Sorry It's Been So Long

Really, I am. It's been a very busy time, plus I knew exactly what I wanted to blog about next. However, that subject required pictures to be loaded from my phone onto the computer, and then hosted, etc. And that took some time and effort. But, here I am now, with my next post complete with pictures! YAYNESS!

So, last Friday, my oldest heathen's art class went on a walking tour of the Dallas Arts District. My husband and I chaperoned. We walked somewhere around 4 miles that day. And I took pictures (although not enough of them-sorry!). What they did was divide the kids into small groups of around 9. Then each kid had to have their sketch book, a pencil, and this list of questions. The chaperones got a map. The map was numbered, and told exactly what order to do everything in. Then we walked to the numbered areas in order, and at each place the kids had to sketch what they saw, or answer a question about what they saw. There were 36 places in all, but I only got pictures of a handful, and we didn't have time to get all of them.

First stop was the Nasher Sculpture Garden. There they were to decide where they thought these people were going:




Then they were to "peek" inside the center and find a sculpture they liked and write about it.

They then had to note the balance used in the Trammell Crow Fountain:



Next is write what story they thought this sculpture was telling:



Next was to decide what this horse is thinking:



Sadly, my daughter's friend said it was feeling violated - due to the elementary children walking under it and exclaiming over it's anatomically-correctfulnes...... yes I know I just made up a word.......

Then there was the architecture of the Belo Mansion:



and the Cathedral of Guadalupe:



The picture of Guadalupe Cathedral is the first of these pictures that I actually took. I got that from one of the many skywalks connecting the various business buildings downtown. I apologize for the quality - it's a camera phone.....

Next they were to draw a birds eye view from the Sky Lobby in the Chase Tower. First - I took some birds eye pictures:





Then a couple pics of the Sky Lobby itself:




Then they were to find where rainbows begin in the Plaza of the Americas.....

There are a few rainbows on this ice skating rink:



And then I took a pic of the kids in our group inside a rainbow in the walkway:



My heathen is bottom left. What causes the rainbows? There are hundreds of huge prisms hung in front of all the windows high up in the tower ceilings and walls!

There is a sculpture garden themed around cancer survivors. One sculpture that I can't find a picture for is a 5,000 pound (I think) granite ball that sits in a depression with running water. It's too huge for any one person to ever be able to move, but since it "floats" on the constantly moving water, you can turn it, spin it, change it's direction. It's symbolic of man's fight with cancer. Very cool - if you're ever in Dallas you should definitely check it out! Another sculpture in the cancer garden that I DID get a pic of is a maze with people of various ages and conditions entering it - the maze being cancer - and some making it out the other side. Here is my heathen posing with a "survivor":



Next is another sculpture:



Who was the artist and what year was it made? Pretty simple.

*note* I've skipped a lot of things I don't have any pictures for - and will be continuing to do so. So if someone out there is actually counting and later says "there weren't 36 things in your list" - no there aren't I just didn't get pictures/couldn't find pictures of all things. *raspberries*

Moving on...

Next was my favorite thing - Thanksgiving Square. Now, that link will show some of the same pictures I have here - but I want to share the ones *I* took, so there.

Here is the Thanksgiving Chapel:



And the stained glass windows inside the spiral of the chapel:



Absolutely gorgeous! And quite a nice picture to come from a measly cell phone camera.....if I do say so myself.

And then a gorgeous mosaic outside the chapel:



Then on to this mural in a very boring parking lot:




Now for a couple random pics of my beautiful heathen:


sketching outside the Thanksgiving Chapel


sketching beside the mosaic

And here is the whole group at the end of the day outside the DMA



And that's my blog for today! Although it wasn't the end of THAT day. These worn out kids then went on to their Spring Dance that night - I'll be putting up the pics of my heathen decked out for THAT next time!