Karin's Life in America

Monday, February 26, 2007

Outing at the sculpture park

We have been so busy that I find less and less time to write. Well, it probably did not help that there was no school last week and that we are getting more and more serious with the remodel. And, off course, it was my birthday, so there was partying to be done. A few weeks ago the new "Seattle Art Museum Olympic Sculpture Park" finally opened. It is a park stretched along a former industrial site along the waterfront in Belltown. And as in the name, it displays sculptures. Now, I am not a fan of 3-dimensional art, which did not hold us back from checking it out. I can not say, I found a new passion. To be fair, the exhibit is by all means great. I just really hate rusted metal and red/orange metal structures. The design of the park is wonderful. It makes great use of the space and is fitted very well in the surrounding landscape and architecture. We crossed busy streets without knowing it; some of the sculptures are very large scale. The children loved to run around and play hide and seek. My favorite piece is the "Seattle Vivarium" which make this park so specific Northwestern. It is a nurse log in a greenhouse where the natural process of decomposition of a dead tree trunk will continue for the next 100 years. It is amazing to see how the artist transferred a piece of the rainforest into the city.

Friday, February 02, 2007

Girls, Girls, Girls

Now, that the snow seems to be done with - at least for a while - we are settling back into a routine. Mondays we have Totwatch, Tuesday and Wednesday are free, Thursdays Ally visits and Marlene has swimming, and on Fridays Amelia goes to Ali's house, so that I can volunteer in Marlene's classroom. The weather has been so nice (rain is absent), that we have been going to the zoo a lot. It is a great place for the girls to run around. I love this time of the year at the zoo, because there are not many visitors, and the animals love to go outside when the sun shines. Then they get really active. On Tuesday Marlene's school had an open house and Art Walk, so here are some pictures of Marlene next to her art work. Amelia loves to built things. I really think she might be an engineer one day. Here she is, helping me assemble a bed, we bought at Ikea. Whenever I tighten a screw she has to tighten the same screw with a screw driver. Or she looks for other screws around the house.