have it, we were there in time for Jim Henson's Fantastic World. A retrospective of this fantastic genius's career, the exhibit is in the International Gallery, underground beneath the Castle gardens.
It Was Wonderful! To say the least!
Jim Henson, creator of the Kermit the Frog and the Muppets, if you didn't know, was from Hyattsville, MD, and went to school at University of Maryland. The exhibit is like a coming home of a native son, and we learned later that there are a whole host of events planned in the area with a film festival in Silver Spring. So if your a Muppet fan, and live in the area, (ahem....acroyear70), then get thyself down to see this!
I have personally discovered a new-found passion for Henson and all things Henson. I always loved them, but reading about Jim, his ideas and passions, and how it influenced his work, has got me going and I spent a bunch of time researching online today. The entrance of the exhibit had quotes on the wall from Jim and his shows, and several will make their way onto bumper stickers from Flying Wingnut Graphics. Here are a couple.
This one is a little hard to read.
It says, "As children, we live in a world of imagination, of fantasy, and for some of us that world of make-believe continues into adulthood."
Here is one from Fraggle Rock, which is a blast from the past for some of my generation. I think that show influenced me more than I realized. I hope it starts airing again.
And this one, it speaks for itself...
This picture is purely for those grandmothers I mentioned at the beginning, if your not a grandma, please feel free to move along. It's the kids next to a fountain pool in the atrium just before the exhibit.
We weren't "supposed" to take pictures actually in the exhibition, and usually I am very respectful of these rules as they are to protect copyright and light sensitive exhibits. But you see, they had stuff from The Dark Crystal! This, for the few that may not know, is a wonderful Henson movie that was one of two he collaborated on with the influential fantasy artist, Brian Froud, the other movie being Labyrinth. Brian's work, and that movie, is one of the reason's we do what we do. Brian Froud actually writes a regular column for Faerie Magazine, and its been a real honor to be associated with him, and we got the pleasure of meeting him and his wife, Wendy, (who worked for Henson during the early days, they met on the Dark Crystal set) at FaerieCon, last year. It was there that Brian told me, when I mentioned his hero status to me, that I was lucky to meet my influences as "all his heroes were dead.", I couldn't help but reflect on this while learning about Jim and realizing his influence on me.
So there I am, confronted with Dark Crystal props, especially the dress of Kira, the female heroine from the movie. As it was Muppet sized, it would have fit Ellawyn perfectly, so I turned off the flash and took a quiet little picture of the collar detail. Please forgive me.
And here is a lovely bit from the podcast tour of the show. Jim Henson's daughter speaking about the imagination and inspiration that is the Dark Crystal.
And if you are a Henson and Crystal fan, they are in production on a sequel...yes, it's true. The Power of the Dark Crystal is scheduled for a 2009 release, despite what is termed continuous production difficulties.
It was in the gift shop of the exhibit that we realized that we were missing a critical book from our Brian Froud collection. The World Of The Dark Crystal is an amazing tome crafted as manuscript of cosmological diagrams and sacred geometry of the world. We will immediately be correcting this lack and here is the cover to illustrate the beautiful imagery that Brian and Jim created.
The rest of the exhibit was just as delightful. A full presentation of and time line of Jim's career and life. A collection of his drawings and illustrations and stories of his early career in television. Naturally, there were several glass cases containing original Muppets. The lean green one himself, Kermit the Frog, was front and center. Bert and Ernie were in attendance, and, like the Mona Lisa, they are smaller than you would think. Rowlf the Dog was there, with his piano keyboard. I learned that Rowlf was one of Jim's favorites and the first Muppet to have a national image through his appearance on the Jimmy Dean Show. Of course, if you would like to learn all you can about Muppets, I would recommend MuppetWiki.
Our favorite Muppets were by far the Mahna Mahna and the two Snowths.
Who? you say....well, these guys.
The kids of all ages, needless to say, loved the whole thing. Ellawyn and Anya found a whole wall of felt and flannel Muppet shapes with noses, eyes, and other facial features for you to Velcro on. And Ellawyn's favorite was the Muppet theater. This was a framed puppet theater, with one way glass for the little puppeteers to see through, lots of Sesame Street hand puppets, and a fake T.V. camera so little film makers could watch what the puppets would do. The very first picture was of Ellawyn playing in the puppet theater and here is another of her with Anya and Heather.
Just as you left the exhibit there was a huge mirror, and inscribe over it was another Jim Henson quote. "Who do you want to be today"...
An excellent epitaph for Jim's legacy.
We really should have spent the whole day there, doing the Muppet thing, but it has taken time to realize how cool it was. We needed lunch and wanted to go see those bones. So off to the NMNH, one of the most popular and crowded museum in the Smithsonian's repertoire.
It was indeed pack and buzzing with the noise of a hundred languages. Ellawyn was properly in awe by the T-Rex, and other giant skeleton installations. Here are the kids in a excellent tourist shot, in front of the Triceratops skull. The blue glare is actually another parent, on the other side, taking a flash picture of their kids.
As every kid needs, Ellawyn got shoulder rides in the crowds. Some from her big brother. The best part of my day was listening to Jared tell Ell the details of the dinosaurs. Jared, like many boys, had a dino affection for many years, but he took it very seriously and can still list names and species.
Of course, she got some shoulder time from her dad as well. We are in the ancient mammals section which was amazing for her. She wasn't aware that there were giant mammals as well as dinosaurs. The sloths and mammoths were very impressive to her 5 year old mind, and my own as well.
We took a break in the Discovery Room, filled with skulls, feathers, money of the world, seashells, and much more. All of you CAN touch! A real change from the rest of the museum for the kids. Here is Heather, Pat, and Anya, looking the lovely family.
Upstairs at the NMNH awaited another pleasant surprise. We were there for the first day of Dig It: The Secrets of Soil. A great exhibit for a bunch of gardeners and dirt lovers. Here is Ellawyn making a soil sample in a tube.
There were quotes here too, words about dirt, which I could wax poetically about as well. I understand this quote so deeply, I can feel it in my bones.
On the way back to the van, we slipped through the Sackler Gallery as it's long hallways were in line with where we parked, and we could enjoy the art and air conditioning and still be heading in the right direction. All of the adults being students of Dharma teachings, enjoyed the Buddha images greatly. This one, in scale, was quite large and exceptionally lovely.
Jared has a passion for all things Japanese and he and I strolled through the exhibition of Edo Period artifacts in awe.
Back at Heather's, a tired bunch of hungry folks headed to her garden for some harvesting, picking, and to provide some feasting for the mosquitoes.
Peter Rabbit was flushed from beneath the green beans and posed for pictures, just before Ellawyn and I played the part of the farmer and chased him, "Yah Rabbit, Get out of HERE, Leave our Vegetables ALONE!" she said.
Leah and our fairy goddaughter.
And the whole picking gang together.
On Sunday, before heading back, we visited a local playground to let Ell burn off some energy before the 2+ hour drive. She played at being a drive through cashier, a symptom of our semi-nomadic lifestyle and fast food habits on the road.
I got to pose for a rare picture with my one of my other favorite ladies in the world. Heather is truly like a sister-in-law to me, and I love her dearly.
While there, Ellawyn discovered a bridge, and decided to be a troll. It was spontaneous and shows that the constant exposure to fantasy and story is influencing her rich imaginative life. Here she is, putting the kibbutz on any plans that Heather may have about crossing her bridge.
Yep, that is some exceptional cuteness. Remember the grandmothers. So just for their, and yours, if you are so inclined, amusement, here is a video of the little Troll and her victims.
I will leave you with one last Jim Henson quote...
KUBIANDO!
Now, first, I should be honest. I have had several folks comment on how they really enjoy my detailed posts with all the images. I appreciate this alot. I should let it be know that most of this detail is for....grandmothers.
Yes, "Mimi" and "Oma" live quite a ways from us, and get to experience their grandchildren vicariously through my blog. Hence the vast plethora of cute Ellawyn pictures. It's not just that I love her so much and think she is so great. If her grandmothers lived nearby and got to see her more, I imagine that my journal would be a much less glorious place, filled with random posts, trivial entries, and memes. This has been a public service announcement. Wave hello to my Moms.
So this past weekend we went to visit our dear friends, Heather, Pat, Eden, and Anya. I have written about them a couple of times, we stayed with them for Greenbelt Green Man Festival, and there was tons of cute pictures of Anya, their little toddler daughter, in my entry for Spoutwood Fairie Festival. They were going to come out here for a visit, but we realized that Ellawyn was now old enough to enjoy the museums of D.C. so we went there. Unfortunately, their 11 year old daughter, Eden, was off visiting her birth father for the summer, so we missed her. But Anya was as adorable as ever. Here is the gratuitous cute baby picture.
On Friday, when we arrived, something came over us, and after getting the kids to bed, the adults stayed up till after 1:00 am drinking to much wine and talking. This was fun, but we are all fuddy duddies and go to bed earlier than this usually. Originally we were awaiting Heather's husband Pat to arrive at midnight. He is a nut for white water kayaking and paddling and they live near Great Falls, on the Potomac River. We was out for a full moon paddle with a group of friends. I understand that kayakers do that sort of thing. This is evidence that they are all mad. Once he came in with company, well, the conversation was rolling.
Despite the late night, I woke up early Saturday morning for some photography around Heather's lovely neighborhood. It is positively thick flowers. So here are some pretty pictures to entice your senses.
I mentioned in a previous post that Heather was creating a "Guerrilla Garden" on a waste area across from her house. It has come in very nicely and is thick with squash vines, tomatoes and more. Here is close up a squash flower.
This is a flower that I shot as a desktop.
A funny little closeup of dewdrops on the Kale leaves.
Cherry tomatoes ripening on the vine.
A curly bean vine and flower are nice.
The "Rose of Sharon" bushes are starting to flower all over. I love these blooms, and we have a bunch of them on our property. This is one of Heather's neighbors.
An actual rose in amazingly vibrant pink color.
Another unknown flower, with a bumblebee hard at work.
Echinacea purpurea, or "purple coneflower" in it's shining glory. Taking pictures like this is really easy. Nature does the work, I just point the camera lens.
Lots of "Living Flowers" are fluttering about, doing their butterfly thing. Here is a Tiger Swallowtail exhibiting the fact the ventral side of their wings is often more beautiful than the dorsal side.
And a zebra swallowtail in ecstasy on a purple butterfly bush.
I took this one just for my darling wife to use as a desktop. She is my Sunflower after all.
So finally we got going for the day, some of us just the teensy bit hungover, and headed down town to the National Mall. Specifically to see !Dinosaur Bones!, which is what Ellawyn knew was there. When I lived in Anne Arundel County, we used to visit DC regularly, and always took the Metro in. Pat is a Capital District native and guided us to where we could drive around the Mall, gaze like tourist at the buildings and found us parking. Very nice. However, we rapidly learned a very important lesson.
Do Not Visit The Smithsonian Museums On A Saturday In July.
Not sure why we did not come to our senses about this beforehand, but by the time we were in the midst of the vast seas of humanity downtown, it was too late and we were committed to our endeavor.
However, we were immensely glad for our timing. Although our goal was the National Museum of Natural History, we have a family tradition always hitting the Smithsonian Castle to orient ourselves and see what is at the museums. That, and I adore the Gothic, sandstone building.
As luck would have it, we were there in time for Jim Henson's Fantastic World. A retrospective of this fantastic genius's career, the exhibit is in the International Gallery, underground beneath the Castle gardens.
It Was Wonderful! To say the least!
Jim Henson, creator of the Kermit the Frog and the Muppets, if you didn't know, was from Hyattsville, MD, and went to school at University of Maryland. The exhibit is like a coming home of a native son, and we learned later that there are a whole host of events planned in the area with a film festival in Silver Spring. So if your a Muppet fan, and live in the area, (ahem....acroyear70), then get thyself down to see this!
I have personally discovered a new-found passion for Henson and all things Henson. I always loved them, but reading about Jim, his ideas and passions, and how it influenced his work, has got me going and I spent a bunch of time researching online today. The entrance of the exhibit had quotes on the wall from Jim and his shows, and several will make their way onto bumper stickers from Flying Wingnut Graphics. Here are a couple.
This one is a little hard to read.
It says, "As children, we live in a world of imagination, of fantasy, and for some of us that world of make-believe continues into adulthood."
Here is one from Fraggle Rock, which is a blast from the past for some of my generation. I think that show influenced me more than I realized. I hope it starts airing again.
And this one, it speaks for itself...
This picture is purely for those grandmothers I mentioned at the beginning, if your not a grandma, please feel free to move along. It's the kids next to a fountain pool in the atrium just before the exhibit.
We weren't "supposed" to take pictures actually in the exhibition, and usually I am very respectful of these rules as they are to protect copyright and light sensitive exhibits. But you see, they had stuff from The Dark Crystal! This, for the few that may not know, is a wonderful Henson movie that was one of two he collaborated on with the influential fantasy artist, Brian Froud, the other movie being Labyrinth. Brian's work, and that movie, is one of the reason's we do what we do. Brian Froud actually writes a regular column for Faerie Magazine, and its been a real honor to be associated with him, and we got the pleasure of meeting him and his wife, Wendy, (who worked for Henson during the early days, they met on the Dark Crystal set) at FaerieCon, last year. It was there that Brian told me, when I mentioned his hero status to me, that I was lucky to meet my influences as "all his heroes were dead.", I couldn't help but reflect on this while learning about Jim and realizing his influence on me.
So there I am, confronted with Dark Crystal props, especially the dress of Kira, the female heroine from the movie. As it was Muppet sized, it would have fit Ellawyn perfectly, so I turned off the flash and took a quiet little picture of the collar detail. Please forgive me.
And here is a lovely bit from the podcast tour of the show. Jim Henson's daughter speaking about the imagination and inspiration that is the Dark Crystal.
And if you are a Henson and Crystal fan, they are in production on a sequel...yes, it's true. The Power of the Dark Crystal is scheduled for a 2009 release, despite what is termed continuous production difficulties.
It was in the gift shop of the exhibit that we realized that we were missing a critical book from our Brian Froud collection. The World Of The Dark Crystal is an amazing tome crafted as manuscript of cosmological diagrams and sacred geometry of the world. We will immediately be correcting this lack and here is the cover to illustrate the beautiful imagery that Brian and Jim created.
The rest of the exhibit was just as delightful. A full presentation of and time line of Jim's career and life. A collection of his drawings and illustrations and stories of his early career in television. Naturally, there were several glass cases containing original Muppets. The lean green one himself, Kermit the Frog, was front and center. Bert and Ernie were in attendance, and, like the Mona Lisa, they are smaller than you would think. Rowlf the Dog was there, with his piano keyboard. I learned that Rowlf was one of Jim's favorites and the first Muppet to have a national image through his appearance on the Jimmy Dean Show. Of course, if you would like to learn all you can about Muppets, I would recommend MuppetWiki.
Our favorite Muppets were by far the Mahna Mahna and the two Snowths.
Who? you say....well, these guys.
Click to viewThe kids of all ages, needless to say, loved the whole thing. Ellawyn and Anya found a whole wall of felt and flannel Muppet shapes with noses, eyes, and other facial features for you to Velcro on. And Ellawyn's favorite was the Muppet theater. This was a framed puppet theater, with one way glass for the little puppeteers to see through, lots of Sesame Street hand puppets, and a fake T.V. camera so little film makers could watch what the puppets would do. The very first picture was of Ellawyn playing in the puppet theater and here is another of her with Anya and Heather.
Just as you left the exhibit there was a huge mirror, and inscribe over it was another Jim Henson quote. "Who do you want to be today"...
An excellent epitaph for Jim's legacy.
We really should have spent the whole day there, doing the Muppet thing, but it has taken time to realize how cool it was. We needed lunch and wanted to go see those bones. So off to the NMNH, one of the most popular and crowded museum in the Smithsonian's repertoire.
It was indeed pack and buzzing with the noise of a hundred languages. Ellawyn was properly in awe by the T-Rex, and other giant skeleton installations. Here are the kids in a excellent tourist shot, in front of the Triceratops skull. The blue glare is actually another parent, on the other side, taking a flash picture of their kids.
As every kid needs, Ellawyn got shoulder rides in the crowds. Some from her big brother. The best part of my day was listening to Jared tell Ell the details of the dinosaurs. Jared, like many boys, had a dino affection for many years, but he took it very seriously and can still list names and species.
Of course, she got some shoulder time from her dad as well. We are in the ancient mammals section which was amazing for her. She wasn't aware that there were giant mammals as well as dinosaurs. The sloths and mammoths were very impressive to her 5 year old mind, and my own as well.
We took a break in the Discovery Room, filled with skulls, feathers, money of the world, seashells, and much more. All of you CAN touch! A real change from the rest of the museum for the kids. Here is Heather, Pat, and Anya, looking the lovely family.
Upstairs at the NMNH awaited another pleasant surprise. We were there for the first day of Dig It: The Secrets of Soil. A great exhibit for a bunch of gardeners and dirt lovers. Here is Ellawyn making a soil sample in a tube.
There were quotes here too, words about dirt, which I could wax poetically about as well. I understand this quote so deeply, I can feel it in my bones.
On the way back to the van, we slipped through the Sackler Gallery as it's long hallways were in line with where we parked, and we could enjoy the art and air conditioning and still be heading in the right direction. All of the adults being students of Dharma teachings, enjoyed the Buddha images greatly. This one, in scale, was quite large and exceptionally lovely.
Jared has a passion for all things Japanese and he and I strolled through the exhibition of Edo Period artifacts in awe.
Back at Heather's, a tired bunch of hungry folks headed to her garden for some harvesting, picking, and to provide some feasting for the mosquitoes.
Peter Rabbit was flushed from beneath the green beans and posed for pictures, just before Ellawyn and I played the part of the farmer and chased him, "Yah Rabbit, Get out of HERE, Leave our Vegetables ALONE!" she said.
Leah and our fairy goddaughter.
And the whole picking gang together.
On Sunday, before heading back, we visited a local playground to let Ell burn off some energy before the 2+ hour drive. She played at being a drive through cashier, a symptom of our semi-nomadic lifestyle and fast food habits on the road.
I got to pose for a rare picture with my one of my other favorite ladies in the world. Heather is truly like a sister-in-law to me, and I love her dearly.
While there, Ellawyn discovered a bridge, and decided to be a troll. It was spontaneous and shows that the constant exposure to fantasy and story is influencing her rich imaginative life. Here she is, putting the kibbutz on any plans that Heather may have about crossing her bridge.
Yep, that is some exceptional cuteness. Remember the grandmothers. So just for their, and yours, if you are so inclined, amusement, here is a video of the little Troll and her victims.
I will leave you with one last Jim Henson quote...
KUBIANDO!