In Which We Enjoy Ourselves

The Best of The Northwest arts and crafts show was a lot of fun!

Actually, Jer and I enjoyed it a lot more than we thought we would. We were a little worried about the crowds and the fact that previous arts and crafts shows we've been to have had fairly narrow aisles not conducive to wheelchair users, but the show was great! I'm glad we went on the last day, because while there were a lot of people there it wasn't nearly as crowded as we thought it might be, and the aisles were very wide-- wide enough that if there weren't people coming we could be side-by-side, which was nice.

No one bumped or jostled Jer, and everyone was very nice about moving so that he could get past. The artists were extremely accommodating-- even taking pieces off their displays to show Jer if there was something he wanted to see that was out of view or reach. The show was a benefit for Children's Hospital, which was also very cool. Lord knows we've spent enough time there to be very familiar with how great their programs are, so it was nice to be able to give a little back. Other than the thousands of dollars our insurance company has contributed, I mean.

We did a full circuit of the show first to see what, if anything, we might be interested in. There were a ton of jewelers there-- perhaps one out of every three booths was a jewelry booth. There was also a lot of really neat art that was surprisingly affordable.

Jeremy and I picked up a new painting by a local artist, which I hung in the hallway where one of the paintings I did as "space fillers" was holding a place. Jer also picked up a little satchel to hang off the side of his wheelchair which he can put his cellphone and wallet in. There he is relaxing at home with his casts off and displaying his new purchase. It's made out of llama wool, and came with a little card informing us that the llama who donated the wool for Jer's new purchase was named "Flower Power." Feel free to make fun of him for this.

After we were finished at the art show we walked (or rolled, or whatever) down the street to a sushi bar for a late lunch. The bar had one of those conveyor belts that you can pick sushi off of, which was very cool but wildly impractical for us, so we sat at a table and ordered off a menu. We agreed we should come back without Connor once Jer is out of a wheelchair to try out the bar-- maybe some time next summer. Though we won't be trying the "coffee gelatin" dessert. It sounds kind of gross.

The best part of the restaurant other than the food (sans the coffee gelatin) was the music. Not for us, as I could have done totally without it, but for the little guy. They were playing thumping techno music with a lot of bass, and Connor thought it was hilarious. We thought about getting up to leave several times because whenever a song particularly heavy on the bass came on, Connor would get so excited he'd start screaming and I'd have to put my hand over his mouth. Luckily the music was turned up loud enough that the shrieking wasn't as irritating to other diners as you might think.

So has VeggieTales made a techno CD yet? We would totally buy it.

~Jess