Jersey Shore & Dumbo Arts Festival

We visited Carol's friend Ji Mi at the Jersey Shore this weekend. You might remember we saw her once before (see here). She lives in a nice little beach house near the water. Here's a picture of her feeding you some food. The little girl next to you is called Moo. You and her got along very well.


This is Sandy. She lives in a house next door to Ji Mi and she also has a condo right next to us in Dumbo. They were nice enough to cook us dinner that night. She's entertaining you with a wind up slug while the others are preparing the food.


This is her husband Tom. He loves kids and you seem to like him a lot. Here is showing you how to sing patty cake. You are definitely paying attention.


I guess this is after you and I had a few too many beers that night.


We both played with Moo. She brought out a big basket of toys that Sandy and Tom keep in their house for kids. You liked the ball that you are stuffing into your face here. You can also just see some remnants of a wooden train track that she built for you.


And here is the giant Elmo she brought down for you to look at. It was bigger than you!


While we had dinner Tom fed you yours. You've been very hungry lately because when you were sick you couldn't keep anything inside you. Now that you are better you are ravenous.


Here you are admiring Elmo and Moo is admiring the camera. she has very pretty amber eyes (almost a yellow) that I've never seen before.


We went home after dinner and you had a lot of trouble sleeping. We're not sure what it was. It was cold in the house so maybe you were a little chilled. But you are also teething and getting over your sickness and you've also been very hungry so it could be anything. Mommy put you to sleep on the bed with her and then put you in the portable crib we have. But you woke up again at 3 or 4 and mommy rocked you for a little and then let you sleep on her chest. She was very happy about that. Then you woke up a few more time in the night and finally around 6:30 we just got up and fed you some food. After that she took you for a walk down to the beach. Usually your mom is not known for her artistic shots (out of focus and wonky? yes, artistic? no) but these next two came out nicely.


And this one too. This was done with one hand! I like how the light plays off your hair.


Then she came back and you were cold so I wrapped you in a blanket that Ji Mi had and tried to warm you up. It reminded me of when I was little over at my grandparents house. It was just as cold and we used to sit by the fire to try and warm up. No fireplace here unfortunately.


We went to go have a nice breakfast in town. You were tired so you were asleep for the whole thing. Then we drove back to the city with Ji Mi. You were in the back with her and she entertained you the whole way back. We dropped her off and then headed back home. This weekend was the Dumbo Art Festival. Even though we missed most of it we took a walk around the neighborhood. This guy was playing a keyboard outside one of the galleries we we went in. He was pretty good.


Look at all the people. The were tons of people walking around the streets. All those buildings behind you are filled with artists that opened up their studios for people to see their works.


Here's one of them. We had to walk up 6 flights of stairs to see this one. Those two blue ropes hanging down from the ceiling connected to a swing with a large black cat lounging on top. Most of the art spaces were also the artists' homes.


Here you can see the Manhattan Bridge and a little area that was set up for refreshments and and bands to play.


Next we went into this gallery. It's right outside the window of our apartment. In fact we can see into some of the galleries from our apartment. I like the orange paint they used inside the lobby. It makes it look like it's lit up with orange light. There were some famous pieces of art in here. There was a print by Chuck Close (one of daddy's favorite artists) and some pieces by someone very much like Richard Estes. This seemed to be one of the more high end gallery spaces because no one was living in these studios. To be honest I thought the artwork of the "poor starving" artists was a little more interesting than this stuff. But as we were about to leave the gallery we noticed one room in the corner with some interesting stuff.

Let me back up for a second. Our favorite gallery in the neighborhood is called Smash Mellon. They moved recently. So we went over to their new gallery and workshop and asked an artist there why they moved. She said some guy was restoring a carousel to put into the space. A carousel is a big machine that goes round and round. On it are horses that go up and down. It's supposed to be a ride for kids. Here you can see two unfinished horses and a finished one (in the middle).


They let us put you on one of the older horses. See all the horses behind you? There were tons of piece of the carousel all over the place.


And finally we took a shot out side our apartment with the pretty view of the bridge. You can see one of your socks fell off. We have no idea where it is. Maybe it will end up in a piece of artwork next time we go to the art festival. Keep your eyes open for it!