Spring Break 2011

We were looking forward to going to New Hampshire to see the Atkinsons for part of Marc's spring break. No one was more excited than Harper to get going. She announced to everyone she met that she was going to see Eric and Connor. She ran around finding stuff to bring on our trip. So it was pretty disappointing for her when Margo got sick the day before we were going to leave. We waited until we were pretty sure Margo wouldn't throw up in the car and hit the road on Monday night.

A picture of some of the things Harper thought we would need while we were gone. It was fun and sad to watch her gather stuff for the trip. Fun because she was as helpful as she's ever been and she was serious about getting in the car and getting to her cousins' house. Sad because she was so sad we couldn't leave when we said we would.

We made it! And we decorated eggs! And Marc got sick the first day we were there! And I tried not to be mad at him! And he was surprised when I was not mad at him! And he was even more surprised when I was kind and asked how he was feeling!

I am always impressed when kids can set up train tracks or build things out of Lego. Connor and Eric do both of these things well. They set up this track and the big kids played with it for hours. Margo took every chance she had to walk through the room and wreck it. I loved hearing kids shouting at the battery-operated Thomas, "Go Thomas! Go!" as he went head-to-head with James or Percy somewhere on the track.

At Marci's recommendation and because of Atkinsons' kindness and patience we went to see Jose Orozco's The Epic of American Civilization mural in the Baker Library at Dartmouth. There are 24 panels over 3200 square feet covering the history of the Americas from the migration of the Aztecs into central Mexico to the development of our modern industrialized society. I didn't know Jose Orozco was a famous Mexican painter. Or that these murals have been called the greatest mural cycle in the United States. I didn't know anything before we got there. But I was still surprised by what I saw. And after what I read in my visitor brochure I am not sure we should have smiled in front of this panel of his resurrected Jesus. This is what we read about this panel:

Orozco presents a Christ figure who not only rejects his sacrificial destiny by felling his cross but condemns and destroys the sources of his agony.

Interesting things I liked learning about the murals:

*The mural locates America's origins in Indo-Hispanic instead of Anglo-European culture, while characterizing our "civilization" as traumatic rather than an enlightened inheritance.
*He reminds his auiences that "America" is a shared landmass, not a synonym for the United States.

One of the last panels: Modern Industrial Man I

Cousins in front of the Baker Library.

We spent an afternoon at the Montshire Museum of Science just over the Connecticut River in Norwich, Vermont. We had fun playing with and/or watching freshwater fish, turtles, leaf-cutter ants, butterflies, vacuums, marble runs, pulleys, giant bubbles, sheets of bubbles, dry ice, fireflies, Blue Man Group, and making paper helicopters.

A marble run

A sheet of bubble

Tuckered out. Margo loves holding pacifiers when she is going to sleep. There are always at least two in her bed.

Since our car is not fancy enough to have a built-in DVD player we tote this little portable thing around. And so far it works just fine since there is only one kid that needs to watch it.