February Fun

Grandson Timothy is very musical.  He seems to have something of a genius for it.  He is involved with several kinds of music at school.  Recently we attended a percussion concert at the High School.  The sound was interesting and different than anything I've heard before.  It wasn't exactly rhymical to my ear, yet the sounds harmonized in a way.  Hum.  I can't quite explain it.  Tim played the marimba and xylophone.  All the players wore black and coordinated their movements in a very effective way.  Here you see Tim in the middle of the picture, getting ready to play the marimba.

Several months ago daughter Jessica mentioned that a Van Gogh exhibit was coming to Seattle.  What fun, we decided, it would be to invite as many of the family as were interested to join up in Seattle to see the exhibit.  So we sent out an invitation to family members to come, if interested, to Seattle for a weekend in February to see the exhibit.  Then we decided it would be fun to make it an art filled weekend.  So we made plans to offer a variety of fun art projects for all of us to enjoy.  There were nine if us that joined together for a exceptional weekend at Chris and Jessica's.  The Van Gogh exhibit was amazing.  It began with the usual display of his artistic works, with snippets about his life.  Here I am in front of one of the exhibits.

                                                                                                                                                                            Once we had seen the main exhibit, we were led into a very large room filled with chairs.  Patrons filled the chairs and floor to experience Van Gogh's creations all around us.  His art filled the walls and moved along through his various creative periods.  We were surrounded by Van Gogh!  It was magical.  Gentle music played as his artistic images seemed to come to life as they moved all around us.  It was easy to become completely lost in it!  And I did.  I've never experienced anything like it.  Here is a sample of it.

We filled the rest of the weekend with artistic projects.  Jessica taught us macrame; Alexis taught us jewelry making, Chris had a photo project for us and we painted to a tutorial.  At first we tried a Van Gogh painting tutorial but it was a failure for all of us.  You might think we were just not made for Van Gogh, but we came to the conclusion that our instructor just wasn't very good.  That gave us the courage to try another tutorial.  This time we picked out a picture of a cat.  Alejandra loves cats, so we did it for her.  These turned out a little better.  Here you can see them.

We also had fun cooking together.  We learned how to fix sushi, spring rolls and pork filled rolls.  So good.  All of it.  So we ate and created together all through the weekend and it was tons of fun.  We decided that we will do it again next February, in Tucson, for the gem show.  Here are my granddaughter's Alexis, Abigail and Peyton, about to enjoy some custom made food.

Here is our weekend gang. L to R:  Jessica (wife of Chris and hostess), Alejandra (wife of grandson James), Peyton, me, Abigail, Jessica (wife of Ben), Alexis and Dorothy.  

Chris hung out with us most of the time too. He was such fun to have around.  Handy too.  While we were making jewelry in the living room the lights suddenly all went out.  Chris went on the job immediately.  But it wasn't the circuit breaker.  He couldn't figure it out.  So we went without the light for the rest of the evening.  By morning Chris had some ideas.  Sure enough he solved the problem.  There was a loose wire in one of the sockets that caused the blackout.  He soon had it fixed and the lights were back on.  It was a blessing actually, as if not found, the loose wire could have started a fire.  Blessings seem to often come in the form of a problem to be solved it seems.  Here is Chris dressed for repairing.

Monday morning Dorothy and I flew home.  The whole trip went so smoothly!  The week soon filled up.  Reed and Dorothy left on Tuesday to drive to California for the birth of their grandson.  Scott and his Jessica (yup, Jessica #3) had their boy the next day.  It was a challenging delivery as labor went on for many hours with little progress.  Jessica wound up with a C Section and a beautiful 9+ pound baby boy.  His name is Joseph Thomas, continuing the Galbraith tradition of using Joseph as a first name, but being called by the second.  So this little boy will be known as Thomas.  Here he is with his Uncle Bruce.

Thomas was blessed to be born on his Uncle Timothy's birthday.  Tim is Reed and Dorothy's son.  He stayed home from the California trip.  So we celebrated his birthday at our house with dinner and one of his favorite desserts, peach pie.  Most of our Galbraiths would call peach pie a favorite.  Here he is blowing out his pie candles.  He just turned 18.

Granddaughter Allegra (daughter of Audrey and Cliff) will soon be leaving for Indiana, where she has an internship for 6-12 months.  I won't get to see her before she leaves this week.  So I'll plan a trip to Indiana a little later, once she is settled and I'm rested up.  That should be a fun adventure; I've never been to Indiana!

This week is full of upcoming activities, all at home, thank goodness.  At least until Thursday, when I will drive Angelica to Utah, for a dance competition.  For this Granny, rest comes in little pieces, in between other more interesting stuff.  It makes for an stimulating time of life!