Freshly-Painted Room

A while back, we decided we'd had enough with the color of our room. I'm not sure what the label on the bucket said, but I'd describe the color of our walls as "Vomited Orange Juice."

We thought we'd like some kind of blue. And "Valley Forge Brown" looked really good on the label. But once the samples were on our walls, the blues weren't satisfactory. And our doubts about Valley Forge Brown was confirmed when Henry walked in and said, "Whoa! That looks like diarrhea!" Not really a big improvement over Tang barf.

We ended up settling on Diplomat Gray. As soon as we started painting, we knew we were going to love it.

This is our room now, and we love it.

Now we just need to take care of the rest of our house. Not sure when we'll get to it. We're just slowly eating the elephant.

Dallas Museum of Art

Last week we went to the Dallas Museum of Art. After visiting the Kimball over President's Day, we were expecting another nice, but small museum. We were in for a big surprise.

The DMA is not only huge, it's gorgeous. The hallways are large and interestingly shaped. When we arrived, a jazz band was playing in this open area decked out with huge glass Chihuly flowers. The kids were interested to learn that not only had their Aunt Amelia taught yoga to Dale Chihuly's wife in the Chihuly home, but the artist wears an eyepatch that kind of makes him half-artist, half-pirate.

Elsa loves Georgie O'Keeffe, and we were glad the DMA has two of her works on display. (Elsa' is posing with her Flat Stanley.)

Not sure who painted this. But it made us a little homesick. It's offers a better view than the one we had when we visited it in person.

In the Asian and Pacific art section, Elsa discovered these warriors. Apparently this art really spoke to her.

Ansel can spot a Modrian a mile away. Actually, I guess anyone can. But it's one artist he knows, so we're happy about that.

We had a great night at the DMA. We only stayed an hour (hard to do more than that with four kids in a "do-not-touch" museum). But it was a great victory for us when we were leaving to have Elsa ask, "Can we come back here tomorrow?"

Henry's Big Guns

Last weekend, Henry went with his scout troop to Camp Wisdom to fire some BB guns and get his shooting pin. Here he is outside the fort with his friend Jack.

That's a real Red Rider BB gun he's firing. And no one shot their eyes out.

They didn't bring a flag for the Pledge of Allegiance. But the one on Henry's sleeve worked just fine.

Most of the kids got tired of shooting after a while. But Henry and Jack kept firing until they ran out of BBs, and talked about saving up for their own guns the whole drive home. Not sure that's going to happen. But if it does, neighborhood rabbits, beware!