Fishies & Friends

Sunday was a fun-filled day. We first met up with our friends Bryan, Kari and Leila at Sea Life Aquarium at Mall of America. Harper was quite intrigued and curious about everything. He would look through the thick glass, point at the fishies, make the fishy sound, then take off in another direction, keeping Josh and me on our toes. The aquarium is on the expensive side, but it does have some really neat tanks. One has a bunch of sting rays where the glass goes all the way to the ground so you can get up close and personal. You can also then go up some stairs and stand on top of a glass platform and look down at the sting rays. They had a couple of tide pools where the kids can reach in and touch starfish, anemones and some other sea creatures. Harper had fun running around the jelly fish room lined with mirrors as he would see his reflection and run from one to another. The tank tunnels were bay far the coolest with fish, sharks, rays, and sea turtles swimming on both sides and above you. 

Our friends then joined us at our house for lunch and to let the kids play. Leila is just over a year older than Harper, so it was neat to see their differences. Harper is just getting into stacking things instead of knocking them over, but Leila's disapproval of Harper's still babyish skills was evident. She's so grown up and likes to do everything herself. They got along quite well, and we were able to snap this nice photo of them playing together.

Later that afternoon, we all took a family nap as Josh and I were exhausted. We stayed up too late, as usual, and just couldn't keep our eyes open. We did manage to muster up enough energy to join our friends Corynn, Jamie, Chris, Evan and Allison for some more grilling in the evening.

A couple random cute things Harper has done recently:

• sign "milk" (finally!)
• try to brush his hair
• point out our noses and mouths

We are excited for our upcoming vacation with family. It will be nice, and almost strange, to spend 9 whole days together. We can't wait!