Our fun weekend (Mar. 21-23, 2008)

Jen here:

On the first day of Spring, it began to snow in Chicago. It lasted until Friday afternoon. It was slushy and yucky. However, we had tickets to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Sanjai "won" the tickets from the Graduate Medical Office for reading his email and asking an intelligent question. It was a nice evening. We enjoyed getting to dress up and seeing an amazing performance.

On Saturday, we finally made it to one of the incredible museums that the city has to offer. I was thinking of my dad as we walked up the steps to the Shedd Aquarium. He was so persuasive in getting us to visit the New Orleans Aquarium when we visited in 2002. I was hoping that the Shedd would be just as good so I could take him there one day. The aquarium is perched right next Lake Michigan. Check out the view:

I forgot to mention, Sanjai also had me help him shave his head that morning. He was thankful I suggested a hat for our travels. Here are some things we saw at the Aquarium:

We got there just as a Dolphin Show was starting. Talk about crowded. It was great fun though. They also have Beluga whales. There was a baby Beluga born this summer there, but I don't think we saw it (or it had grown very quickly!). They also had a great shark tank that you felt like you were inside. The stingrays were in a small enclosure that had a clear ceiling that you could walk on. So, it looked like you were hovering over water that had stingrays in it! We saw a feeding taking place in the "Caribbean Reef." There were stingrays there as well. The educator was really trying to make the hard sell of how docile they are. It was great fun. We only saw half of it, but we're members now. So, Dad, I've got a free ticket waiting for you!

We couldn't leave the Museum Campus, which also is home to the Adler Planetarium and the Field Museum, without taking a picture of Sanjai in front of the Brachiosaurus in front of the Field.

Finally, I will leave you with another picture of our pooch. She is so far from being any kind of show dog. This pose is what we call "person in a dog suit." Enjoy!

Kaya: A Hopi Indian word for "Baby Substitute"

Sanjai here:

Well, I know that Jen promised not to post too many pictures of the dog, but I'm under no such restrictions. Most of you know that we got a Yellow Labrador puppy while still in Denver. We named her Kaya, which is a Hopi Indian word meaning "little sister." We got the name from a Bob Marley song, only to find out later that when The Dreadlocked One is singing that he's "got to have Kaya now," he's actually referring to marijuana. So we just tell the Hopi Indian story when asked what her name means.

Thankfully, Jen had the whole first summer that we had Kaya off, and was able to dedicate some serious socializing time with the puppy. I would often come home to this scene as my wife had fallen asleep next to her crate. It was a lot of work (on Jen's part, not mine), but nearly 2 years later we have a fantastically behaved dog adjusting well to The Windy City (although she does miss the 300+ sunny days we had in Denver).

Although the title of this post is obviously a joke, I do think having Kaya has given us a chance to see what it would be like to have something to take care of and nurture without the responsibility (or dirty diapers) that come with actually having kids. Now that she's pretty much full grown, I'm not sure how long I can hold off the call of the Biological Clock. For now whenever talk turns to parenting styles, I rely on these last pictures as an example of how a living creature left in my care will end up (Drunk, in the dryer, or semi-rabid):

First Blog ("Honest to Blog?!")

So, we're trying out this blogging thing because we enjoy reading up on the Wildepod so much.

We've been having a busy March. Our friends from Denver, Dave and Sara, came to visit the weekend of March 14-16. It was great to see them and catch up on what's been going on with the University of Colorado crew. After staying up way too late on Friday chatting with them, we got up early on Saturday to do some sightseeing. We went downtown to eat lunch and maybe see the famous St. Patrick's Day Parade. When we got to State Street, there were hundreds of people dressed in green and already drunk (11 am). Feeling hungry, we ducked into a famous pizza place next to Millenium Park. Surprisingly, we got right in. Plus, we didn't have to fight the crowds for the parade. We could see it on the television monitors in the restaurant. I know it might sound lame to watch a parade on television, but seriously, Chicago is COLD. I'm really glad we didn't truck down there, because it was a pretty lame parade after all.

With bellies full of pizza, we headed north on Michigan Ave. on foot. Along the way, a couple of streetcars zipped past with smiling people hurling green beaded necklaces at people on the sidewalk. Imagine being one of those drunk people I previously mentioned... "Huh? Whawusat? Lemme tell you somming." Hee hee - I like to try to write how drunk people sound. Soon, we came to the Chicago River, which gets dyed green for the day of the St. Patrick's Day Parade. What an incredible sight.

Well, that was fun. We'll do our best to keep it up. Take care!