On our crusade to enjoy Minnesota and be a part of the community we accepted an invitation to an event my friend Shandai is involved in… The Abundant Harvest out on the Walker Open Field. But after parking (super affordable – 3.50 for the day, which since we left early in the day we handed to someone waiting in line to purchase their ticket to park.) and unpacking we were first distracted by the amazing statues and modern art in the park area across the street from the actual museum.
Ken and the kids
There was a variety of modern art pieces… my personal favourite was the giant spoon with a cherry fountain!!
A unique fountain
The boys loved what they called the slides knotted together!
NOT to be climbed on!
And don’t forget the Memorial Garden with the arches and flowers…
Plants galore!
There was just so much to see! And the weather was perfect when we got there for looking… hot by the time we left. I am surprised at how much EMANUEL loved the art, hunting to find the labels to have us tell him about them. I think that he is going to LOVE his Aunty Shandai’s work when he gets to see it! She is very into the modern art and is VERY creative.
This was another favourite of Emanuel’s
Of course we took plenty of pictures and actually skipped a few exhibits to move on to the main attraction… well almost! First we got waylay-ed by something very important – making our own craft! These kids are always on the look out for a new craft! Today they got to make their own books/journals using paper, a hole punch, rubberband and a dowel. So easy and easily something I can collect the supplies for to make MORE of. So, maybe for Christmas they can make a few for people to receive at Christmas!
Craft time
Completed books! Bree told me that these are actually done with cheap chopsticks… so now I just need to source some out… and some LARGE elastic bands!
Ken and Echo got bored with the whole thing and wandered off to pillage a closing fitness themed booth that was giving away balls and flying discs. So Miss Echo got herself a to scale (for her) soccer ball and daddy made sure all of the big kids ended up with a disc each to loose er play with.
Note the soccer ball!
And THEN we made it to the original outting – The Swatch Team‘s Abundant Harvest! There were performers, fresh vegetables and of course handmade bags with tags and food to take home. Each tag was typed on a traditional typewriter… My favourite on ours was “Try Something New” as that has been our motto since getting here! There were so many beautiful and varied bags, one person was talking about how theirs was made out of repurposed plastic bags… We settled on three… a lovely purple and pink larger bag that had actual food products in it and two smaller ones that just had seeds. So we now have carrot and tomato seeds for our garden next summer.
I am going to put ALL my event photos in another blog entry to be seen AFTER this one!
Trinity and Echo are BOTH in love with their little pink and orange purse with its lovely flower on the front. I personally am dying to find out if the ones we picked are knitting or crocheted! I am hoping that someday I can be a productive part of something as amazing as the Abundant Harvest!
We of course had to check out the person in the giant costume… And the musicians. It was getting way too hot for us by the time we saw the belly dancers but I am sure they were amazing! Keep in mind this picture and all the others – next entry!!
Belly dancers
So we wandered back through the garden to the van at this point…
w A wedding party
It was definitely an amazing visit to the Walker Museum and we still haven’t seen the actual museum! Maybe the next free day? The girl at the book making stall thought there was many different free days and opportunities for crafting and such on the grounds. Something to start looking into to be sure as we ALL had fun!
The night before we made sure we checked out the blue moon in August! The kids worked with Ken on their Mars mini lapbook that we purchased from Currclick until it got dark enough to see the moon outside. It took a little explaining to get them to understand that the moon is not to look BLUE but that it was an odd occurrence to have TWO full moons in the SAME month. So of course it was observation journal worthy! Our family goal is to fill each off the kids’ books with illustrations and descriptions of anything they feel like drawing. Should be interested to see what they deem important enough to be included over the next year!
Today we also uncovered the kids’ desk. I am slowly working at creating a usable space there. After all we need to have somewhere for the kids to access the internet when they earn time.
With a lovely visit and drinks thanks to Bree my day was darn near perfect!
Another angle of the spoon
