20 Year Class Reunion

Norman County West High Panthers' graduating class of 1988 seems like yesterday and feels like a lifetime ago. I guess when I think about it, we have been away from each other (20 years) as long as we knew each other (18 years). We all met at Bennigans in Moorhead, MN and had a very nice evening.

We had a good turnout: Denise/Kelly/Kristi/Jessica/Becky S./Stacey/Cristy/Lainya/Shane S./Shane T./Phil/Jeremy/Tom/Tim.

We certainly missed everyone else who could not make it. A thank you to Mary/Becky H./Darci/David C. for providing updates that were shared over dinner.

Of course I can not resist poking some good hearted fun at Randy a.k.a. "Buckshot" since he didn't show up. For those of you that don't recognize the picture at the beginning of this blog, that is Randy when we were living together our first year out of high school. Perhaps if he sees this he will come out of hiding;-) Click here for more pictures from the reunion.

125 Year Celebration

The 125 Year Halstad Celebration was conveniently over the same weekend as our 20 year high school reunion. It was nice to see our family and friends again. Here is a link to some photos we took.

Stillwater, MN

Kristi and I flew into Minneapolis and stayed in Stillwater, MN for a couple of days. The new company I work for is based in Stillwater and the annual company meeting and picnic were Thursday and Friday. We had a great time and learned a new game at the picnic called Polish Horseshoes (see picture in this blog). We also had the opportunity to see our friends Denise and Mark. We had dinner together and took the kids swimming at the hotel pool. See photos here.

All Sam wants for Christmas is...

One evening at Nana & Papa's, Sam was playing with his sisters before bedtime. Sam was jumping off the bed onto an air-mattress. Everyone was having fun until Sam catapulted himself across the room and hit a chair sitting at a desk. As you can see in the photo, there are marks in the chair that Sam made with his front teeth. After what seemed to be a significant amount of bleeding and crying, we learned that Sam had jammed his two front teeth back up into his gums. We were fortunate to have the dentist look at Sam over the weekend and we found out that he also broke the bone above his teeth. The diagnosis is his teeth will come back down like before (possible discoloration) or they will fall out. If they fall out he will be toothless until his permanent teeth come in. Regarding the broken bone above his teeth, that will heal and when he sucks on his fingers or milk glass it will help keep the shape so the bone forms correctly.

Heading to Minnesota

Grampie (Tom) came out to Raleigh to fly back to Minnesota with Nora & Hanna. It was nice to see Grampie and of course the girls and Sam loved having him. I did have a chance to sneak out with Tom for a beer at Horniblows Tavern.

Digit Update

Today I went in for my post surgery check up. I had 15 stitches removed and new x-rays taken. Everything is coming along fine. I do have a rod that runs through my knuckle to keep it in place while healing. There is a yellow ball at the end of the rod I can touch (click here to see a photo). Also, there is some very thin wire that runs from the underside of my knuckle around to the top side of my knuckle that comes out of my skin through something that looks like a button. This wire is holding the ligament in place while it heals. I will have the rod removed in two weeks and the button a week after that.

Jer's Digit

I was playing basketball at the YMCA over lunch and my left hand ring finger was kicked. At first I thought it was dislocated so I tried using my self-taught "pull on it until it goes back to normal" technique. I thought I corrected the problem until I bent my finger and had to squeeze really hard to get it to bend past 45 degrees. In doing this it actually made a clicking noise on my middle knuckle. I went to get x-rays and the initial diagnosis was my knuckle was broken. I was referred to a hand specialist and learned I had also severed the ligament on the bottom of my finger (this is what enables you to bend your finger). My knuckle was not only broken but dislocated because the tendon on the top of my finger was pulling my knuckle out of socket since the bottom ligament could not provide any counter resistance. I had surgery on July 2, 2008 to have the portion of the crushed bone removed and reshaped along with reattaching the ligament.