In Honor of the Hagia Sophia

Spencer made a replica of the Hagia Sophia for his History of Creativity class a few years ago. He is SO proud of this thing and has kept it in his parents house for a few years because he just couldn't see it go.

Well, we knew we were moving to Arizona, and it just didn't make sense to me to lug the huge Hagia Sophia all the way down here with us. Although there was some heart ache, he finally let it go. I know... I'm a mean wife.

I just could not have that thing take my place.

You see, he threatened that if I didn't agree with him to take it down to Arizona, he would just put the Hagia Sophia in the front seat of the moving van instead of me.

That would just not do.

He finally agreed to part with it as long as he took some good video coverage. My kind of man. ;) Of course I couldn't get the video to upload today, so some pictures will just have to do although they do not do it justice.

So in honor of Spencer and his long lost history of creativity project, I present to you...

...the Hagia Sophia.

See that little slit in the front? Well when you look through that slit, you will see all the little people that Spencer so meticulously created. He drew them all by hand. I wish I had his artistic abilities sometimes. I'll send our kids to him if they ever need a drawing of a horse or something. Mine would be very scary... and probably wouldn't look at all like a horse.

Which by the way reminds me of a really funny story that is kind of off topic. I'm teaching second grade right now and one of the little girls in my class is obsessed with dragons. Every chance she has free time, you will find her drawing dragons on her whiteboard.

Well one day she just couldn't get the dragon's head right. She tried and tried and was a little frustrated and walked right up to her all-knowing teacher, Mrs. Hill, ;) and asked her to draw the dragon's head. I laughed to myself and told her that her dragon head would probably be more impressive than mine. She refused to do it herself and waited patiently until I finished the head.

It was hideous.

I can't even tell you what it really looked like because it looked as far from a dragon head as you can get.

I showed her the head and her face kind of crinkled up in this "Mrs. Hill, I'm surprised you can't draw at all" kind of way. It was HILARIOUS. As she walked away with her white board, not knowing what to say, she just quickly erased the head that I had drawn and started on her own yet again.

And she has never asked me to draw a dragon head ever again.

Back to the point of this post... the Hagia Sophia. Spencer lit up the inside with Christmas tree lights and had a spread of people that he had drawn and had stood up vertically inside.

See that horse below? Way good. Way good.

Knights at the round table. He put something from every chapter of his textbook inside.

Long story short, he's amazing. And although it is awesome... I'm sure glad that he chose to put me in the front seat of the moving van instead of the Hagia Sophia.

Pictures and video footage will do.