Little July Moments

Always look forward to Monday Facetime calls with my favorite missionary. And when the hour is up, we're both super bummed!

While Noah was at football camp, Savannah took over his pool cleaning responsibilities.

She even got some cuddles with one of Mom's cats, a rare occurrence.

But when Noah got home, he was right back at it!

He's dedicated to getting out those leaves!

He even took on bookcases.

A drawing activity for our young women, taught by one of my girls.

They all did a great job.

One week off of football the whole summer and these guys kept right on conditioning!

Noah was worn out and put on a snore fest for me and Bryan.

Our pretty Cleo...

and the beautiful produce fresh out of the garden.

July book club - Animal Farm. There was a little confusion at first because Chelsea had picked a history book instead of a classic but she quickly remedied that and I got another chance to read this fabulous book! Too bad it's not required reading for everyone in this country.

Another Museum Visit

For Noah's AP Art Studio class he has to visit two museums over the summer. While we were discussing possibilities, Bryan suggested the Cincinnati Art Museum. It's not too far from my mom's house plus it's free! So, one day we headed down to Cinci, picked up Bryan, and visited this wonderful museum.

We started off in the area dedicated to the artist Frank Duveneck, once Cincinnati's most celebrated artist. Bryan had written an article about him so he shared his knowlege of this artist with us as we walked through the exhibit.

We then made our way through different sections of the museum, looking at various paintings and objects from all over the world.

I was fascinated by these child's sandals from ancient Egypt. It's crazy that they've survived this long in such good condition!

Love this lion! He was one of my favorite pieces in the museum!

Of course, there's always the stuff that's a little strange...

Noah was reaching his limit, ha ha!

I joked that I could have painted this one.

This sign had caught my eye when we first came in so I wanted to make sure I checked it out before we headed to lunch. I'm so glad we did! It was an exhibit featuring the works of the artist Woo Chong Yung, a highly accomplished painter, calligrapher, and poet from Shanghai. From the 1920's to 1949, Woo was at the center of China's cultural world, recognized in the art circles of Shanghai and Beijing. But when he faced political persecution in the 1960's, he migrated to Columbus, Ohio, right before the Cultural Revolution.

His works were stunning!

To end our visit we had lunch at the museum cafe. It was such a lovely day so we chose to eat out on the terrace. After waiting over an hour for our food, it finally arrived to Noah's relief. Poor guy hadn't ordered much because as he pointed out "When I ordered I wasn't that hungry. Now I'm starving!" so I shared some of my wrap with him. I felt so bad for the waitress who apologized profusely though it wasn't her fault; apparently they were short on cooks and had had several large parties arrive right before us. We ended up getting our meals for free which was nice.

I could have spent so much more time at this wonderful museum so will definitely be going back.