Busy Week

After the intense blog-a-thon that was last week, this week has been so full of doing stuff that I have totally neglected this space.
We had the graduation of a certain 4-year-old from his preschool, and a field trip to the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the designing of a signature hat for a group of adventurers who are going on an amazing trip to Alaska.
The Institute was such fun! I went with the Kindergartners and they were delightful.
They asked lots of great questions, ("Why is that man falling off of the wall?" "Because the Assyrians wanted to show how good they were at conquering," was the reply)
but were also great listeners to our tour guide Kate.(I learned that Frank here was painted using an airbrush and 2 tablespoons of black paint)
The Elder Hug-a-Bug was in charge of the camera, and she was constantly snapping away as we walked from piece to piece.
I think she really enjoyed the experience, and I am eager to go there again when we aren't on a field trip schedule.
The Younger Hug-a-Bug had a magic show in his class the same day, one of the parents in the class is a birthday party magician, and he called The Younger up to do a trick.

He waved the magic wand and a snake appeared holding the special card. He really, really liked that!
The last thing taking up much of my mental energy this week is the designing of this hat.

Every year a MN camp sends a group of 5-7 boys and a group of 5-7 girls on separate trips to Alaska for an extended camping adventure.
It's the tradition for these groups to have a specially designed hat for them all to wear as a part of their camping uniform.
In past years I have seen groups of these kids come in to the Yarnery and we help them pick out yarn and consult on the pattern, though most of them have a pretty good idea of what they want.
This year, I got to design the hat myself.
One of the boys has an aunt who lives in the area and shops at the Yarnery and she and I have been collaborating on the design with a lot of input from the boys. It's kind of a lengthy process, the boys are spread across the country, and there have been many emails.
Nonetheless, it's been awfully fun! This is the first incarnation of the hat, and after some discussions here is the final product.They wanted to depict the rivers, glaciers, mountains and clear blue sky of the Alaskan wilderness.
I'm on my third hat, and the boy's families will knit the rest of the 7 total needed by the first week of June.
I hope the boys send a photo or two of them all in their hats up on a glacier.
What exciting things are going on out there?