Murphy's Law

Lovely summer has arrived in Duluth complete with sunshine, lake fog, thunderstorms and outdoor concerts in the park that I can hear from our house.

The baby has been squirming and wiggling and seeming to want to bust out through my belly. That method of egress has pro and cons. Sorry to put that image in your head but it's my every day reality right now... Part of the waiting that is funny is that I feel like every time we go grocery shopping we're "stocking up" for the big event - like Hurricane Glenda is about to hit us (and no that's not the baby's name...you can cross that one off your top 5 list). But then another week goes by and it's time to go grocery shopping again and I think "ok, what are we REALLY going to want or need when the baby arrives..." I've forgotten things that were even on my list for the past 3 weeks now and hopefully tomorrow will be a different story.

It is my theory that our very considerate daughter was waiting for my grant application to be done (signed, sealed and delivered) before arriving. The grant was finished today but not before the following also happened:

1. Co-worker calls and says we finally heard back with answers from the EPA. (we've been waiting over a week for these answers)

2. Great! I'll swing by work after having a lovely lunch with my husband. (spicy thai food to get the baby moving?!)

3. As we go to download things from the internet and our common files...the financial software update for the gift shop/ticketing causes our server to shut down. Awesome. No printing, access to files, internet or email. No one knows when things will be up and running again. But we only have 15 minutes of work left on this bad boy of a federal maze! Honestly. The timing.

4. Ok, plan B. I'll go home - fill out the forms on-line and then when I'm done print them and run back to work.

5. Forms filled out. Emailed to myself and a few others. But our printer is saying "Your new printer cartridge (the yellow one) that you just bought and installed is faulty and I'm not going to let you print even in black and white until you meet my very high maintenance ink needs"...ai. It's cool. I have a bunch of errands to run.

6. I finish my errands while waiting for a call from work to say that everything is right with the technology gods. While in the process I discover a car wash close to our house that will vacuum out your car, wipe every surface and lovingly clean all parts of the outside for about $20. That sounds like heaven. Sign me up. Maybe things are starting to go my way.

7. Back at work and after a bit of technological tweeking to get my documents to work on a co-workers computer (mine of course has already been taken apart for someone else to use this summer)...and some signing, scanning and assembly of digital and (4) paper copies it is finally done!

When I go back to work at the end of the summer - we'll have $135,000 to our name to build a new exhibit about aquatic invasive species. (I know... very sexy...) Halle-freakin-lujah! Thank you EPA and President Obama for helping little ol' GLA teach peeps about the Great Lakes. And thank you to all those who asked again and again over the past 6 months about how this project was going. I appreciate the support.

If anyone ever is writing a federal grant and needs a support group. I'll bring the snacks.

Gooseberry Falls on a rainy day

Hiking around is supposed to be good for getting baby moving. Even though the sun never peeked out this weekend - we went to Gooseberry Falls State Park and enjoyed the day.

Belly photo looking out over Lake Superior. Why yes, those are ancient volcanic rocks I'm standing on. And yes, a wool sweater was necessary. Not that flattering but warm against the cold lake breeze.

Attention all pregnant ladies: Sitting on a pebble beach is amazingly comfortable. Difficult to extract one's self from but very supportive. Agate hunting will be fun to do with our daughter someday. Not sure how much she helped this time but we found a few. And have come to the realization that all those little jars/plates of agates in every nook and cranny of our house will soon need to be put out of reach. I guess we have a little bit of time but childproofing our house is going to be an adventure.

Ryan skipping stones on the Gooseberry River.

Masters of Disguise

We just opened a new salt water exhibit at work called Masters of Disguise. It's about how animals blend into their world using camouflage and mimicry. Big project...almost done. For those of you that don't work in the zoo/aquarium/museum world...signage is something that never ever seems to be done...pictures, text, positions, edits...what are we going to hang them with? Is there enough light? Ai. Luckily we have a rockstar team and as I'm leaving in a few days to either a) wait for baby to arrive or b) have and chill with baby....someone else is taking over the last few odds and ends. Ryan took some pictures when he visited the exhibit the other day. One of the perks of being married to the aquarium education director is frequent access to a number of animals. Some of whom recognize him now and will dance, talk or sing upon seeing him. Ryan, our staff and any small blond child all see to be favorites of several of our bird friends (none of whom are pictured here).

Welcome!

Here are a few of my favorites from the new exhibit:

Warty Frogfish - this guy is supposed to look like the sponges he lives nearby. He can "walk" around on his little funny feet. Other awesome trick - he uses a built in fishing rod attached to his forehead to lure prey into his huge mouth. Watch out for this guy if you are less than 3 inches long and live on a coral reef.

Well hello there. This is a chameleon. I can't remember exactly which kind. He's very cute and well poised to teach people about chromatophores, opposable thumbs (that's all he's got) and moving your eyes in two directions at once.

Decorator crabs. Can you find them? There are two in this picture. They stick stuff from their habitat all over their body...no one would ever suspect that that seaweed and group of anenomes is anything but just that. Totally worth googling images of these guys to see how nuts their collections can get. Really. I'm not kidding. Google it.

And if you're in Duluth this summer stop by and check out the other residents of this exhibit. Bugs that look like twigs, frogs that look like leaves, sharks, cuttlefish and lots of pretty fish.

Belly Photos

A slew of belly photos for those that have been asking for them...

I'm smiling but my butt is way too big for this swing right now...

Hello in there...

Yoga in the park.

This one shows how big my belly actually is...37 weeks...

Nesting...

It's not just the ladies that build nests folks. Here Ryan demonstrates his skill at putting things together...

Dresser. Check.

Stroller. Check.

Baby room. Check.

This preparation has felt epic with many stops and starts for travel, work and house guests. Crib arrived but when we went to put it together yesterday - after sitting on our porch for weeks....we discovered that it was broken during shipping. Ai. Not sure yet if we're going to ship it back or try and fix it. In the meantime we have been reminded many times that a dresser drawer works just find for those early days. Luckily Mickey and Keely were kind enough to share their bassinet with us.

House painting. Check.

Ryan's friend from childhood, Chris, made the long trek north to paint our house. Hurrah Chris! It was a beast of a project thanks to sloppy previous painters and after lots and lots of hard work - it looks amazing. So nice to have this project done in time for summer and baby arrival.

Backyard with newly planted garden and planters...and we even have deck furniture now. Whoa. Memorial Day weekend was gorgeous here and it was wonderful to get out and putter in the sun. We'll be all set for visitors this summer...

Mother's Day weekend

The Olsons and Ericksons hosted a Mother's Day baby shower/gathering in the cities. It was great to see folks! We received some lovely baby related gifts. Thanks to everyone!

Judy and Kathleen

Future Grandparents and granddog

Just Ryan's size! How did they know?

We also went on a Mother's Day hike in the wildflower garden. Pregnancy brain does nothing for my plant ID skills. Although honestly I spend more time with fish, water and paperwork these days...