speaking of fairies...

We just returned from a fantastic trip to Green Bay, Wisconsin, and my iphone is maxed out with photos. But I'm still trying to catch up with the fun that happened the week before we left so those photos will have to sit tight a bit longer.

Ben's parents stayed with us a few weekends ago but this visit was a little different. They have actually moved out here for a year and will be living about an hour away in Maryland. They are here for a church mission and we're excited to have them so close.

While they stayed with us, we made a trip to the Annmarie Sculpture Garden in Solomons, Maryland, to see their annual fairy house exhibit. We went last summer and loved it so we were excited to see what this year's fairy house entries would be. The girls loved running through the forest looking for the next house. There were a lot more this year and it was interesting to see all of the different interpretations. 

There is this fantastic area in the woods with a stage, buckets of pine cones and sticks, stumps to climb on, and lots of fun ways to use your imagination. The kids loved building and pretending and performing. It was nice that we had the place to ourselves.

I thought Oliver would love to climb around on these stumps so I set him down in the middle. He was not happy. I think he felt a little trapped.

Oliver was really into this apple. He ate it all the way down to a tiny core and threw a fit when I finally took it away from him.

Along with fairy houses, there are also sculptures throughout the woods, many on loan from the National Gallery of Art.

Amelia shows her toothless smile in front of the tooth fairy's house.

There are also bits of famous paintings hidden around the woods:

Banksy!

If you're looking for a fun day trip in the area, I highly recommend Annmarie. There is also a neat looking marine museum nearby (Calvert Marine Museum) that we'll have to check out next time.

saturday outing: hirshhorn sculpture garden

A few Saturdays ago we made the most of our day together. Ben had been working long hours to get ready for the hospital opening at Johns Hopkins (gone by 5 a.m. and home after 10 p.m. every night). And unfortunately he's still working long hours, essentially on-call for all of their crazy surgeries in case anything goes wrong with his operating rooms. So far they're off to a good start.

We started at the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden. The new installation of Ai Weiwei's "Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads" was definitely a favorite. Amelia is really into the signs of the Chinese zodiac so she had everyone pose with their appropriate animal (and it should be noted that she is not happy about being the year of the rooster).

The girls were fascinated with all of the sculptures in the garden and would run with excitement from one sculpture to the next. It was interesting to hear their interpretations and questions (why doesn't he have a head? what happened to his arms? what IS that?).

Ben and Oliver share the tiger.

I don't think the bird was an original element of the art.