We love three day weekends!

Three day weekends are just the best - aren't they? The excitement felt at work on the Friday before a 3 day weekend is so palpable. Everyone is joyous, everyone is nice, and everyone just wants to get the weekend started!

Friday night Chad and I went to the MFA (Museum of Fine Arts) for free because it was a free family fun day. We had not been yet and been wanting to go for some time. It's supposedly a fabulous museum and after about two years we thought it was time for us to go. We especially wanted to go now because the MFA was having a Chihuly special exhibit.

The Chihuly exhibit "Through the Looking Glass" was absolutely fantastic! We loved it! I don't believe I had ever seen one of his pieces in real life even though the man is from Seattle. They were all so spectacular. And so huge! The first piece was a boat full of different glass objects in different colors, sizes, and shapes. This was one of my favorites pieces - it's hard to pick only one! The boat sits on glass, so you see the reflection as well. He apparently got the idea in Norway (I think - some Scandinavian country) when for another project he was using a boat to cart his work around and he thought... hey, that looks really cool. And it does. The next piece was gargantuan. It took up an entire room and was basically a glass forest. It was so beautiful - I wanted to take 500  pictures of just this one piece. It's so hard to explain these pieces, so I'm going to let the pictures say it all.

 

The next room was filled with all these different glass bowls modeled after native American baskets. Apparently this was the largest collection of glass bowls ever displayed before in an exhibit. Even further, this was supposed to be the largest collection of his work ever displayed in one place before. The glass bowls all nested in each other in different formations and sat on this gigantic beautiful wooden table. 

Another room that was one of my favorites was the 'Persian Ceiling.' It was a smaller room but the ceiling was filled with what must have been thousands of different glass objects in all different sizes, shapes, and colors. It was absolutely amazing looking. You probably could have spent hours looking at all the different pieces. The next room had 7 of his glass chandeliers hanging from the ceiling - all unique and so colorful. I can't even imagine what one of those things weigh. What if that fell from the ceiling?

There were a few other pieces that were also fun. We stepped into the gift shop after the exhibit - funny how you don't have a choice but to go through the gift shop when you exit the exhibit. They were of course selling Chihuly books, trinkets, etc. They even had real Chihuly glass bowls that only cost $7,000 a piece! Quite a bargain really.

We spent the next hour browsing the 'Art of Europe' section. We particularly enjoyed the impressionism room - if only to actually recognize artist's names. We saw Monet, Manet, Van Gough, and Renoir. I have to say, I don't care for Monet. I can certainly see how someone could appreciate his art, but I'm not moved by it. I did like Van Gough, especially his postman painting. I wish I had captured a better picture. All in all, we really enjoyed our time at the MFA and look forward to going again soon!

Saturday was the usual; haymarket, grocery store, laundry, etc. We did have a nice walk on the Esplanade in the early afternoon.  Then we went over to Lloyd and Kim's house for dinner. They had an amazing spread as always. We had lamb, an awesome Caesar salad with homemade dressing and beef bacon, mashed potatoes, and bread with prosciutto and cheese. It was all terribly delicious. Every time we go there we leave so full! We also had some of our favorite wine from Trader Joes called Cocobon. It's really delicious with chocolate and cherry notes. It's a fabulous wine to enjoy by itself, it doesn't need to be paired with a meal. Lloyd actually asked the Trader Joes wine expert what he would recommend if one like Cocobon and the expert replied that there is nothing better then Cocobon. I made pazooki for dessert and we played several rounds of Dominion. Kim and I also spent time organizing a BBQ/Game night that were hosting this coming weekend for married couples at our church. We shared a delightful moment when we realized we both love anything organizational; especially day planners that we can color coordinate!

Sunday was church as usual. However, there have been some new developments in the RTM (refreshment table ministry) that I'm very excited about. Lloyd & Kim, as well as another Highrocker named Brady, are joining the ministry. I will now have help! Which means I don't have to go early to set up every Sunday! I'm ecstatic - can you tell? We wanted to do something fun and outdoorsy on Sunday after church, but we couldn't figure anything out, so we just ended up going to SOWA which is a farmer's market/antique shops/yummy food vendors/craft vendors thing every Sunday in the South End. It was fun to walk around and see all the neat stuff and of course to try yummy things like honey, cheese, biscotti, etc. We've been once before with Gammy & Papa. I think we'll have to take my parents when they visit in September. Chad spent the rest of the afternoon in a baking frenzy. He made sundried tomato and garlic bread as well as naan (which was delicious and went very well with our curry later that night). We watched Aliens that night (after watching Alien a few months ago) and deemed it a great sequel. Although, I didn't appreciate it when Chad made his hand like a facegrabber and pretending to attack my face (you probably won't understand that if you haven't seen the movie... it's an Alien thing).

Monday was super fun. We slept in until 9 am - which is practically unheard of in the Mayer household. We played Munchin while munching on waffles. Then I set out to wash the car - which it needed very badly. I was so excited to have the car all nice and clean. Too bad later in the day, about 300 sticky sappy buds fell all over the car and there must have been some sort of Fourth of July bird fiesta above our car because they left the evidence everywhere Needless to say, I was quite displeased. However we had a really nice time at the Barnett's for a Fourth of July BBQ. We spent the afternoon at the park; the boys played Ultimate Frisbee and the girls played a bean bag toss game. Later we played a little kickball. It was really fun to get outside with a group. We then went back to the Barnetts for the BBQ which was amazing as always. They always have lots of people over for BBQs and Sunday dinners. They are the ultimate hosts and are always so generous. In fact, they are letting us have the Game Night/BBQ event at their house this weekend.

That pretty much sums up our three day weekend. We hope yours was just as fabulous! : )