Art Lesson

A conversation at bedtime..

Jr. : Daddy I forgot the name of that famous Italian painter..

me : Michaelangelo?

Jr. : No. Not him. The other guy.

me : Da Vinci

Jr. : hmmm .. does he have a longer name?

me : Leonardo Da Vinci

Jr. : Yes. Him. (and goes on to tell me about some painting of his I havent heard of)

Me : do you know one of his most famous paintings?

Little one : Tell me.

Me : Mona Lisa.

Jr. : Is this the one which is a picture of the lady staring at you?

Me : Yes. it is the one where she kind of looks sad and happy at the same time...

LO : Daddy, I know. She is also holding a fruit in her hand.. that one.

Me : (Intrigued by this as the LO is the one that is going to be an artist if ever one came out of this house..) You sure? I have looked at the Mona Lisa so many times, but didnt know she had a fruit in her hand. Always looked at her face and eyes. Will go google it and see if she has a fruit in her hand..

LO : Why do you have to google it? That picture is there on your bedroom wall, isn't it!

Me : (literally rolling on the ground laughing.. seriously I fell off the bed)

That is Raja Ravi Varma's painting called "Lady with Fruit"!

Time to teach the kids some basic "Famous Paintings 101" or take them to the local Museum in SFO!

Respect

When San went on a business trip to China and the little one got the flu the very next day, Yoga attendance took a nose dive. An entire week went by where no amount of resolutions the previous night would turn to action the following morning..

Travel hits attendance irrespective of who is traveling in the family, when the kids pretty much take time windows between 7:30 AM to 3 AM! It was this state in spite of the MIL flying down from Seattle to help. Granted there was a lot of sickness, but I have managed to go into the hot room with a 101 fever and come out without the fever. Somehow could not pull that off early enough this time.

Have a new found respect for single parents who juggle kids, work and still try to get into the hot room!

Kayaking in Monterey bay

A few weeks before we hit Lemony Snicketts in this house, there was a nice trip to Monterey Bay to Kayak in the open ocean for a few hours.

It was during Daddy's dedication to Yoga getting in the way of taking the kids out on weekends.. what with doing double classes on Saturday you see..

So one afternoon the kids go "Daddy, you have to take us somewhere today!" So off we went to Monterey, after being inspired by our friends who took their little one through this adventure just a few weeks prior.

It was 63 F out there and the water was cold, but we had a light breeze going and didn't get too wet and had a ton of fun.

Our tour guide was a student who had immigrated from Russia and she really loved the water and the creatures in the sea.

After giving us a crash course on Kayaking, we went on the water in three teams of two. The little one insisted on doing everything herself and she did an outstanding job! There were times when I was just sitting there letting her kayak me out.. it was fun.

We saw Seals, Sea otters playing..

We got to handle starfish and also learned that nothing sticks well to the top surface of the starfish because it has a bunch of hooks that are active. We put the starfish on our head and it gripped on to our hair (in my case whatever was left of it!)

There was one small mishap! We were advised not to bring a camera on the trip as there was a high probability of getting it wet. Having taken cameras safely through other adventures, parasailing included, I decided to take the camera in a small pocket in my life jacket. The camera survived a safe return to the beach without getting wet.

In my eagerness to tip our guide before leaving, I put the life jacket, which happened to have the camera in the pocket on the life jacket rack and went towards the car. The cleanup crew quickly came, dunked each jacket in a bucket of cold water and put it on another rack to drip dry! I almost cried when I realized what had happened.

Luckily the camera started working again after drying it out at home with a hair dryer over time. It still works but has a white balance issue. Maybe more drying will fix it. For now it has become an art camera!

Next time.. special ziplock bag for camera going on such trips and curbing the enthusiasm for tipping good tour guides.

Would strongly recommend Kayaking on Monterey bay as a family outing.