Pilchuck Glass School

A couple weeks ago, one of my PEO sister's had an opportunity for a group of us to go up to see the Pilchuck Glass School. Lon and I jumped at the chance. Today was the day we were all scheduled to go. It was a glorious day! About 72 degrees, high scattered and broken clouds. Wonderful. Pilchuck is about an hour or so north of Seattle. Out in the boonies. It is surrounded by trees.

This is a large piece of beautiful glass, just outside under a tree. Wow.

This is a blurb from the pilchuck web site.

"Founded in 1971 by glass artist Dale Chihuly and patrons Anne Gould Hauberg and John H. Hauberg, Pilchuck Glass School has been a primary force in the evolution of glass as a means of artistic expression. By creating an environment with a singular focus on glass, access to resources, and an ever-expanding international community of artists, Pilchuck has become the largest, most comprehensive educational center in the world for artists working in glass."

This is the view from the dining hall. Fidalgo Island and Skagit Bay. How incredible. To be able to study your art, to work with world renowned artists who are there to make you look good! What a great place.

Every year around October they have an auction to raise money for the school. The dinner auction this year is on October 13, at the Westin (perhaps my mother would like to go for her birthday) Just a thought Mom. They have centerpieces they auction off. Since the tour guide told us we could take photos, I did. These are this years centerpieces. They are still working on making enough. This photo is not touched up, nor did I do anything other than click the photo. No special optics on the camera. These objects d'art are incredible. Three layers of glass, a color on the inside, a white layer and the outer color. Then they are sandblasted, and then coated with a special material that will not show any finger prints. As if I would really ever want to handle one of these pieces if I did not have to! Lon was tucked into the baby bjorn and I was standing pretty far away from the tables. No way was I going to let Lon create an accident!

These are more tables with more of the centerpieces. They have all sorts of lovely colors.

I am going to put up a ton of photos of what we saw, it was just all so fascinating.

These are pieces before and during the sandblasting process.

They were working in the *hot shop* making more center pieces. We got to watch one being blown from start to finish. HOW COOL IS THAT!?!

Yep, it is a girl who is working the glass. She has the best looking arms I have seen in a really long time.

They are putting the bottom on to the center piece. The next picture is going to be them opening the centerpiece and then breaking off the pontil.

These a little glass whimsies lined up on the outer shelves of the hot shop. I thought they were adorable. What a fun idea.

This is another piece of gorgeous glass just sitting outside.

This is the Hot Shop, the building on the left, with all the openings to let out all the intense heat. The other buildings are more workshops. The setting is so pretty.

We also were treated to lunch there. I did not want to feed Lon baby chow, one, he takes forever to eat baby chow and it is really messy. They had cold cuts out, so he had turkey, and cheddar cheese, he also had some feta (loved it), he ate some hummus, which he thought was good the first couple finger fulls, but then he was not too pleased with it. But he tried it. It might be too close of a consistency to his baby chow. For breakfast now, he flat refuses his baby chow, and will only eat a 1/4 of a waffle and yogurt. (no, not eggos, but waffles Mommy makes and puts in the freezer so they will keep till we need them)

I am really glad we got to do this tour. Thank you, Virginia! It was a wonderful day outside. Lon did not get any sunburn, my shoulders are a bit pink, and warm. It has been a long time since I had any sunburn. What a great time. I am so happy we went. Lon got to see some things I am sure he will not remember. This is what his Great-Great Grandfather did for a living. He blew glass. Edward Yetka blew all the glass windows in his house. My dad told me when he was a kid it amazed him that a person could blow a window, so he went around and measured the thickness of the glass, there was no more than a quarter inch difference in any of the windows anywhere. Edward had one son follow him into glass blowing, his name was Joe. He moved to Kansas. I found out a bit about Joe, when I just googled the Yetka name. Joe is listed as a master glass blower in the now defunct Fredonia Glass Works. How cool.

Mother's Day

It is so nice to be able to celebrate Mother's Day. How nice it was to have people wish ME happy Mother's Day! We all had a nice little breakfast, and I opened my presents. Mark got me a beautiful bracelet, and Lon got me some fun bath stuff and they both got me a card. Which I will put in my little box to treasure forever.
In the afternoon, we all worked on cleaning up the garage. I have just been tossing things in there, pulling things out, toppling other things and in general letting it just get ugly. I have all the Easter stuff still piled on top of the boxes they go into before going into the crawl space. Well, now all the stuff is IN the boxes, just not in the crawl space yet. I am working on it. I have piles of misc. stuff to go into the crawl space, stuff to go to goodwill, stuff to sell on ebay, stuff to just go away. Pile management. Lon and I are going to work on this again on Tuesday.
I pulled out the baby backpack. What a great thing. Mark really enjoyed it. He wore it around the front yard. Lon really liked it. He thought it was great fun! Even though he tried to crawl out of it, he found he was very securely strapped in.
It really was a nice day. As I made the piles in the garage, with Lon's supervision. Mark washed the cars. So I also got a nice clean car. How fun!

In one of the boxes of *too big just yet* clothes for Lon. (thank you again Auntie Karen and Big Cousin Matt) We found a tiny sun hat. I remember Matt wearing it at the beach when he was three months old. It does not fit Lon at all anymore. It is going into the box of *now too small* clothes.
Lon was having a really good time out in the fresh air. He was in is Einstein (thank you Godfather Damian) That is still a favorite toy!
Lon was either in that or being held. And he was good with both!





Lon is having fun laughing at Mommy making little piles of stuff. Lon seems to have fun where ever he goes! He laughs alot lately. It is wonderful!

We all had a fun Mother's Day.
I still am in awe that I can celebrate Mother's Day! So much fun!

The Easter Bunny's Latest Gift!

Lon got a box on the front step yesterday. I did not order anything (at least not from that catalog!) Hmm, I opened it up and it was a late present from the Easter Bunny! Back-orders, the peril of catalog shopping. As you can see, he loves the little stool and has already tried to chew on each of the letters. It is a very nice stool! He does really like it! Thank you Grandma Phis... ooops I mean Easter Bunny!

More from Wisteria Lane

Lon got a DRUM! A Curious George drum! It is very very fun and makes all sorts of good noise! The next day I found him another drum, a steel drum, made in Trinidad and Tobago. VERY COOL. It is child sized. He likes it. He can make alot of good loud noise! That it the best.

Lon is being supervised by the cat, Rocky. He has lots of fun playing with his toys. Lots and lots and lots of toys!

Gotta get that. I have no idea what that is, but I must get it.

The beautiful wisteria. The smell is at peak. It is so nice.

A Week of Adventures!

When I went to Hallmark to get all the Mother's Day Cards I needed I saw this *personal* fan. It light up. Well, that was something Lon just had to have! He loved it, right up until the time he threw it on the ground for the fourth time and broke the nose off it. And just for Grandma Phis, the blades were thin plastic, and would stop when anything got in the way. Including little fingers. Especially little fingers.

Off we go for our walk! Does he look happy or what? He loves his fancy walking stroller. We try for 2.5 miles, three times a week. We try. We don't always succeed, but as the weather gets better, we will succeed more often. It is nice to get out the house.
Okay, I tried to get these in order, but I am not sure it worked that way. Lon is crawling to Daddy and lifting himself up! What a great guy! This is at Aaron's birthday party. It was windy and cold. It was a park in Renton, a really pretty spot with good company.

Lon is really enjoying the grass. Being outside it the best thing!

Lon meets Victoria, who is 13 months old. She is Aaron and Julie's Daughter. Very nice girl. She walks and talks, something Lon is still aspiring to do.

At the park in Renton, they had swings! Swings that would be good for the little man. He was not so sure about it. When it gets a little warmer I am sure he will LOVE it. It really was cold. Lon had lots of fun.

Out in the Yard

Today was a beautiful day! Lon and I went for a long walk, about 3 miles. It was going to be closer to 2 and a half but Lon dropped his blanket and Mom did not realize it till a long way down the road! Back we went to get the blanket that Auntie Karie got him at Disney World. We can not lose that one.

After a surprisingly uneventful lunch, Lon and I went out and played in the back yard. Lon crawled the whole length of the yard. He seemed to really enjoy the grass. It was not wet this time!

He had a great time. He even ate a little bit of the lawn. I was worried about this, however, my mother reminded me that her grandmother used to say Children need to eat a pound of dirt while they are little. I am not sure why. But Lon seems well on his way.

Wisteria Lane (with more of feeding ourself)

When Mark's mom was here the Wisteria was not yet in full bloom, by this weekend it should be all out, but here are a couple of photos. It smells wonderful, I keep our bedroom window open all the time now. It smells cinnamony/peppery. I like it. It is Chinese Wisteria, which means that it blooms first, then gets leaves. The person who first owned the house planted it, and built the patio portion on the back of the house. I would like to thank him for all his work. I am enjoying it. It seems the more you cut it back, the more it grows and blooms the next year.


Now, there is dinner. Lon it seems is now done with the whole baby food mush thing. He wants food. Real food he has to chew, not baby food 3, but what we are eating! In something I read it said to help your baby eat, eat your meals with him. He will learn about eating, etc etc etc. Hmmmm all this made Lon do was want what I was eating. Not this stupid mushy stuff. I was having a bowl of Thai Hot and Sour Soup. (mark made it this weekend). Lon no longer wanted his baby food 2s. So I gave in and gave him some tofu. He LOVED tofu. Yummy. And he ate as much of it as I would give him. Who knows if it is the *right* thing to do, but he liked it.
Dinner was even more of a challenge. I got him baby food3 Lasagne. hmmm, this was NOT a hit, this was dumb, honestly. I gave him some cheese (apparently this is wrong) He likes cheese. I asked about it, can I give him cheese? What kind of cheese? Tillamook cheddar, is there any other kind? This was not something I was supposed to do, as the whole milk thing is supposed to not be good for him for another two months. Tonight for dinner he had some cheese, some lasagne on the tray mixed with melba toasts, and the worst thing ever. A dib. I took out 4 dibs for my dessert, he wanted one. I gave it to him. Once he got over the fact that ice cream is COLD, it was nothing but yummy*ness.



dibs

















After this experience, I gave Lon a bath, and put his outfit in the sink to soak out all the lasagne and toast. Then he played on the floor for a bit and then off to bed. I have a feeling that the bath is going to be permanently moved to right after dinner, not just before bed.

This photo is for Uncle Vasu. He told Mark today that there were just not enough pictures of Bullwinkle in the blog. Mark told him it is not Suzy and Bullwinkle, it is Suzy and Lon, but he still thought that there should be more photos of Bullwinkle. So I will try on every blog to have a photo the dog. Bullwinkle.