Thursday in the Museum without Zoe

Here's Sara with a painting done by our friend Georges. This painting has always been one of our favorites because we spent the summer living in Levallois - Perret, France, which is the city wherein lies the actual Isle of La Grande Jatte. We took a few walks on the island, and would you believe that the place is full of domesticated honey bees? Yep, bees. Nothing like a jaunt on the Jatte.

We sent Zoe off to paint the town with her grandparents while my wife and I took a Sara-guided tour of The Art Institute of Chicago's brand new modern art wing. When we went through the museum a year ago all the modern stuff was hidden away in a shed somewhere while the new wing was being built, so it was like we were going through a whole different museum this go around. Of course we had to go into the depths of the museum and see our favorite less-Modern paintings while we were there - a task much easierly done sans Zoe. I think it's pretty cool that the new addition includes a back entrance which is accessed by a super long ramp that goes all the way to the middle of Millennium Park. We did miss out on seeing the lions at the front door though.

The views of Millennium Park from inside the new wing of the museum were spectacular. We were looking out at the amphitheatre from the museum when we noticed Zoe clear out there with her grandparents. The picture at the left is the zoomed-in version of the one above...see the red square I drew directly below the amphitheatre up there? Boy was it nice to actually be Zoe-less in a museum for a change. Randy and Diane took their museum shift while we entertained the Zoe later on. Good grief, we tackled Chicago with a fury that day!