chaw summer camp.

for the past two weeks i've been busy teaching at captiol hill arts workshop or CHAW, which is an amazing place where children and adults come together to take or teach art education classes that range from ceramics, painting, dance, music, theater and much much more.  i worked here for three years when i first moved up to dc and it holds a special place in my heart.  i love coming back over the summer to teach a session or two.

this summer i taught the visual arts portion of "camp spain."  we mainly focused on famous spanish artists including pablo picasso, joan miro and architect antoni gaudi.

here are few of my students' masterpieces.

Abstracts inspired by Miro

by: ashley  age: 9

by: zen  age: 10

Animals found in Spain

by: eamon  age: 5

"the spainish mountain goat"

Picasso Faces with wire sculpture

by: kayce  age:11

by: zen  age: 10

Picasso's Blue Period

by: david  age: 5

by: brianna  age: 5

by: young pal  age: 6

by: ashley  age: 9

ipad love.

so my husband got an ipad.  he literally came home last night bouncing off the walls from excitement. my dear dear parents gave him one for his recent birthday and he has been grinning ear to ear ever since he heard the good news.  he even stayed up last night until 1 am playing with his new toy.

so this morning we wake up and the first thing in his hands is his new ipad.  and the first thing out of his mouth is "this is my new best friend."  not good morning, how did you sleep, that sort of thing.  so of course I say, "babe, what about me aren't I your best friend?"  and he states, "oh yeah your my best friend, but my new ipad is close behind you in the running."  

i think my man is happy.  

a kentucky wedding.

this past weekend we ventured to kentucky for my college friend - stephanie - and her wedding.

it was lovely to spend time with my college friends.  friends which jeffrey loves as well.

here are few shots from our time in kentucky.

the ladies at r dinner

 we thought these hats as favors were pretty fun

the charleston gals at the bridal luncheon

while in kentucky, jeff and I took a quick trip to the jim beam distillery since we were in bourbon country.

look at those cute smiths

the boys

loved the signature cocktail - firefly vodka and lemonade

wedding fun

welcome to the married club :)

mia, me and sarah

cuties sarah and bryan

the end.

jeffrey turns 28.

yesterday was jeffrey's birthday and he turned the big 2-8.  we celebrated this wonderful occasion with food and friends.  first, we grabbed some crabs and shrimp from the southwest waterfront, which were sooooo delicious.  we just love crabs in the summer time here in dc.  then, i made jeffrey's childhood favorite - yerburts.  yerburts are a family tradition in the ainsworth household and a staple for many of jeff's birthdays thus far.  although this was the first time i made the yerburts....and i must say i think they turned out pretty well.  for those of you who are wondering, yerburts are huge meat balls with rice and onions rapped in cabbage.  but my favorite part of this ainsworth tradition is when the family passes around the BEANO before they dig in to the yerberts.  because we all know that cabbage can be bad news later in the evening :)  

happy day of birth my love - i hope you had a great day of celebrating yesterday.  i love you dearly and am so glad you were born so we could share our lives together.  xoxo

my drawing class.

i am just loving the drawing class i'm taking this summer at the lovely torpedo factory in alexandria, va.  not only am i trying to spruce up my skills for those middle schoolers i'll be teaching next year, but it is just wonderful to actually take some time out for my own personal art.  during the school year i'm definitely around art all the time, but i'm teaching it and exposing students to it.  i get bogged down with lesson plans, new ideas, bulletin boards, report cards, the list goes on and on. so taking time this summer to be creating myself and for me feels really nice. 
p.s. i'm really diggin the white charcoal on black paper - who knew?

soooooooo fun!

some of our very FAVORITE people in the whole world got ENGAGED this past weekend - MAGGIE and TRAVIS!  we are so very happy for them we can hardly stand it.  seeing them so happy makes us so happy.  we cannot wait to celebrate their fabulous engagement news when we go visit them in san fran this October.  so hurry up October - we want to give our dear friends big ole hugs and smooches.  CONGRATS once again mags and trav! xoxox

p.s. I would like to give mags and trav a quick shout out for helping us come up with the name of our blog.  they brainstormed a big ole list - all of which were great.  they are just so darn creative!

deep in the heart of texas.

our trip down south with the fishmans (becca & fish - his name is not actually fish fishman - "fish" is his nickname incase you were wondering) continued to be big fun over the weekend.  we had our fun with food (see post below).  and we had our fun with water skiing, enjoying gruene and floating the guadalupe river.  here are few shots from this weekend of fun.  

enjoying some live music at gruene hall.

this is a quick pic before we went floating down the guadalupe river.  a must anytime you find yourself in texas.  however, be careful on those damn rapids.  we were drinking, laughing having a grand ole time when suddenly all four of us were flipped out of our toobs to brave the rapids without any protection.  needless to say, the rapid won - we ended up all cut up, bruised and scraped to pieces.  but, hey adds to the story right?! and remember to wear your sunscreen - my tummy is still fire engine red.

happy summer!

eating our way through texas.

well folks, we are back in texas again. this time we brought our dear friends from dc - becca and fish - to show them a taste of texas.  we are at lake mcqueeney (thanks mom and dad!) and lovin the water, ac, company and of course the food.  our first stop - whataburger - when we landed late in houston on wednesday night.  who can resist their burgers, fries and orange and white stripes?


next stop? a little sonic on the road to the lake (the next day of course.)  all four of us LOVE their chili cheese tots and corn dogs.

and probably the BEST so far - BBQ at city market in luling, texas.  this tasty beef brisket melts in your mouth along with ribs, sausage, wonder white bread (that we all haven't had since we were 10), potato salad, beans and some big red soda.

lastly, we had a lovely (rather hot) evening at the gristmill in gruene, tx last night.  this historic restaurant sat us under the oak trees and next to the guadalupe river.  while in texas we had to order some good ole chicken fried steak.  

we are having a ball and probably gaining 5 lbs a day, but who cares we are in texas and on vacation.  

friends connecting friends.

so my oldest and dearest friend in the world MAGGIE (we've been friends since the 2nd grade - impressive I know :)  well, mags (pictured on the left) shoots me an email asking me if her dear friend jelena could possibly stay with us for a night while jelena is in town for a conference.  I say OF COURSE - any friend of mags is a friend of mine and besides we met jelena briefly and thought she was delightful. 

well, delightful is an understatement.  we LOVE jelena and had such a ball with her last night at masa 14 (a great new tapas place that opened up around the corner).  pictured above is us enjoying some gelato on the walk home.  i just love it when friends can connect with other friends.  i normally get this feeling at weddings - when friends from all walks of life gather to celebrate the happy couple and you think man if we just lived in the same city with some of these people we would be great friends.  it is truly amazing and makes me think of all the lovely, wonderful, fabulous people out there in the world and the hope that we get to meet more and more of them. 

screen on the green.

another dc summer time favorite.  a little screen on the green.  to catch everyone up - screen on the green is when they set up a huge projector on the mall (with the capitol in the background) and show old movies.  it happens a few times during the summer and makes our monday evenings delightful.  did i mention it is free too!?  we like to gather with lovely friends, bring snacks, a bottle o vino and call it an evening.  tonight they showed GOLDFINGER and luckily we left right before the terenchal down pour.  all thanks to my hubby and the fact that he checks his iphone regularly.  smooches - it was a great evening in dc.  

the newlyweds :)

 

katie and I participating in the screen on the green dance.

p.s. diggin jeffrey's t shirt?  check out the AMAZING and talented artist - our dear friend - travis weller for his latest and greatest designs.