Matt took these.
It's me, doing one of my 4 favorite things: Driving!
It's me, doing one of my 4 favorite things: Driving!
Matt has this week off, we have been working on the house and yard all week, the weather has not been camping-worthy and we have not been any further than the nearest Lowe's for more paint all week.
Thursday had the best weather forecast, so we decided to get out of the house and go somewhere. We had planned all along to go to Anniston with friends, but that fell through, so instead of going without them, we decided to go to Nashville and see the King Tut exhibit at the TN State Museum.
Our first stop was the Ben West library parking garage, 2 blocks from the museum. We went in to have our ticket stamped and the kids wanted to go see the children's section while we were there, so we climbed the huge marble staircase up to the children's wing. We could see kids playing in the courtyard, fountains splashing, moms setting up picnic lunches on little tables scattered under the trees.
Inside, the swarm of librarians were reshelving books, helping kids at the computer stations and checking out books to a small daycare group that had been in for storytime. The children's section of the library would hold 4 of our local library buildings and is nearly the size of the entire Huntsville downtown branch. There is a craft room, a children's theater, study rooms, rooms with tables for small group meetings, rooms with copiers and binders and such for printing out nearly anything.
The Ben West Library is one of the top 10 libraries in the entire US. It is beautiful and huge and we used to go there every single week, the kids thought books came in the thousands and were free to take and bring back. That riding escalators from the parking garage was what everyone did, that puppeteers and ballerinas gave free shows every Friday everywhere.
I could have cried when I looked around. We gave up so much moving here, Alabama is SO far behind in so many things and I wish at times we had never lived near a big city, that I was not so aware of what could be.
Thursday had the best weather forecast, so we decided to get out of the house and go somewhere. We had planned all along to go to Anniston with friends, but that fell through, so instead of going without them, we decided to go to Nashville and see the King Tut exhibit at the TN State Museum.
Our first stop was the Ben West library parking garage, 2 blocks from the museum. We went in to have our ticket stamped and the kids wanted to go see the children's section while we were there, so we climbed the huge marble staircase up to the children's wing. We could see kids playing in the courtyard, fountains splashing, moms setting up picnic lunches on little tables scattered under the trees.
Inside, the swarm of librarians were reshelving books, helping kids at the computer stations and checking out books to a small daycare group that had been in for storytime. The children's section of the library would hold 4 of our local library buildings and is nearly the size of the entire Huntsville downtown branch. There is a craft room, a children's theater, study rooms, rooms with tables for small group meetings, rooms with copiers and binders and such for printing out nearly anything.
The Ben West Library is one of the top 10 libraries in the entire US. It is beautiful and huge and we used to go there every single week, the kids thought books came in the thousands and were free to take and bring back. That riding escalators from the parking garage was what everyone did, that puppeteers and ballerinas gave free shows every Friday everywhere.
I could have cried when I looked around. We gave up so much moving here, Alabama is SO far behind in so many things and I wish at times we had never lived near a big city, that I was not so aware of what could be.
This is the mouse hole, I have a pic somewhere of Chan still in diapers looking at this same house front.
Tim Tichenor, who designed many of the puppets and wrote many of the plays the marionette team performs at the library is in the above pic, on the left. Walt Disney is 3rd from the left.
In the Courtyard Gallery between the stairwell and the TN room, there is always a display, usually of local artists or a traveling exhibit. Chan is checking out the paintings of the Freedom Riders by Charlotta Janssen.
