Scottsdale Artist's School Art Camp + Random stuff

I signed Elisa and Ian up for a week-long art camp at the Scottsdale Artist's School, during the first week of June. It was quite the drive out there, 45 minutes each way with a total of 3 hours a day driving for me. Needless to say, I was completely burned out with driving by the end. These were also fairly expensive classes; I found out there was a scholarship only after the camps had begun. Elisa was in the High School/teen camp, fantasy-themed, and Ian was in the 9-14 class, dragon-themed.
They both enjoyed their art camp and, by the end of the week, had produced quite a bit of art; it was impressive. Not only did they make a lot of art, but they made a lot of art from lots of different mediums! Elisa was only one of three teens in her class, but she was hands-down the best artist among them!

June 1

Ian's class started 15 minutes before hers, so we waited in the hall till hers started

Jun 1

Ian, sitting at the table of his choice before class began

Jun 1

Elisa was excited to start making art!

June 5

Elisa's last day of art camp!

June 5. At the last hour or so of the last day of art camp, they hosted the art show, which was all of the art that the kids had made that week. There sure was a lot!

Ian made a unique stuffy of his own

A Yoshi made out of clay

I was surprised to see that jewelry-making (wire wrapping, specifically) was included in the camp 

A dragon hatching from an egg

I laid out all of Ian's paper artwork from the camp across the bed when we got home

Now, on to Elisa's fantasy art:

She made lots of fun things, including a mask and a shadowbox.

The middle drawing is Elisa's.

Elias's painting and...not sure what the other thing is!

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June 4

After art camp, I took all the kids plus a friend of Ian's to see The Digital Circus movie at the AMC theater. They were so excited about the movie that they even dressed the part!

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Here are some other fun random things we did those first few weeks of June, besides the art camp:

June 5

While Ian and Elisa were at art camp, Erik and I took Gabe to eat brunch at First Watch. I think Erik started work late that day, unfortunately he wasn't able to get off in time for Ian and Elisa's art show later that day.

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https://youtube.com/shorts/F8liwKZtf-k

I had Ian learn the hymn "Did You Think to Pray?" on the organ so that he could play it in sacrament meeting. Here is the video of his practice, a day before church. He played it quite fast at home, but during the performance he dragged it too much, but still he played it quite well!

June 6

Driving home after practicing the organ at the church, I caught the street lights glitching out!

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June 9

I took Ian and Elisa to the mall, were I spent too much money on them at Hot Topic. We were hungry so we ate lunch at Popeyes.

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June 

Ian was a trooper getting lots of shots at his 11-year doctor's checkout. I took him to lunch at Culver's afterward.

France: Day 8 - Catacombs, Versailles, and Going Home

Saturday, May 30, 2026

We got dressed a little earlier than the previous morning and drove back down to Paris for our Catacomb walk-through. Grandma and Grandpa didn’t go, just us. We found parking right by the exit. We brought our jackets, but we didn’t really need them, and I felt a little silly having a jacket because one else brought their jackets. We received headphones for the audio tour (this kind just hovered over the ears). It was a medium-long walk down to the bone rooms. Once in, there were so SO many bones, mostly femurs and skulls stacked precisely and sometimes ornately. We just walked through the path; the entire experience took about an hour.

Waiting in line in the shade.

Walking through the limestone quarry on the way to the Catacombs.

"Stop! This is the Empire of the Dead."

So many bones. It smelled like dust down there. And most of these bones (especially the skulls) were falling apart. It was also very quite down there (for the most part).

There was hole to the surface, maybe for ventilation?

After visiting the catacombs, we were hungry so we stopped at a cafe just across the street for lunch. I ordered the quiche, Gabe ordered the catacombs burger, Ian ordered fish n chips, Elisa ordered salmon linguine (yes, she actually did eat it!), and Erik ordered duck. And Elisa also (of course) ordered some creme brûlée for dessert. The food was pretty tasty.

Another delicious meal!

A view of our cafe 

Once full, we drove over to Versailles to tour the palace (at least, some of it). It took a good hour to drive there. Paris traffic is horrible. It takes forever to get anywhere. At Versailles, we met up with Grandma and Grandpa for the tour. We had to wait in line with the hot sun beating down on us, and I was so hot and sweaty. Once we were inside, it was still hot. Only halfway through I started to cool down. The palace itself was super beautiful and ornate with just so many pretty paintings. And I mean SO MANY. Even the ceilings were painted. I didn’t expect to absorb all of it in just one walkthrough, especially with it being so hot, but I certainly enjoyed the artwork and the design. We were loaned some audio guides in order to learn more about the rooms. I only listened some of the time—the crowd moved so fast that I was in the next room while the audio guide was still going on about the previous room. After walking through the palace (at least the part the public is able to see) we stopped in a little gift shop. I didn’t buy anything, but Grandma did. The kids (namely Elisa) were begging to leave. We didn’t walk around the gardens because we were all too hot and our feet hurt.

Waiting to be let it. It was so hot.

Finally going in!

The music hall for performances

Fancy chairs!

Extremely fancy ceilings 

Everything was just drenched in some sort of decoration. It was a bit overwhelming to try to see it all. 

With places like this, sometimes it's best to just take a video!

We could see the Eiffel Tower on our drive back to Paris.

We drove for about an hour and a half for our last night at our Airbnb house. We didn’t stay too long at the house before we left again to go to Aldi, which was right around the corner, walking distance. I had a few items that I wanted to purchase as souvenirs. They didn’t have everything I was looking for—we probably should have gone to Intermarche—but I found most of them. I bought Dijon mustard, chestnut creme, rhubarb jam, fleur de sal, lots of gummies, and a few other treats. We used the rest of the evening to pack what we could since we were leaving for home the next morning. I will mention once again that it was so hot in that house and also very noisy outside—some big soccer game was won and the people of Paris wanted to celebrate by setting off fireworks, yelling, and honking their horns. Needless to say, I didn’t get to sleep for a while between being hot and all the noise.

Sunday, May 31, 2026

The next day was our going home day. We were glad no one got charged for any car damage, I guess they didn't notice the dent on grandpa's car. We checked our bags and then ate some lunch at the airport.

We were luckily to find a seat to eat our lunch at the airport. The food was just okay.

Another long flight, thankfully we had screen that we could entertain ourselves with. There were games, but mostly movie watching was the way to go to kill time. I also found an art game; Gabe and I made a few "drawings". They also fed us dinner; the food was okay. Not bad, but not the best. I don't remember much else about the flight.

Gabe "drew" a character from a game...or show he watches, I don't really know.

I "drew" a desert landscape

Dinner time!