VACA!

We spent last week in a little cabin (built in 1932!) on the North Shore.  Here are just a few fun shots from the week.

 

 

We climbed the highest peak in Minnesota - all 2301 feet!  Matt and I called it "Revenge on Mt. Tiede" as it was three years ago that we tried to climb the highest peak in Spain and I got violently ill. 

Annie had a blast!  She was barking at waves and biting waves and chasing waves and swimming until she was a mass of shivering fur!

We enjoyed the breaking waves and late night campfires. Micah and Sam found some awesome agates.  Matt and Sam did some serious mountain biking while Micah and I hit a lot of gift shops - and never bought a thing!

The day we left, Matt dropped his dirty clothes on Annie (note: those are boxers!) and she was so exhausted she didn't move!

No longer . . . at a loss!

On August 1, I was at a loss regarding thirty-four half-siblings who came together at Sand Creek, but today I am not.  I get it!  Why would families whose children came via a sperm donor named Dave want to get together?  For the same reason I chat with Matt and Micah's birth mom and she texts me with questions - we need each other because we share somewhat the same children and I might know something that she needs to know and she might know something I need to know or we might just be able to help each other with silly little questions - because we ARE family!  No matter how it came to pass, we ARE family and that's my answer - they ARE family.

Wanted: A Brain

I only had four in my CPR-PR class at the Y this morning so I knew when I was cleaning I should have four adult manikin faces to clean.  I had three.  I back out to the classroom to look for missing face number four.  No face.  I went back into the cleaning area.  No face.  I cleaned everything up and then went back to look one last time.  I mean - really!  How could I have lost a manikin face?  Trust me when I say, I did not lose it.  I just never took it off the manikin!  And it was only 11:00 a.m.  August 21 can not come soon enough! 

Someone turned 10 today!

Happy Birthday, Annie!

GIve . . .

My dad had been giving blood for years, but had to stop one pint short of ten gallons because he was put on warfarin, a blood thinner.

Following Dad's example, I started giving blood in college, but haven't been able to give for the last ten years because I've been on malarial medication.  

That all changed today when, three years and one month after my last malaria pill, I was able to give my first pint since who knows when.  I contacted the American Red Cross and my pint was given in the name of my dad, Lyle Heuer.  The Red Cross will be mailing him his ten gallon pin soon!  Yay!

Neighborhood Chatter

I ran into my neighbor Rich while we were walking our dogs today.  He said he and his wife Jen had seen Matt biking by their house the other day.  Their conversation went like this:

R:  "Matt's biking without a helmet."
J:  "He couldn't fit one on that hair anyway!"

At a loss . . .

"Where do you begin . . . How do you describe . . ." are words in one of my favorite songs and they're my words for our second group at Sand Creek this morning.

A mom and her two daughters hopped out of their car and said they were there for a family reunion, but it wasn't your "normal" family reunion because all of the kids were half-siblings.  Note: there were 34 kids.

It turns out that these children all had the same sperm donor.  Some were being raised by just a mom, others had two mothers and our first family there actually had a mom and a dad.  

As I put the kids up the high ropes course, it was amazing how much they all looked alike.  I mean, really looked alike.  And it was interesting to hear their stories . . .They all knew how they were conceived . . . They had all had supper with Donor Dave last night . . . They thought he was a lot of fun . . . They lived all over the United States . . . This was their third get together . . . There were like two sets of kids - the just-finishing-high-school-starting-college age group and the middle-school group . . . They knew Dave was chosen because he was tall - 6'5" - and brilliant and that he was chosen without a picture . . . They knew he was a sperm donor while he was an undergrad and a grad student . . . He's now married and he has four children of his own . . . They've met those children, too . . . They all had crooked toes . . . And there might be more - children, that is.  This group had met through a donor web site and didn't know how many more children were out there.

I have no idea where to go with this except to say that Dave is no longer donating sperm and I'm good with that.  And they really were a neat bunch of kids who all looked very much alike.  Feel free to share your thoughts . . .