Birthday Adventure

My 30th birthday has come and gone. All in all, I’d say it was a pretty good one! I got to be with the love of my life, and two of our closest friends, Josh and Helen, and see lots of cool sights!
We headed down early Friday morning… and less than an hour into our trip, Dave got pulled over for speeding! *sigh* It was also right at the start of a construction zone, but luckily we got a cop who wasn’t a total jerk. He still gave him a speeding ticket, but didn’t hit him with the construction zone fine and penalties. We were finally up and on our way again… at a slightly slower speed this time.

We arrived in Baltimore a little after noon. We parked near the hotel and headed to inner harbor. A quick bite to eat and we were headed to the aquarium.

I have a deep fascination of marine life. Tropical fish and sea life are some of the most beautiful things on this planet. I actually feel a little guilty for going to an aquarium because something this beautiful shouldn’t be contained… but on the other hand, I may otherwise never get to see how lovely they really are.
An open tank, full of rays, and a lone sea turtle, named Flipper. Flipper had an unfortunate young turtle-hood incident. He was rescued at a young age and was said to be “cold-stunned” with a front flipper getting severely infected. It was amputated to save his life and now has a permanent home at the National Aquarium, where he is thriving… you go, Flipper!

Dave and I took A LOT of pictures of fish… I’ll spare you a great number of them, but wanted to share some of my favorites:

This is a cow fish… cute, huh?

A very pretty red fish…

A humorous stack-o-turtles

A hypnotically beautiful jellyfish

A couple pics of me and my sweetie…

I love him

Us with our friends, Josh and Helen

After spending most of the day at the aquarium, we went to check in at the hotel. Apparently though, Priceline (through which the rooms were booked) had other ideas… we chose a 3 1/2 star hotel which looked quite fancy, but apparently a glitch in Priceline and a few out-of-commission rooms at the hotel (fire? water damage? we were never really told) came into play and we were out of luck. They put us up at a nearby Quality Inn… and while I’ve stayed in way yuckier places, this place was certainly not what we had in mind. A 2 star accommodation. And other people (Dave found out when he went to move the car because they offered to give us free parking for our troubles) were still able to check in. So I guess if you use a bargain website, you are the first ones nixed from the reservation list. They gave us a certificate for a free night’s stay within the next year, but not sure if that will happen. We’ll see…
We checked in to our new location. Dave was less than thrilled and I was worried for a bit that he was going to let it ruin the rest of our trip. He told me it was my birthday and he was excited that he found us a cheap room at a really nice place… and he wanted to do that for me and he wanted it to be special. I told him that I didn’t care… yeah, I was excited about a swanky hotel (I’m used to staying in bargain chain hotels when traveling), but all that mattered was that I was with him and our friends. Eventually he came around and we were able to make a joke out of it… especially the really awful artwork that was in our room:

It belongs in the Museum of Bad Art: http://www.museumofbadart.org/

We went to dinner at PF Changs and then turned in for the night… all in all, a good day.

On Saturday, we got up, had breakfast, checked out, put our luggage in the car, and headed to the Maryland Science Center. On the way though, we came across a water fountain and some interesting sculptures… we were moved by the art work:

We had a lot of fun… and there was lots of stuff to play with! This contraption had the guys’ attention for quite some time:

Dave looks so cute… you can tell he’s trying to figure out how to make the balls inside do his exact bidding…

There was a neat GPS exhibit that talked all about geocaching, which is something I always thought would be fun. Basically there are GPS points all over the world that are part of the geocaching experience. You get coordinates, use a GPS system to find its approximate location and then do your best to find the container… inside there is some sort of “prize”. Basically, you take whatever is in it and leave something behind for the next person. This exhibit was a simplified version of that. There were four rooms… each one had a container of some kind that gave you a clue to the puzzle in the room. Each solution to the puzzle was a numerical code. You had to punch the code into the door in the room and if it was right, you were able to enter it and get into the next part of the maze and on to the next room.

It was pretty cool!

After a day at the museum, we headed to dinner at Phillips Seafood Buffet. It was delicious!! With a yummy dinner in our tummies, we decided to bid a fond farewell to Baltimore.

We had a great time with our friends and I highly enjoy spending time with them!

Bye bye Baltimore… maybe we’ll be back soon… maybe to redeem that free night’s stay.

Turning 30…

In two days, I’ll be turning the big 3-0.  I have mixed feelings on this… on one hand, it’s another birthday and I don’t feel like I’m 30 (though some days I feel like I’m 60!), but then again, I’m not sure what it’s supposed to feel like.  I don’t feel as good as I did in high school in college, but I was also a lot more active and 30-40lbs lighter.  I came across a picture from when I was 20… I was turned sideways in it and I had almost disappeared!  I showed it to Dave and he made sort of a disgusted face and told me that I was too freakin’ skinny back then and, if he had known me, would’ve wanted to feed me a sandwich.  That might be true… maybe I was too skinny…  though I miss the days when the largest size in my closet was a 4.  I’ll admit that I do like being a little curvy (and so does Dave)… I’m 5’7″ and right around 163 lbs.  Chubby in spots but not to the point of being ridiculously unhealthy.  I’ll never see that 110lb teenage body again, but maybe that’s ok.  I don’t need to be back there again.   I do need to work out more to be healthier, and I need to eat better… something I knew years before this 30 mile stone was here.  Maybe though I can use this to catapult me into a healthier life style!!

I’ve truly been through a lot as a 30 year old woman.  Maybe more than a lot of women.  I graduated from college, found a job I despised (though not at first) and stuck with it for 4 years before landing a job I adore.  I’ve been engaged 3 times… married twice, divorced once.  I’ve lost some good friends from days gone by, but also gained some fantastic new ones.  I became a home owner and discovered that I hate doing work outdoors…  not that’s a huge thing but it is a frustration!  I’ve been diagnosed with adult asthma and found out I have a LOT of allergies to anything that grows outside (hence why I hate yard work).  I went from never wanting a child, which I blame on a combination of a previous very unhappy marriage and working at a daycare with 20 screaming children, to being excited at the prospect of having a child with Dave.

Things have changed drastically for me, really in the past 5 years from what I thought was going to be my life to what has really happened… and consider myself lucky that the only thing I wish I could change is getting a few extra pounds off.   I really couldn’t be happier with my life right now.  Shedding 10-20 lbs would just be icing on this already delicious cake.    …maybe I shouldn’t use a cake reference when talking about weight loss…

I love my life and am grateful for it every day.  I have a beautiful house, a fantastic network of friends and family, two adorable kitties, and a job I love…  mostly though, I’m thankful for Dave!  He’s my best friend and I’d be lost with out him.  We went through a lot to be together and we never forget that.   Being with him is a birthday gift in itself and I can’t imagine celebrating my birthday with anyone else!    Love you, sweetie!

Scrapbook-y Goodness

My scrapbooking workshop at the art center was this past week and the week before. I’ve actually had an overwhelming amount of scrapping lately~ had the retreat, later that week was the first night of my workshop, the weekend after I went to my friend Andrea’s house and we scrapbooked together, then the last night of my class was supposed to be this past week… I say supposed to be because something happened this week that’s never happened to me in the past.
My workshop is only two nights… it meets two Thursdays in a row. I probably could turn it into a six week class, but truthfully, I’m a home body so I don’t feel like committing a total of 12 nights a semester to my class. (I’d rather be home doing my own scrapbooks!)
Almost every time I have it, I get one or two people who can’t make it to the 2nd night or have to leave early. But this time, I had 5 people signed up (my limit is 6 in the class, due to space constraints), and each one called or emailed me Thursday (one actually came in person), within the span of 3 hours to tell me, that for various reasons, they couldn’t make it! The last one was Daniela, who’s signed up for every scrapbook workshop I’ve had for the past 2 years… so I called her to see if she was coming, since the previous week she could only stop by for an hour. She said she was actually thinking about not coming since she would again, only be able to come for about an hour. I told her I was more than willing to have class, even if she was the only one in it, but she said it would actually lighten her schedule if she had one less place to run to… and so, just like that, all my students abandoned me! I told Dave that my workshop was canceled, he said he believed that everyone just came down with a case of nice-weather syndrome, as it was the first really nice day we’d had in awhile.
It made me a little bit sad… for one, I had brought in all my own scrapbook toys that I drag to every class (another reason I don’t want a 6 week class!) and had everything set up ready to go, and another reason was I was looking forward to seeing everyone’s albums!
I’m unsure of having a workshop over the summer… I usually do but last year, I was so exhausted and didn’t look forward to it. What’s the point of teaching if you’re not excited about it!?
During the summer, we have art camps for kids… while the rest of the university has a major slow-down over the summer, my supervisor and I have our hands absolutely full! So when evening hits, after a looong day of camp, I am more than ready to go home! Plus this summer, the art center is moving to a new location! Super exciting, but very overwhelming! I’m stoked about our new space… we’ll have more classroom space, more storage and sinks in every room!!! (Something we are sorely lacking now)
I also think I’m going to try to arrange a scrapbooking club of sorts. Not quite sure how I’m going to work out the details, but I think we may just have open “studio” time for members to come in and have the space to work… we’ll provide use of tools like decorative scissors, punches and the Cricut Expression that we have. I just need to figure out if we sell paper or some how bundle that in with the membership.

Meanwhile, in other scrapbooking news… I got two new Cricut cartridges for myself… Camp Out and Animal Kingdom. The Animal Kingdom cartridge I won on Ebay… first time I’ve won anything! Ebay is really a good place to find cheap cartridges… I’m just not very good at bidding on them because, well… I’m cheap! I don’t usually set my max bid very high and I typically only bid once, within the last 10 seconds. Today I lucked out… I usually only look at Ebay in the evenings and on weekends… when everyone else is able to look at it too! Today, it was a slower afternoon at work, so I logged in, did a quick search for some cartridges I’ve been wanting and then just watched them… I did some work on my computer and around the center and would pop back on the site to see where the time was… and when it was less than 30 seconds left, I made my move.
I ordered Camp Out from a different site and just got it today… looking forward to using it this weekend!

Sorry… this is not a very exciting post… I just hadn’t written anything in a bit and had lots of scrapbook-y goodness to share!
Have a great weekend~ happy Easter! (and happy scrapping!)