Visitors

I don't have a whole lot going on here.  I'm loving my new job.  There is a lot of variety, which makes time fly.  Sometimes I'm at the desk doing paperwork or computer work.  Sometimes I'm out on UTMB campus shadowing someone from the department.  I have lots of training to do before I can take on some things by myself.  I'm getting it done as fast as I can manage. 

Travis' dad came to visit two weekends ago.  It was great to catch up with him.  We did our best to keep things interesting for him.  It's getting harder and harder to entertain guests with two kids in tow. 

This past weekend, Travis' mom came to stay.  She was extremely helpful with the kids.  I feel bad because Travis got sick Saturday night and I was sick Tuesday.  I am grateful she was around to help out though.  It may not have been that much fun for her, but it was good timing for me.  She ran to the store when I realized we were out of a few important items.  She fed Mila and bathed Aiden.  So nice!

Brenda was here for my birthday party. I turned 30 this year, so I decided to have an actual party. I invited everyone I knew and there was a huge turn out. I had a lot of fun, but that's definitely not something I want to do on a regular basis. My partying days are numbered.

For party favors, I tied a mini liquor bottle to a mixer.  So cute! 

Crown and Sprite

 You should have seen me describing this to the cake lady at Walmart:

"Holy Crap She's 30"

I had to do this TWICE.  Once when my party was originally planned, but Mila ended up in the hospital.  Again, this past week.  I was so mortified when I realized I had forgotten to cancel the cookie after Mila was admitted to the hospital.  That poor woman made this cookie and then had to throw it in the trash, I'm sure.  Who else would buy this??

This weekend we don't have much planned.  I signed Aiden up for a day camp at Moody Gardens on Saturday.  I'm hoping Travis will take him and it can be a father-son day.  But if he's not up for it, I would love to go.  This week's theme is "Jaws".  They will do some crafts and activities that are related to sharks and I'm pretty sure they do it in the room that shares a wall with one of the aquariums.  At the end, they get to walk through the Aquarium Pyramid to see all the sharks.

If it's cool enough, I'm going to take the chance to go on a walk with Mila.  I wish I had the opportunity to go on more walks, but it's so miserable here in the summer.  It's so hot and humid, which is hard with a baby.  Add mosquitoes on top of that and it's almost an impossible feat.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed though!

A Very Yeager Weekend

We had a weekend filled with the Yeager's. Saturday afternoon, Travis stayed with Aiden and I went with Linsey, Kenley and Zach's mom to a fundraising event for the Opera House in Galveston. Zach's mom has been a major player in the fundraising committee and every year she goes to this event and invites Linsey and one of her friends along. Linsey invited me last year, but I was sick. This year, the stars aligned and I was able to go!

Basically, a bunch of ladies get together to eat food, drink wine and paint pottery. It was so much fun! We sat at a round table when we got there and let Kenley sleep in her car seat for a bit. First we checked out our pottery options. I chose a trivet (it took me 15 minutes of web searching to figure out that word) and an oblong dish. After we had picked our ceramics, Zach's mom held Kenley (she was so good the whole time!) and we went to get food and drinks.

After everyone arrived and was settled, the painting began! I didn't want to do anything detailed since I am not a seasoned artist. I did basic colors and a little fading. Hopefully it actually fades and doesn't look block-like. I won't know until I get it back after they are fired. I finished well before Linsey and her mother-in-law. After sitting there staring at my work for a few minutes, I wanted to do more. But I didn't want to ruin it. Zach's mom is a seasoned artist and I attempted to copy some of what she was doing. Hopefully it turns out okay!

Father's Day was on Sunday, so I let Travis decide what he wanted to do. He chose to mow the back yard in the morning and then spend a few hours playing Playstation. After Aiden got up from his nap, we drove down to Galveston to meet the Yeager's at the Moody Gardens Rainforest. They had to remodel after Hurricane Ike and we haven't been since they reopened. There is now a catwalk in the canopy of the trees so you can get closer to the birds and various trees. It was really nice, but dang it was hot. 116 degrees, according to the readout display!

Of course, I forgot to bring my camera, so I have to rely on Linsey's photos from that day. She got some great shots!

We were lucky enough to get really close to one of the three sloths that call the pyramid home. I could have touched him. He was that close. I was amazed at how big he was and his hair was super thick. Reminded me of Chewbacca. I wonder if they modeled Chewbacca after a sloth? Hm.

Aiden was afraid when the sloth got close. He moved so slowly and came down to eat a banana. I tried to convince Aiden that the sloth liked bananas as much as he does. Aiden didn't care. He wanted far, far away from that thing.

Linsey also got several great shot of the boys together. In the first one, there are several blue macaws on a branch behind them. Sort of hard to see though.

Every time we came to a bridge, the boys insisted on leaning over to look at the fish in the water. It was nerve racking at times.

Chumming it up with the Day Geckos...

Luke LOVES lizards. LOVES. We have an abundance of a small lizard called an Anole (pronounced ah-nole-ee) in our area and apparently Luke freaks every time he sees one. So much so, that his parents are contemplating buying him one for his birthday. The joke is why don't you just go grab one from your yard? I can't imagine that would be an easy task though. And perhaps those from the store will be more comfortable with people. Ha! Should be interesting.

I can't wait to get my pottery back! I promise to take a photo to share with you, whether they're crap or excellent.

VIP Passes

Last week, Ariel treated us to a day at Moody Gardens. At a raffle at Robert's Christmas party, she won free VIP passes to the local attraction. Sadly, it is close to impossible to get Ariel out of bed before noon, so we were unable to take full advantage of those tickets. Since time was limited, we chose to go through the aquarium, which is where I used to volunteer (before getting pregnant). We didn't make it to the rain forest, which I was a little bummed about. I'll survive.

That evening, everyone but me made it back for a 10pm showing of A Christmas Carol in IMAX 3D. I was invited, but didn't think my old mommy body would make it that late. Especially knowing that I had to get up at 6am the next morning to take care of Aiden. We did it during the week so Travis had to be at work the next morning.

The Rockfish kindly posed for a quick photo shoot with Aiden. Either that or he was trying to figure out how to get to his next meal.

Oh the penguin exhibit! My favorite during volunteering. Those little guys are so cute - each with their own personality.



Caribbean exhibit - a tunnel through the tank.

Aiden and Mommy in jail?

Nope - just a shark dive cage!

Penguino!

I was waiting on some photos to be emailed to me from another volunteer, but its taking so long I've decided to just post it with my phone pics. I was finally able to take part in penguin painting. Basically, we have the animals walk over non-toxic paint, then onto canvas. We did it in the cold room, so my fingers were FREEZING by the end. The proceeds from the sold paintings go to AAZK and back into Moody Gardens, which is a great cause for an aquarium to support. If you are interested in buying any, go here. The penguins are in the middle of molting, so they don't look the hottest. You can see their footprints all over the ground - check out these penguins making art!

Body on Fire

I feel like I was run over by truck. My entire body is screaming. My abs are screaming. My rib cage, my back, my shoulders, my neck, my jaw, my butt, my thighs - all screaming. On top of that, I have bruises on my knees, ankles and ARMPITS. It all hurts. I'm still trying to decide if it was worth it. I got to do something that I've wanted to do for a long time and I'm not sure if I'll ever do it again. I was part of the penguin tank cleaning dive yesterday in the freezing waters comparable to the "South Atlantic".

The whole thing was a huge ordeal for me, especially because it was my first dive in cold water. Because of this, I had to try on wetsuits to find one that fit properly. It took two tries, which isn't bad. What made it so difficult is that the first one I tried was too small. I felt like I was wrestling a new skin for myself. And it was a stubborn skin. I finally gave up and requested the next size up. Thankfully, I was able to get that one on without too much additional pain. Since it was just an ordeal to get the dang thing on, I wasn't about to take it off to wait for my dive buddy (who is also the dive safety officer - lucky me) to get suited up. Instead, I sat in that neoprene sweating my butt off. The reason I have bruises in my armpits is because the suit is so thick that any bending, pushes hard on the joints. Strange place to be sore, let me tell you.

Once it was time to get in the water, I was hot and ready to cool off! It was definitely cold, but not as bad as I expected it to be. I wore a hood, gloves and boots, so the only skin exposed directly to the water were my lips. I'm pretty sure I looked like an idiot trying to get into that water. I sure felt clumsy. We did this during open hours, so the guests got to watch me getting in. Awesome. I was lucky and had on just the right amount of weights so I didn't have to adjust that at all.

This was a cleaning dive, so the whole point was to get in and scrub crud. I took a few minutes when I first got down to check out the swimming penguins. They mostly avoided us. I was told that they might peck at our suits occasionally, but none of them bothered me. The scrubbing part was a little difficult. If you think about when you are swimming in a pool, what happens when you push on the wall? Answer: You push yourself backwards. Duh. So in order to scrub the walls, I had to swim towards the wall as I pushed the brush against it. The whole thing was a struggle.

About 25 minutes into the dive, I suddenly rocketed to the surface. I had all the air out of my Buoyancy Control Device (BCD, its a vest you where that can have air added and removed to control buoyancy), so I didn't know what to do. Luckily, my dive buddy was scrubbing above me, so I was able to tap him on the shoulder and let him know I was on my way up. Turns out, the BCD I was using can get air stuck on the inside and you have to tilt your body back and forth to work it out. I've never used this kind before, so it was a new experience. After I knew what to do, we went back down. I was only able to stay for another 10 minutes before I felt like my feet were going to freeze off.

Getting out was the hardest part. Well, maybe a close second to the wetsuit struggle. I was so cold, and I was so drained from all the scrubbing, that I could barely pull myself out. There is a little wade pool to go into first, so it wasn't like pulling yourself out of the water onto a dock, but it was still HARD. The first thing I realized is that I had just been scrubbing algae and bird poop off the walls, which was subsequently floating in the water. When I pulled the regulator out of my mouth and tasted rotten salty water I was immediately disgusted. Then I decided I was too tired to think about it. I was on my knees and unable to stand up all the way. The tender at the top had to help pull me out. I was pretty sure I wouldn't make it down the stairs to where I had to take off my gear, but somehow I did.

As soon as I got down there, I filled my boots with cool water (warm water felt like scalding hot water) to help warm up my feet. I felt like I was walking on pins and needles. I had flash backs to playing in the snow when I was a kid. And when I pulled off my hood, I didn't have enough energy to get it off in one tug. I almost suffocated when the mask got stuck over my mouth and nose. Scary.

Notice how you can barely see the little penguin swimming by the glass? That's because the water is murky with poo and algae. The water filtration system then filters out the water.

Here's what I learned:

1. Remember what wetsuit size I wear.
2. Wear dive skin under thick wetsuits (its like a full body swimsuit that makes pulling on the wetsuit easier).
3. Invest in dive skin socks (for cold feet).
4. Maybe invest in dive skin hood (for easier removal of full hood).

This of course, is if I decide to ever go back and do this again!

PS - Happy Birthday Chris R.!