Culture Day

When Karin and Ricky's family came to visit, we did a ton of fun family activities.  We usually try to fit in a culture day whenever they come to visit, this year it was centered around Prague.  But we did a few activities in the morning that also contributed to teaching the kids about culture.  We began the day at the Art Institute and Holdman Glass Studio located at Thanksgiving Point.  The Art Institute is a completely separate company from TPI but is located on it's property.  I had been before to make glass flowers, but I had never taken the official tour.  This is a very cool thing to do if you ever had an afternoon to fill, it's totally  free and you they do a glass demonstration for you then you get to go into the stained glass area in the back and get to see all the projects they are working on, and the process they use to make them.  It was so cool! 

We decided to do this activity because Holdman Glass Studios are currently working on the stained glass windows for the Gilbert Temple, that the Burtons live so close to.  Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take any pictures in the stained glass area, but the windows they are working on for both the Boise and Gilbert temples are absolutely stunning!  You should all go down and take a tour and see them for yourselves!

The kids loved the glass blowing demonstration

After our art tour, we all went to Pirate O's for lunch, where we all increased our knowledge on fine and imported foods, and various flavors of soda.

This happened.  We tried it.  My thoughts are, it tastes like dirty orange flavored soda ...

This, on the other hand, was totally and unbelievably delicious!

After lunch and a little exploring of Pirate O's fine offerings, we headed back to my new house for the main event.  We had the kids color art nuveaou stained glass coloring pages for a nice transition from our morning activity to our afternoon activity. As well as to give the adults time to set everything up for the Prague presentation.

This post is a little heavy on the Thomas pictures ....

Here are some of our decorations:

My gorgeous etching of the St. Charles bridge in Prague fit right in!

Bethy visited Prague last year while they were living in Europe, so she had put together a nice presentation to teach the kids a little more about this fascinating city.

The sweet story and now famous Christmas carol, Good King Wenceslas, takes place in Prague.  Karin has a beautiful picture book of the tale, so Bethy incorporated that in the the presentation.  It was really interesting to actually listen and pay attention the the story the lyrics tell, it is such a sweet little story.

Then we learned all about the differences between the Art Deco Style and the Art Nuveaou Style.

After the presentation, it was craft time!  The kids got to make Czech Republic flags, and color eggs of their own!

Will really got into making the flags, he made all of those all by himself!

I gave Evie my stuffed bear from Alaska to keep her quiet during the presentation.  During craft time he disappeared.  Apparently, he had told Evie that he was tired, so she had taken him into my bedroom and tucked him in for a nap on my bed.  How adorable is this!

After craft time, it was dinner time.  Mom had gone to a cute little Czech Republic bakery in Salt Lake and picked up all sorts of traditional dished for us to try!  We had potato and meat dumplings, meat filled rolls, and some egg rolls.  Jenny also made her delicious goulash that had the best combination of spices.  It was a very yummy and culture rich dinner!

Prague and the Czech republic are known for having the best beer in the world, and are famous for all the different kinds they have produced.  Every heard of Budweiser? That beer was first brewed in the Czech Republic, interesting eh?  So, our beverages consisted of all sorts of different (non alcoholic) beers.

For dessert we had this amazing cake, that is made up of layers of pastry and whipped cream and some cheese blintzes, some covered in chocolate sauce and some with some tangy lingonberry jam.

Mom had a couple of different story time sessions in my front room, when the kids needed a little settling down.  So we ended the night by listening to the famous Moldou and dissecting the different parts and learning what they all represent.

Everyone was so awesome with helping me clean up, being a first time hostess for such a large party can be a little overwhelming!  Even Thomas was happy to help mop up the floors in the front entry, how cute is he!

All the fun and cleaning tuckered the cute boy out.  My family is so awesome and does such fun things!  Thank you to everyone for preparing and participating and making this fun day such a great success!