Heat Wave

The temperature climbed above 30 degrees today, so we decided to take in the events at the Minneapolis Loppet (the main event of the Loppet is a cross country ski race).  Anders got to try out the backpack we bought while visiting Pete, Betsy, Henry and Clara in Chicago this summer.  He LOVED it!  It might be our best purchase ever.  

The main thing we went to see was the skijoring event - which is skiing with a dog or two pulling you.  I wish we had done this with Lucy years ago - she would have loved it.  There were tons of people out - again, it was a heat wave as this was our first day over freezing in 2009.  These dogs seemed to know what they were doing.

This could be Anders in about 10 years.  No pressure. 

Some of the dogs didn't know what they were doing and were just out to have fun.  I was surprised at how many people there were skijoring. 

I think this dog's name was Elroy, but it might have been Harvey.   Regardless, he wasn't doing what he was supposed to be doing and a minute after this picture was taken, his owner came skiing up bellowing the dog's name, which Will and I cannot remember exactly.  It was quite funny.

Elroy/Harvey wasn't really cooperating at all - he really just wanted to play.

Minnesotans don't wear coats when the temperature gets to 30.  But they do make igloos.

Cute, cute, cute!  Anders talked and squealed and kicked Will the whole time.  When I was changing his diaper tonight I told him that if he slept all night, we would go on hour long walks in the backpack every day.  This made him crack up - seriously, and I'm not really sure why.  He might of been delirious from the warm temperature and possibly overwhelmed with sleepiness.

There was also a bike race.  The riders had studded tires and rode around the track for 30 minutes.  The track is on one of the lakes in Minneapolis - the skijoring was on a lake too. 

This is my cool shot of the riders in the Spiral of Death.  

Here is some of the ice we were walking on.  I should have taken a picture of one of the cracks so you could see how thick the ice was - I think it was about 2 feet thick.  These are just air bubbles and looked a lot cooler in person.

This is another Minnesota past time - I don't know what it is called - ski-sailing?  Para-boarding?  Anyway, there were about 10 people doing it on Lake Calhoun - the person on the far right of the picture is attached to the sail.   There was also somebody out on the lake with a wind-surfer - wind-skiing?  My picture of that was worse than these are. 

More cuteness.  

Meanwhile, 35 years later...

Words of wisdom

People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

Hooray!

Bummer

Will recently noticed that Lucy had a couple of new lumps along the incision from her surgery in October to remove her Mast Cell Tumor.  So we went back to the U of M oncology dept on Thursday and sure enough, her cancer is back with a vengeance.  In October they got good margins when they removed the tumor, meaning they removed the whole tumor plus some tissue to help make sure they  got everything, but MCTs are tricky.  Mast cells are actually part of the immune system, but MCTs are mast cells gone bad.  Because they are part of the immune system, the tumors can spread to other parts of the body without being attached to the obvious tumors - the oncologist called them satellite tumors.  So anyway, Lucy has 6-7 more tumors on her hip and they are behaving very aggressively - meaning they are growing very fast.  The vets actually seemed a bit shocked at how aggressive the tumors are.  We don't know if the tumors have spread to her internal organs, but we aren't going to do the invasive testing to find out either.  Surgery is not an option as they barely had room on her hip to get the original tumor out, so after carefully considering all of our options for treatment we are going to use drugs to make her comfortable.   Basically Lucy is going on hospice care I guess. Lucy seems to be doing fine - she is very perky and in fact, driving us crazy with multiple trips outside, which we discovered was to eat the suet bits the birds have left on the ground.  She gets very animated as she does what I call the Suet Dance, which if it wasn't happening every 5 minutes, would be quite entertaining.  

This picture is one of my favorites - it is taken at the lake on a cliff we have on the property.  We were down at the bottom of the cliff and she had found her way up on top of it.  She didn't seem to care that that stick was getting her.  

Because we don't know if she has any internal tumors, we don't know how long she will live.  They recently lost a patient at the U that had some MCTs and had been on the same drug treatment for a year.  So who knows.  

Happy Birthday Tom!

Today is my brother-in-law's birthday.  He is getting very old, but not as old as Will.  Here he is a couple of years ago - we were in Glenwood Springs, Colorado after my sisters and I did the Moab half marathon.  It was Cameron's (Tom's son) 1st birthday.  I don't have any other pictures of Tom on my computer.  :(

I hope you have a great birthday Tom! 

I got tagged

I opened up my sister's blog only to find that her newest post was titled - Sandy - You're It!  So, I was supposed to open up the pictures folder on my computer find the 6th folder and post the 6th picture in that folder.  I think...I better go check again...ok, yes those are the instructions, so here it is: 

This is from our trip to Hawaii with our friends Brian and Sara.  It was 4 years ago this past November.  Sara was pregnant with twins.  We had a great trip, and I sometimes find myself longing to be in Hawaii again.   I think we were all there for 7 days or so and then Will and I went to Kauai for 3 more days.  Henry was born while we were in Hawaii.  Anyway, this is me and Brian watching surfers somewhere on the north side of Maui - we took a long drive that day.  

And now, Rob - You're it!  Same instructions, now go! 

Also, Happy Birthday Clara!  Clara is one year old today.

Anders says: "You're how old?"  

Lots o' Stuff

After a quiet Christmas in Minnesota, we headed to Iowa for lots of activity.  

We celebrated Christmas at Rob, Carrie and Eleanor's house:

Anders got another hat to add to his collection (the matching mittens are still attached to the hat in this picture).

Eleanor got a fun hat from Aunt Betsy, I'm thinking Eleanor looks pretty darn cute in this hat.

  
Clara entertained us with her scooting, though in this picture she looks rather alarmed - it could be that several of us were talking to her and not one of us was her favorite person - her mom.

Anders got over stimulated (he then slept for 7 hours straight once we got him to bed).

Then we did Christmas again the next day at Bill and Kathie's house.  Here is Hoody Henry passing out some lottery tickets.  

Anders got to hang out with Uncle Rob, 

And he got to watch football with his dad.  

He watched the Hawkeyes kick some butt - Go Hawks! 

Then we tried to get the 4 cousins together for a picture.  This one cracks me up.  Eleanor had better things to do.  Betsy has a good group shot on their blog.

Yep, these guys are related.  At this point in time, I don't see any similarities that would make random people ask if they are related.  I do see some similarities between Anders and Eleanor - maybe it is just the fair skin and hair.  This is a fun picture though - I love the look on Henry's face.  

After the Iowa game, we headed to Des Moines for a short visit with my sister Sarah and her family - Mike, Zach and Drew.   I stole the next 2 pics from her blog because we didn't have our camera handy, plus Mike's new camera (oops - their new camera I mean) is probably better than ours.  

Anyway, Drew was way into Anders.  Sarah has a cute series of pictures of these two together.  They look a little more like each other. 

Here are the 3 boys together.  

We came home Friday night because I wanted to have Saturday and Sunday at home before the first day of day care.  On the way home, we saw an amazing meteorite over Ames.  It was very bright with a huge trail and it broke in two on the way down.  I remember it being green and orange, but Will thinks I am embellishing that part.  Either way, it was super cool. 

So, Anders started day care on Monday.  He is going to a Montessori 3 days a week and the other 2 days he stays home with me or Will.  They love him there - they say he is a very happy baby.  It is sad to leave him there, but I can tell the people there love what they do.

He also started sleeping in his crib on Friday night.  It seems to be going well, though the act of going upstairs to him is really waking me up - now instead of laying in bed listening to Will, Lucy and Anders snoring, I get to lay in bed listening to Will and Lucy snoring and Anders and the fish tank making noise over the monitor. I should actually go to bed now...

Anders also had his 4 month appointment this week.  He is doing well.  He is very strong and holds his head up quite well and really likes to stand up these days.  He is long and skinny - 25 3/4 inches long (in the 75th percentile) and only 12 lbs 1 oz (25th percentile).  The doctor isn't concerned about his weight - she says he is obviously healthy and if he wasn't getting enough nutritionally, he wouldn't be so long.  She just believes that he has a super high metabolism and that he is very active (we might be in trouble with that).  She said we can start him on rice cereal now so that he gets more calories and maybe even sleeps through the night (he has an internal alarm that goes off at 4 am regularly).  We aren't really ready to start him on solids immediately - I think we need a few weeks to get used to the crazy circus our lives have become now that we need to get to day care and work, but then I think we will consider trying the rice cereal.  He is definitely interested in other people's food!