Saturday, February 12, 2011

After Dark: Alice in Wonderland

The Exploratorium is a really fun museum geared towards learning how things function from a scientific perspective. After Dark is an adult event held after hours on the first Thursday of each month. February's theme was Surreal.

The Alice in Wonderland Tea Party was first come first serve so we staked out our territory for the 9pm tea party. Jessica quickly made friends and snagged a mask at the beginning of the night. 
The actors and actresses were in character the entire night. As soon as we were seated and had our tea poured, we were instructed to crawl under the table and switch seats with the person sitting directly across from us. A lion was walked on top of the table and passed out roses. I happily accepted a bunch of tiny red roses in exchanged for passage. 

 Tea was poured on the table, candles were swapped out for highlighters, and teacups found their way onto the candles. The Queen of Hearts ran around screeching at the top of her lungs "off with her head."
 My favorite part of the evening was when Jessica declared that she wanted the crown the lion was carrying in his mouth. He was being chased around by a man in all white, wearing a unicorn horn. While the lion was cornered by the unicorn, I ran up and stole the crown out of his mouth. We ran away and got chased around before I finally handed the crown over to Jessica.

We played with our silhouettes on a glass lit screen. I ate my red rose as if it were a ball of fire.
 I can't remember how the beetles fit into the surreal theme but Jessica really wanted to touch them-but only if I did. She realized that wasn't happening so she went ahead and held the little sucker anyway.
We can't wait to go back and see the shenanigans planned for March!

Monday, February 7, 2011

Photo Scavenger Hunt

I had a wild weekend in San Francisco with some wonderfully fun people. We met at Buena Vista Park to begin with birthday festivities. We were surprised with a beautiful bag of goodies: sidewalk chalk, plastic tools for props, silly string, bags of candy, a dunny for a mascot, a pinwheel, play-dough, a disposable camera and a list of things that we needed to find and photograph for our scavenger hunt through the Haight.
There were four groups with 3-4 people in each group. Here is Marissa posing in front of a mural that is purple (two challenges in one photo).

 We had to meet a new friend, find out their name, birthday, occupation, and then get a photo of them with our mascot. We decided to jump in the photo just for fun. I loved how Finn's mom was dressed for her first visit to Haight Street! Jenna was so hungry that she kept on eating during the photo.
We were challenged to find a sign and act it out. Jenna is trying to "rent" Marissa for a little companionship.


 I gravitate toward any location that has a photo booth. I was ecstatic when Jenna & Marissa told me they had found one in Wasteland, a second hand clothing store. We spent far too much of our scavenger hunt time in the booth but it was totally worth it. We have 6 strips to scan and share later on!

The girls used pink play-dough and fashioned mustaches for one of the photos. This is my favorite from the day:
 Haight is a playground for tourists, locals, and people just looking for a good time. We had so much fun with the interactive signs.
 A beautiful mural backdrop for two girls about to take flight:
We had so much fun getting creative with the challenges. I am very inspired and am sure I will be doing something similar for my next birthday. To see more photos we took with my digital camera, check out my flickr set for the day. Click here to see the photos we took with the disposable camera for the photo scavenger hunt. They are definitely worth a look!

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