Yeah for fish!

Since Cala is so good at her fish and dolphin noises, we thought that she would love to go to the aquarium in Baltimore, MD. Mark and I have lots of good memories from going there as kids, and we couldn't wait to take Cala. It was tons of fun!

This is Cala's pap entertaining her while we were riding the light rail into Baltimore.

Inner Harbor in Baltimore, the aquarium is the triangular building straight ahead.

Cala loved the fish right from the start!

Mark had the lovely idea of sitting in the "splash zone" for the dolphin show! Luckily, we didn't get too wet.

We also got to see a 4-D movie. Cala was one of the few kids who didn't have to get taken out crying in the middle of the movie. (the 4th D is theater effects to make you feel like you are in the movie like a water spritz in the face, a poke in the back, or something brushing against your ankles--I wasn't a fan of the water spritz, but eveything else was pretty fun)

Us in the Australian Outback section. We thought about only posting pictures of this section and telling everybody we went to Australia for Spring Break :)

Our sleepy baby. The day really wore her out!

Breakfast with Cala

Two of Cala's great loves are sampling whatever food Mark and I are eating and helping us with whatever we might be doing at the time. This video includes some of both -- helping Mark eat his breakfast while also sampling some herself.

Happy 28th Birthday Mark!

I love birthdays! It's such a great reason to have fun, do something different, and feed an 18 month old a piece of cake! For Mark's birthday, we asked some friends to babysit while Mark and I went out for Chinese at a place that gives you mini boxes of gum rather than fortune cookies...what fun!

Then we went iceskating and practically had the whole rink to ourselves.

And I got to relive my figure skating days...I was surprised that I could still do a "spin"....kind of....I even tried a couple of jumps (amidst much protesting from my husband that I should go out on top with my spin and not try to kill myself by jumping).

Then home to cake and presents!

After Mark blew out his candles we ended up relighting some them about 10 times for Cala to practice her blowing out skills.

Animal Sounds

Cala loves animals! And she knows how to make all kinds of animal sounds, check out the video!

Warning: Super glue bonds instantly with skin!

Super glue is my favorite glue. I honestly don't understand why anyone would use any other kind of glue when super glue sticks almost any two objects together and supposedly lasts forever. The forever stuck togetherness of super glue also comes with a warning that it bonds instantly to skin...I've totally had that happen before when some super glue dripped on my finger and it took days for it to wear off...annoying but not that big of a deal.

Anyway, on Friday Mark was having a game night with the boys, and I had all kinds of crafty projects planned for myself. But first I decided to fix one of the kitchen drawers, I'll skip the details, but I of course decided to use my favorite glue to remedy the problem, I even bought the gel super glue so it wouldn't drip. All was going smoothly as I held the pieces together waiting for them to dry UNTIL I tried to let go! Turns out that somehow I had stuck my thumb in a dime-size spot of super glue and it had instantly bonded to the 2-ft long metal track that the kitchen cabinet drawer slides on!

Luckily, the tool box was within reach so I could unscrew the track from the cabinet, but then came the problem of how to unstick the unstickable glue... I tried pulling but decided that I would end up pulling off a good bit of my thumb, I tried running warm water over it, I tried pouring nail polish remover over it, then I tried crying and wondering how I would ever get the thing off my thumb. In the end I had to soak my thumb in nail polish remover for about an hour and it finally came off! Blessed relief!

Calaerobics

Mark got me an exercise video for Christmas, and Cala has seen me doing just one time. Somehow she remembered it and wanted to "exercise". We were pretty amazed.

The Yearbook Picture

On Monday Mark had to dress up for yearbook pictures...reminds you of elementary school all over again, right?! But no one ever had an elementary school photographer like Mark had! In Mark's words, "He violated my expectations." (yeah those lawyering phrases pop out every now and then) The photographer was posing Mark when all of the sudden he got about 2 inches away from Mark's face, stared at his forehead, and exclaimed, "Wow, I can see the EXIT sign reflected on your forehead, clear as day!" Then the good photographer busted out a container of makeup powder and started applying it--a little on the forehead but why stop there--and he proceeded to powder Mark's entire face! (Now my husband is a manly man, and he does not tolerate makeup coming anywhere near him. I know because in our early marriage year I tried to talk him into letting me put make up on him. Usually my begging can talk him into just about anything, but he wasn't budging on the makeup issue.) The weirdness of it all didn't end with the powder though. Then the photographer began taking pictures. "Ok, give me some smiles. Now let's try mouth closed. Whoah, that is not you! Let's go back to mouth open." And on it went with the photographer taking at least 8 pictures posing Mark for each one. Finally, Mark escaped from the twilight zone he felt like he had stepped into and frantically wiped the powder off his face. I'll let you know how it goes next year!