Museum of Photographic Art

So Bryan comes up to me one night and says "Oh yeah, I have a mandatory class field trip to Balboa Park, and you and the boys are coming". The field trip was the next night. Ummmm, ok. A *little* fair warning (like more than 12 hours) would have been acceptable, too!
Off we headed to the Museum of Photographic Arts, where there was an Ansel Adams exhibit.
We had so much fun on an actual family day! Those are few and far in between these days, and I relish every moment of them.
Einstein & Curly had so much fun running around and hamming it up. Einstein hijacked the stroller and rode over 'the bumps' as many times as he could (I think he does this because when we make trips to Target, I make a big fun deal about riding over the yellow safety bumps while they're in the cart, kind of like a mini-roller coaster. So that's why I think he tries to ride over any 'bump' he can find). Curly found a little sewer pipe cover-thingy and tried to pick it up, even though it was bolted to the ground; it was so funny to see how focused he was in trying to pick it up!Einstein couldn't stop talking about the 'spikey lamps' (pictured above). We had to repeatedly explain that the spikes were so birds wouldn't poop on them, or us!
We loitered around the Japanese Friendship Garden, and searched for the coy fish in the huge reflecting pond, until Bryans class went into the exhibit. Einstein had such a ball 'feeding' the fish grass, 'because they like to eat grass', he said. Haha! We had a hard time keeping Curly from jumping INTO the pond. That would have definitely been a bad moment if it happened. But luckily we persuaded him not to, and everything turned out great.

Einstein was pumped that we were so close to real live airplanes in the sky! Every time one would pas (like, every 15 minutes) he would stop whatever he was doing and announce that a plane was coming. So cute!
Of course, we weren't allowed to take any pictures inside the exhibit. It's always like that! In all honesty, the exhibit itself was really boring. And I can appreciate art *almost* like an art history buff. The cool parts were finding out about how Ansel Adams was such a stud/nature man/musician/philanthropist/all-around cool dude who just happened to contribute a lot of sweet stuff to further photography to its modern status. The actual pictures features truly seemed like Ansel Adams cast-offs and experiments gone awry. I'm not sure why those particular portraits were chosen, but oh well! We still had fun going to the park together as a family!
It's funny how I get so excited about the intricate details of Balboa Park. Like, every single time I go, I am in awe of the landscaping, the architecture, and the history of the park. I love that we were together as a family having a play day, too!