Happy, happy weekend

Have you ever had a couple of days where everything goes well and you are completely recharged for the coming weeks, months, etc? I got very lucky this past weekend, to have such an experience.

On Saturday Erica took me out for a facial and pedicure and then we had a lovely lunch at a sustainable, organic place called "The Dogwood Cafe." The best part of the morning and afternoon was hanging out just with Erica and catching up with her (though the spa treatment was pretty awesome too!). For the evening, Erica and Geoff and their puppy Frankie watched Katrina (and appropriately indoctrinated her with the Muppets), while John and I headed to an Ethiopian restaurant for an official date. It was really fantastic to have a chance to talk to John for several hours about things that didn't involve what needed to be done around the house or with Katrina. Total bliss!

On Sunday, the three of us headed to the Baltimore Aquarium where we raced through a bunch of exhibits in order to see the dolphin show at 11:30. Katrina sat through the half hour show eating raisins, looking serious, and not uttering a single word. The minute it was over and we got up, she looked at us very excitedly and said "Dolphins! Splash! Play ball! Jump, jump, jump! Swim under!" Obviously she had a blast and carried that energy through lunch and a couple of exhibits. We stopped by the touch tank where she refused to touch the horseshoe crab, but finally relented to picking up two mussel shells and transferring water between them.

After her nap, Katrina helped John decorate my birthday cake with sprinkles. She started out with one sprinkle at a time, which finally progressed to handfuls of sprinkles and finally the entire bowl in the middle of the cake. We videotaped the decorating, so hopefully John will be able to post it sometime during the week. We enjoyed the cake! cake! with our next-door neighbors who had dinner with us.

My birthday celebration continued on Monday when a co-worker brought in some fish dumplings and then today we all had apple pie and I got a really nice card from all my labmates. All this birthday celebration came on top of the lovely emails from a bunch of you and a couple of calls too.

Lucky me to have such great friends and coworkers and a great family! And now for the ham whom you have all come to see:





Muppets watching is serious business!


Hanging out with Uncle Geoff and Auntie Erica