Reunion, Part II

Back to the reunion.  Several other fun activities...one was Christmas in July.  Instead of exchanging gifts this year, we all brought a white elephant gift and played "robber bingo", where you can choose a gift or steal someone else's gift when you get a Bingo.

 Poor Rachel, my new sister in law to be.  She probably opened and lost about 5 or 6 gifts (many of which she needed this knife to open).  I guess she doesn't look too sad about it.

 One of the gifts was a gingerbread man kit.  Some older cousins got their hands on it and decided to be creative....

 Fortunately, there were real cookies to enjoy as well, courtesy of master cookie decorator Joyce (my mom's cousin).

 Then it was off to a nice lodge for a shower for Rachel.  She and Josiah will be getting married this December, yay!  Three sisters:

 More sisters (Angie and Debbie)

 Joan and her new daughters (Heather and Rachel)

 We gave Rachel gifts and advice, with hopefully a bit of humor.

 Back at "the ranch," Maggie always found plenty of people to read to her.  Ben wanted in on the action too, and Aunt Haidee happily obliged.  They were in heaven. :)

 Family skit night.  The Rimbos read a story about the mixed up states.

 Eric and Josiah played a goofy Japanese game show.

 Liane and kids tried to stuff 2 ping pong balls into their mouths at the same time (it didn't work).

 The Zillingers played "yankee doodle dandy" as Greg bopped each one on the head (it was sort of in tune).

 And as a finale, Uncle Bob reprised his role as a woman (this year, Lady Liberty).  It seems to be a recurring theme.

 Finally, time to say goodbye.  We took some family photos on the deck.

 Ben and godfather Josiah.

 Sara and cutie-pie Zoe.

 And the new generation of inlaws.

Miss everyone already, and can't wait for the next one (whenever it may be).

Reunion, Part I

While Eric was bettering himself by learning about tropical diseases, the kids and I headed out last week to Denver.  Every 2-3 yrs my mom's side of the family has a reunion.  It is awesome.  Games, food, music, laughter, lots of conversation.  This year's reunion was outside of Estes Park.  We wish Eric had been able to come, but it was sooo wonderful to see all my family.  AND, best of all, Maggie actually knew just about everyone because we've spent the entire year visiting all of them. :)

The first day, we took a little hike in Rocky Mnt Natl Park to a waterfall...about 0.3 miles and it was plenty for my kids!  A beautiful destination and a nice shady trail.

Maggie and her second cousins, Ella and Keira

Maggie and Ella, hiking along

Ben and Aunt Heather.  Ben walked more than Mags. :)

Relaxing by the waterfall

Ben and his adoring cousins

The only complaint I had about our accommodations was that there were no bathtubs in the rooms, just showers.  We gave Mags and Ben a sponge bath every night in the sink.  Here, Ben decided to try to soap...

 Activities involved the above mentioned hike, Family Christmas, and medallion hunt for three different ages. The little kids were really just hunting a box of treasure.  Maggie started strong...

 ...but got sidetracked along the way by some horses.  She and Ben refused to be moved...

 ...but later enjoyed the spoils of the treasure hunt anyways.  See tiara and candy necklace.

We enjoyed hearing musical selections from my uncles.

It was great to have a number of kids in the same age category as my kids.  Ben and my cousin's daughter, Zoe, are only a month apart.  They had fun sitting, chattering, wandering around, and...

 ...playing the piano together.  A few more years and they will be the ones doing the duets.

More to come!  Such a fun time.

A Very Old Thesis

I'm taking four weeks of Tropical Medicine here in Baltimore, and last week was "Vector-Borne Illnesses in the Tropics" or "Disease You Get From Bugs".  We had a lecture on Lyme Disease, which, as you know, is transmitted by ticks.  It's not a tropical disease, so I didn't think it should have been in the syllabus, but a rather odd thing happened during the lecture.

During the course, one of the "students", an Infectious Disease Doc from Mississippi, asked about STARI or Southern Tick-Associated Rash Illness.  The expert (who was quite a good lecturer, actually) said that the problem with STARI is that only one person had every isolated a Lyme-like bacteria from that kind of tick, a species called Borrelia lonestari, and no one had every been able to replicate that isolation.  Thus, most people thought that those southern ticks (a species called the lone star tick) caused a rash, but did not transmit bacterial infection.


Well, that was where I got quite excited.


And, if you don't know the rest of the story, you may be incredulous that I could get excited at that precise point.


But others of you know that, over 10 years ago, for my Honors Thesis at Belmont University, I did my one bench science project.  It was titled "The Presence of Lyme-like Bacteria in Sumner County, Tennessee".  Basically, I had heard about this new bacterium (though I thought 2 or 3 people had isolated it, even then), and went out to a Boy Scout camp outside Nashville and collected hundreds of ticks.  The methodology of that I won't go into, but suffice to say that, yes, in the process, I had a lot of ticks on me as well.


I took them back and ran a series of molecular tests on them to look for Borrelia lonestari.  And it was there.  I wrote my thesis.  I presented it a couple times.  Someone at another university offered to continue the work and maybe publish an article, but at the time, I saw that as only vain ambition, and it wasn't interesting to me.  It never occurred to me to think that anyone would find that information helpful in trying to figure out if STARI actually existed as a legit disease.  I left the results in the freezer at Belmont, and the two copies of my thesis on a shelf there.  I don't even have a copy myself.


So, after the Lyme lecture this week, I went up to the lecturer and told him that, over 10 years ago, I had isolated Borrelia lonestari.  He said, "Wow, so you were the one person?"  I said, "No.  I never published it.  I must have been the second person (thus showing that it could be replicated, that it likely did exist)."  He said, "Really?  You did?"  "Uh, yeah."


So he gave me the name of a tick-borne illness specialist in New York, and recommend that I let him know about this.  I sent him an email, and we'll see what comes of it.  I let my adviser from Belmont know, and he assured me that he still has a copy of my thesis.  I can't imagine that they still have the specimen in the freezer.


Lesson:  You never know how various strings of your life are woven.


Lesson:  Try to find out if your information or idea might be useful to someone else before you discard it.

Boats and Trains

There are a lot of fun things to do here in Baltimore.  We have been staying with Eric's cousin Mike and his wife Beca in one of the eastern suburbs for the past week.  The day after we arrived, we headed downtown to the Inner Harbor.  There was an event called "Sailabration" featuring tall ships from all over the world to celebrate the War of 1812 (I am embarrassed to admit that the only thing I know about the War of 1812 is what year it happened in....).  The harbor was fun, but PACKED full of people, it also being Father's Day.  We wandered around for awhile, people watching and enjoying the views of all the boats.  Featured below is a unique lighthouse that is no longer functioning, but now a little museum of sorts.

Below: Maggie next to the lighthouse

 Some of the boats were available for boarding, but unfortunately we came too late in the day to get on and explore any of them.  So we just enjoyed from the outside.  It would have been really fun to see them with all their sails unfurled!

Then the question of, what to do with the kids while Eric is in class?  I had flashbacks to my two months in Gallup NM, stuck in a tiny apartment with a 5 month old, knowing no one, nothing to do...but Baltimore has proved different.  I mean, it's obviously much bigger, the kids are older and more interactive, and there are people we know in the area!  There is a playground just down the street, but temps have been in the upper 90s so we've tried to find indoor stuff.  One of the coolest places I discovered was a little indoor "town" called Storyville, a free feature of the Baltimore Public Library (for kids 0-5).  Maggie and Ben loved playing in the kitchen, the "garden", a construction site, a theater, a grocery store, a post office, etc.  One day we also went to the B&O Railroad Museum.  Every other Wednesday they feature a Toddler Time with crafts, songs, and a free ride on Choo Choo Blue.  Why not?

Here are Maggie and Ben at the museum, located in an old historic roundhouse (where they can turn trains around).

Inside the roundhouse...a beautiful building!  There were probably 30 historic trains inside, although we didn't take the time to look at most of them.

Maggie and Ben riding Choo Choo Blue!  It was a little 4 car train that ran around a small set of tracks that had a miniature village around it.  They went around three times and were ecstatic the whole time!

This train will take you up the tracks for a mile or so and then come back.  We didn't go, but enjoyed saying bye bye as it pulled out of the station.

One of the other highlights was the Kid Zone area.  There were three train tables featuring lots of Thomas trains!  I had to drag Maggie away.  What a fun morning at the B&O.

Minnesota

After we returned from the cruise, we spent almost 2 weeks in Minnesota.  I (Rachel) lived in MN for 14 years and Eric's mom grew up in MN so he has lots of family there.  We enjoyed spending a lot of time with Eric's grandparents, Grammy and Papa, as well as a few cousins of both Rachel's and Eric's, aunts and uncles, and a few friends.  Grammy and Papa graciously reserved an apartment for us in their retirement complex, so we even had our own space for one of those weeks (so luxurious!).  

Maggie and Ben in our own apartment...Mags getting on her ballerina garb and Ben finding random toys to play with

We were able to visit my best friend from college, Cassi, and her family.  They live on Forest Lake and it was a great place to visit!  We went swimming, picnic-ed out on the lawn, walked to DQ, and took the pontoon boat out.  Maggie even got to DRIVE the boat, a big highlight for her.

 The kids, chilling out while watching a movie

It was a great two weeks, very relaxing, and the kids enjoyed a chance to bond with their great-grandparents.

 Maggie also formed a special relationship with Uncle Bill.  He's an architect, and spent some time showing Maggie the finer points of block building.

 Thanks to everyone for making our trip so fun!  From MN, we headed out to Baltimore via Chicago and Columbus, OH.  We arrived last week and will post more soon about our adventures here.  Eric has been attending classes at Hopkins, and the kids and I have found lots of fun things to do during the day.

Ketchikan/Victoria

Well, finally the last installment in our cruise.  The last two stops we made were both shorter stops:  one morning in Ketchikan, and then an evening stop the next day in Victoria BC.  We had no real plans for either one, so just got off the boat and decided to see what we could see!

In Ketchikan, there was a free shuttle that took Eric, Ben, and I around town (Maggie went with her grandparents to see the Great American Lumberjack Show!)  Apparently the town's biggest attraction is the salmon spawning, which doesn't happen until July/August, but we got to see the river where it happens and the ladders, etc.  

My favorite park of the town was called Creek Street, which used to the the town's red light district!  It is a series of boardwalks on both side of the river and the shops are now art galleries, shops, and restaurants.  We browsed around and bought ourselves a Christmas ornament souvenir, featuring local artwork.

When we got in to Victoria the next day, our ship was actually over an hour late due to "unfavorable currents," so we got off the boat around 7:30pm.  Shar and Tim graciously watched all four kids and the other adults decided to see the town.  We rented a limo (a somewhat ghetto limo, but still) and the very nice driver showed us the sights.  Below is the largest totem pole in the world, something like 124 feet.

Next we went to the Lt.Governor's mansion, which had beautifully manicured grounds and garden.  You can see some cute little ducklings below.

We wrapped up by getting some great sights of the town all lit up for the evening.  A fun way to see the town!  We'll have to go back some day...

Sitka

I was pretty excited to get to Sitka.  I had a medical school classmate from Sitka and she had always talked about how great her town was.  Also, as we learned, the town only allows one cruise ship in per day, so it retained a bit more of its small town feel.  Still touristy, though. :)  Our first view of Sitka was a lot of fun (since our kids were up super early, we always go a good view of town as the ship was actually coming in to port)--there are tons of tiny islands in the harbor, each with 1-2 houses on them.  Your own private island is a reality in Sitka, AK!  There is no dock, so the ship lowered a few lifeboats and we were able to take the little boats (little meaning 150 people) to shore.

Upon landing, we selected a little trolley tour that had an all day pass, making a loop around town to some of the attractions we were interested in.  First, we headed to the Raptor Center.  In the parking lot alone we saw probably a dozen bald eagles circling above us.  The center is a home for injured raptors (birds like eagles, hawks, and owls) to recover and rehabilitate.  There is a room for some of these birds to learn to fly again, pictured below.  Many have run into planes, buildings, etc, and broken wings or lost important flight feathers.  Some will never fly again and there are special outside habitats where they live.  Very cool!

 The habitat for permanently "flightless" birds looks out on the river below.  Nice view, huh?  There was a short hike through the extremely lush woods with a sign at the entrance that this was brown bear habitat and sightings were common.  Cool as that would have been, Eric was on crutches and we had three little kids, so in the end I guess we were glad that we didn't see bears!

 One of the majestic bald eagles in its outdoor cage:

 Then it was off to the Totem Park, a national park that houses 20-30 totem poles.  It was interesting to hear the stories about the poles (each carving tells a story).  We didn't walk through many of the trails, but there were about 6 poles right in front of the center that we could see.

 Our cruise ship in the harbor behind a totem:

 So, unfortunately at this point, we sat down to wait for the trolley to return but it never came.  While we were waiting, a nice bike taxi showed up and gave Maggie a free ride through the parking lot.  Had we known the trolley was MIA, we might have all piled in for a ride back to the boat!

In the end, it was about a mile back to the dock.  Not a bad walk...unless you have 2 kids and only one stroller, and a guy on crutches.  Eric was so sore by the time we got back that he decided his foot might be the least sore part of his body.  So, that was the end of the crutches and he walked around the rest of the trip. :)  A beautiful little town, and we thoroughly enjoyed it.