Corning Museum of Glass-A November Birthday Treat(a little late)

I have given up on Birthday presents.  Well, kinda.  To be more specific, I have given up on toys as birthday presents.  Believe me, we have enough.  Truthfully, I think the toy population procreates at night because I don't know where some of them have come from.  So now we tell the girls we will take them anywhere(within reason) they want to go for their birthday.  In November, Denver decided she wanted to visit the Corning Museum of Glass.   Unfortunately, November and the time between the end of my volleyball season and Christmas went like a blur and sadly, there was not enough time for it.  But between Christmas and New Years we managed a day away for it, and I'm so glad we did.

 As the birthday girl, we arranged to have her help make her own piece of glass.  A sculpture shape that she chose.  The glassblower gathered the glass, picked up the frit(colors Denver had chosen for her piece) and worked it in.  Denver got to do all the blowing.  It was a really neat thing to see her be part of even if it did only involve blowing.  I could see her absorb the experience like a sponge.

 

It was about an hour and a half drive and since we ditched non-sleeping baby with Grandma and Grandpa(thank you), we were really able to focus a bit more on both the older two.

 They are finally at an age where museums are becoming more interesting(besides the Museum of Play which doesn't count since it's full of toys).  And we saw most of the demos they offered.  Since Wayne and I both work with glass, some things we knew, but we still came away with snippets of useful information.  And I could tell afterwards that they had really listened.  We ended the tour by looking through the gallery and thankfully stumbled upon a 'Glass Detective Brochure'   where they had to find a glass piece that matched the shape shown with a few clues to help them along.  I doubt we would have enjoyed the last part without it to be honest.  Looking is not as much fun as touching for small people.

It was a definite highlight of the Christmas break.  It made me so glad we didn't take the easy way out and go with a thing and instead went with an experience.  Maybe one of my goals this year will be to give more experiences when I can and less 'stuff.'