Cleveland Art Museum

More belated postings from the last several weeks. In the latter part of August, we celebrated the 3rd anniversary of our wedding. Three years--woo hoo! Since we didn't feel very good about leaving Lo with sitters (check that video after the temple trip to recall how traumatized our baby gets), I developed a theory on how to have quality couple time even with our baby in tow. We are pleased to report the theory held true over much testing. =) Here is my "theory": when we are with the baby, approx. 50% of our time talking involves him directly--speaking toward him, or including him in the conversation, or making him the subject of the conversation, etc. A separate 30% of our time talking does not directly involve the baby, but he manages to interrupt and fragment our thoughts/speaking regardless. That leaves 20% of the time we are together that ends up being quality "couple" conversation. Therefore, if our anniversary is technically 24 hours long, and we do not want to leave Lo for even a few hours of that span of time, then we need to celebrate the anniversary for about 144 hours (6 days) to filter out just one day of "quality" couple time, adding up all the 5-10 minute segments. Does that make any sense at all. Well, anyway, it made sense as we experienced it, because this anniversary WEEK was awesome. Jerry took a couple days off work, and we did something exciting each day--but mostly just enjoyed the time together. We feel renewed and refreshed in our relationship after having all these great anniversary moments. It was fun saying to each other all throughout each day for a whole week or more, "Happy Anniversary, Sweetheart!" And then the next morning it was like Groundhog Day when we'd say yet again, "Happy Anniversary, Sweetheart!" So. For one of our "anniversary days," we toured the Cleveland Art Museum. This place is glorious. Totally FREE every day for every person who walks in, it is rated the #1 attraction of this city. Here we are pictured in the catacombs section of the basement. I cannot even describe the awe at seeing art pieces that are thousands of years old.

This mummy was a little tiny person compared to that taller one in the picture above. Both were decorated with intricate hieroglyphics and gold leafing. They even had painted toenails. Ah, the details! So fun.

The African art was a favorite--totally exotic. I liked this nursing momma statue, because as soon as I noticed it, my milk let down and I remembered I needed to feed that Lo. lol.

The medieval section was housed in a grand hall that seemed as big as a castle. Fitting. Jerry kept saying he expected this knight on horseback to just ride right off the display unit, like in the movie Night at the Museum.

I wondered if Lo would get bored in the museum, and even feared we would have to spend all our time entertaining him instead of enjoying the art pieces, but this baby was totally entranced by all the art around him! Most of the time he just stared in awe, pointing this way or that way. I guess that must be the hallmark of good art--a person doesn't have to be educated, or even be older than a few months of age, and yet still be drawn to look at the art.

Weaponry. The glass cases made for some cool photos. We only saw about a quarter of the museum's exhibits before we decided to head out to eat some dinner, so we'll have to go back again someday. HIGHLY recommended for anybody to fit in a trip to this museum, whether you think you like art or not!

The video shows another part we enjoyed: the echo of the museum walls. That Lo figured out the acoustics pretty quickly, and then wouldn't stop yelling his joy for all to hear. We got lots of smiles from fellow patrons, and only a few sidelong stares from the docents and security guards. =)

The Best Two Years

Happy 2nd Wedding Anniversary to us! Our last anniversary we spent in Hong Kong--and in utter contrast, this year we kept things pretty low key. It felt fitting; we needed some down time. We have enjoyed spending time together this weekend doing things that needed to be done. Yesterday morning I helped sweet Husby teach the primary kids at a church activity. Then we cleaned the church because it was our assignment this week on the ward schedule (every family in the congregation takes turns). Next we got our car repaired...and while we were waiting for the car to get fixed, we spontaneously decided to use a coupon I scrounged up in my purse for a free 10x13 wall portrait at Sears, as the department store was located on the same block of our car repair garage. After driving home in our newly fixed car (yay, it still keeps getting us where we need to go!), we exercised on the treadmill and finished preparing our talks for today's sacrament meeting. Though from a worldly perspective it may seem like this anniversary weekend was rather unromantic, we feel happy to note that the parts of married life we most enjoy are these simple day-to-day times spent together. When we reflect on our activities, themes of our marriage emerge--faith, service, provident living, and personal improvement, to name a few. These are the parts of our marriage that bring us happiness.

After walking in a drizzling rain to our impromptu Sears photo shoot, I felt less than picture-worthy and thus liked this hands shot the best because it showed less of me, and more of "the baby." Cute Little got featured in more than a few photos, of course.
And here we have it: the 31 week belly shot.

We discussed this morning how that phrase, "the best two years" usually refers to how an LDS mission is the best time of a young person's life up to that point--but we agreed these two years of marriage have continued to build on the joys we experienced as full-time missionaries. Part of the reason we are so happy as married people is because of who we became during our missions--the choices and habits we made during our respective times of service have forever changed us for the better.

My little brother Brandon is just hitting his one year mark for time spent in the mission field, and I get a deep satisfaction out of noticing his growth already. The tone that comes through in his letters and emails shows he is becoming a generous, kind, patient young man. These same qualities Jerry refined on his mission, and they continue to grace his everyday actions even now. He is wonderful and I feel blessed to have him. Sorry for waxing mushy, for any of you people out there who roll your eyes at this sort of blog entry--I figure I'm allowed to do it once or twice a year. =)