The Leonardo: Da Vinci the Genius

Last weekend we got together with the Walker clan and went to the new museum in downtown Salt Lake called The Leonardo. I've been dying to go there ever since it opened and so when my dad mentioned that he wanted to check out their special exhibit "Da Vinci the Genius" I jumped right on board. We decided to make a day of it, and the plan was to meet at the museum on Saturday at one. Melissa drove to Lehi and about noon we jumped in the car and headed up. We then got a phone call from my parents saying that Jacob had taken longer at his honor choir practice than they had thought he would and they would probably be about an hour late. No big deal - we just decided that we would go walk around City Creek for a little bit before heading over to the museum.

I have to admit that I was the one who devised the plan to park at David's office, then take Trax to City Creek, then take Trax again to the museum. I thought that it would be really fun, and then we wouldn't have to pay for parking. In retrospect, it would have been much better to just pay the couple of dollars for parking because we ended up taking a full 45 minutes just to ride the Trax directly to the museum. It was ridiculous. Both Melissa and David were such good sports. I wish I had gotten pictures of Lydia and us on the train, because she was so cute just bundled up in all sorts of blankets. You could just barely see her little eyes poking out. (However, somewhere along the way we lost one of her socks - which was SO so sad. I feel like such a bad parent. I usually keep a couple of extra pairs in the diaper bag but I had just cleaned it out and didn't put a pair back in. So as you look through these pictures, please try to refrain from judging me. I promise we kept her snuggled up in the blanket most of the time. She really wasn't too cold.)

Whew. And after that introduction, now we can get to the good stuff. The museum was awesome. Our timing was perfect as we were walking up to the doors right at the same time that my parents were. (Trax or no Trax.) They didn't let you take pictures inside the Da Vinci exhibit but it was really amazing. They had build life-size models of many of his inventions and drawings. He was an incredible thinker. I can't believe how much time he spent thinking about the world around him and trying to figure out how things worked. He made flying machines, pulley systems, war machines, mirrored rooms, bicycle cars, and even a mobile piano.

Picture of a flying machine from The Leonardo's Website about the Da Vinci exhibit.

One of my favorite parts was a little movie about the painting "The Last Supper". It talked about how Da Vinci spent months and months studying people in the street looking for just the right faces and expressions to use in his painting. All of the lines in the room point to Christ, as he is the focal point of the scene. Da Vinci didn't draw a halo (as was very popular at the time) but opted to use the light from the window to give him a natural halo. The video went through each reaction of the disciples and it was so so interesting. I really enjoyed it. 

Picture from this website that talks more about the positions of the disciples. 

There was also a whole section of the exhibit dedicated to the Mona Lisa. I think that it is so crazy that a single painting of a woman can be so famous and beloved. There was so much information and neat insight about the painting and we spent a lot of time learning about the painting there. Some people think that they know who the painting is of (some noble woman named Lisa) but after learning about how much he loved that painting and how he took it with him everywhere he went until he died - still working on it and trying to get it perfect - I think that it would be so wonderful if she was his true love. He never married - but he probably loved this woman, and that is why he kept her painting close to him for his whole life. So romantic. 

After we were done walking through the Da Vinci exhibit we went through the rest of the museum. There were so many fun things that even though we tried to stay together as a group, we inevitably got separated as we walked through on our own. 

These computers were really cool. You could paint with a paintbrush on them and it really mimicked the color and texture of a real paintbrush. (Like "Paint" on steroids.) 

Lydia was a champ the whole time. She had fun walking around and looking at everything. David was such a trooper and he wheeled her around and talked about things with her pretty much the whole time. 

This was one of the first times we've put her in the stroller sitting up (without the carseat snapped in). She did really great. I loved watching her stick her little feet up on the tray. She does the same thing in her highchair - I think it is so funny!  

Me, Melissa, and Jacob standing by a huge timeline pointing at our birthdays. It was amazing to see how many things have been invented or have happened in the last hundred years. It's really incredible. Such HUGE advances in technology and in the quality of human life. 

2009 - Our wedding year. Yay for us!  

Tinkering around with batteries, radios, and wire-things.

This was one of my favorite parts. It was a light defractor thing. Whatever it was, it made for really fun colored shadows on the wall. Lydia and I had a great time playing with it. She is such a little crawler now, and it was so fun to watch her try to figure things out.  

After we were all museum-ed out we headed over to Zupas for some warm and yummy food.  

We had such a great time, and are so grateful that we were able to get together. We really, really missed Jenna and Kevin and wish that they had been able to come down as well. Matthew was also noticeably absent, but we are grateful and proud of him as he serves the Lord in New Jersey. It was such a fun day. I'm so glad that my dad made it happen. (I probably would have spent another year talking about how I "really want to go there... someday".) 

Love you guys!