What Do Picasso and Chief Seattle Have in Common?

We played hooky yesterday.  I forgot to even call Emma's school to tell them.  There was a message on my machine when I got home.  Apparently, "the absence will remain unexcused until they hear from me."

I think if it stays unexcused for too long, they'll take away my birthday.

But I'm just guessing.

Mark and I abandoned our school room.  Adam stayed home from work.  Braeden and Emma stayed home from school.

And then we all went to Seattle.

I drove and when Adam lets me drive in a place like Seattle he's either really really tired or out of his mind.

He was tired.

Having me drive in Seattle has a way of waking him up though.

We went to the Seattle Art Museum for the Picasso exhibit.

How could we not?

Picasso is not my favorite artist in the world but an extremely interesting one and I wanted to take the chance to show our kids the traveling exhibit.  Braeden soaked it up, listening to an audio recording.  Emma hated the crowds and was grumpy but eventually came around.  Mark, with his typical gusto, listened in on Adam's audio recording, demanding I listened to certain descriptions.  He pushed and pulled me to look at what he wanted to show me and was cautioned 3,476,893 times not to touch anything.

Towards the end he said, "Mom, you're going to think this is crazy, but I'm not sure art is my thing.  I think sculpture is my thing."

(It was OK; I already thought Mark was crazy.)

We wandered through SAM for awhile.  Mark and I needed a bathroom break and when we joined up with Adam and the other two, Braeden called, "Mark, I have to show you something."

Mark ran into the room at full speed and said, "It's #10!"

Braeden said, "I know, look!"

They skedaddled over to Mark Rothko's #10 hanging on the wall then Mark put on the brakes and on the adjacent wall, there sat Helen Frankenthaler's Buzzard's Bay.  He had just learned about both paintings last week in school.

Every once in awhile, they remember something.  And that's thrilling.

We went to lunch at a Thai restaurant, not far from the Space Needle, which overlooks the statue of Chief Seattle.

handsome guy

Mark ran laps around the statue.

Both directions.

And Braeden and Emma talked and talked.  They miss each other now that they no longer spend all of their days together.

It seemed like everything was right with the world.

All together.

from the looks of this picture I even brought some extra chins...I wouldn't have included it except for look at my cute baby boy