Viva Fiesta!

Fiesta officially began last Thursday. For those of you who don't know, it's an 11 day party here in San Antonio. There are parades, festivals, food, and tons of other things going on during Fiesta. Each event is sponsored by a local non-profit organization or military organization and the money earned goes back to the organizations...which in turn goes back into the community (through scholarships and things like that). Fiesta is the biggest event in San Antonio, with up to 3.5 million people attending the events. Fiesta started back in 1891 when a group of people decided to honor the heroes of the Alamo and the Battle of San Jacinto with a mock battle with flowers. This "battle" has now become the Battle of Flowers Parade and Fiesta has grown into a celebration of San Antonio's diverse cultures.

We don't really attend many of the events because they tend to be too crowded for us. Some events can get crazy, too...with lots of drinking. B told me that April (the month that Fiesta takes place) is the month that has the most car accidents, DWIs, and deaths in San Antonio. Pretty sad, huh?

On the bright side, there are lots of family-friendly events as well. Our favorite event (not that we've been to many) so far is the Fiesta Arts Fair. It's held at the Southwest School of Arts in downtown San Antonio along the river and the campus is absolutely beautiful....lots of huge trees, shade, and cool buildings. It's not too crowded and there is a Children's Art Garden that can't be beat! We took Elina 2 years ago and she had a wonderful time making a stained glass collage. She spent SO much time at this station finishing this project, but she loved it. Last year we couldn't attend because Evie was just born, so this year we were determined to go. We are so glad that we went! The kids loved it so much when we went on Saturday morning, that we had to take them back on Sunday! As we were leaving on Saturday, Elina sadly said, "I wish I could sleep on the grass here so that I could wake up and be here tomorrow."

In true Elina fashion, she spent about 30-40 minutes just at the first station--metal embossing. She gets so focused on details and patterns that it's a whole process for her. During this time, Eli managed to get his face painted with a shark and make a bead necklace and a monoprint. (Eli was having a shark day because he wore his shark cap to the event.) After the metal embossing, Elina and Eli both made Fiesta medals. Elina made a flower and Eli, of course, made a shark. Then they worked with clay. Eli just made an abstract sculpture with utensils sticking out of it. Elina made a pretty flower. They also made beautiful Fiesta crowns. In the end, we let Elina do monoprinting, but she was really worried about it. I explained the process of painting on a piece of plastic, placing a piece of paper on top of it, using a roller on the paper to print the image onto the paper, and then seeing the final product. Elina asked, "Sooooooo...whatever I paint doesn't really come out on the paper?" I told her it's a likeness of what was painted, but the paint might be blended or spread out. She was super-worried about all this (after all, she IS detail-oriented), but she agreed to try it out. She painted 3 hearts and the end product did not look like 3 hearts. You can tell from the video that she is not impressed.
She was so distraught about it that when B took them back the next day she wanted to re-do a print so that she could make something more abstract. I guess she needed to redeem herself or something. Anyway, she was definitely more proud of her monoprint on the 2nd day.

We also walked around to check out the artists and saw lots of neat things. It's just too bad that all of it was so expensive. The kids loved this artist who used flattened bottle caps to create sculptures. Elina loved the heart he made with red and pink bottle caps. She even asked the artist if she could take a picture in front of it and then she complimented him on his work, too. What a big girl!That afternoon, Elina told me, "Mommy, I'm going to be an artist when I grow up." I asked her why because she had always said that she wanted to be a farmer (because she loves to feed animals). She said, "Well, I want to be a farmer, a piano teacher, and an artist, but since I can only choose one, I want to choose an artist." I told her she could be all 3 if she wanted...farm in the morning, teach piano after school, and do art at night. Ha! I am definitely going to let her take some art classes this summer because she really enjoys arts and crafts. I just think it's funny that she wants to be an artist because that's what I wanted to be when I was little. I used to sell my drawings at school to classmates. I charged a dime for ever drawing...I drew a lot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles back in the day! Unfortunately, my dad killed that dream and told me that art can't support a family. He wasn't being mean about it...he's just an old-school Asian man, so I don't resent him bursting my bubble or anything. But the funnier thing is that my dad is really good at drawing, too. Isn't that funny? It's kind of in Elina's blood. Maybe she could be an artist one day. How great would that be?

We'll be back to the Fiesta Arts Fair every year, that's for sure. This coming Saturday night we're also going to attend the Fiesta Flambeau parade on the Riverwalk. It's our first time and we're looking forward to it. I love nighttime parades! I hear it's crazy, but we're going with friends who've been going for over 30 years, so I'm not worried.

Viva Fiesta!!