Guest Writer Week

Starting next Monday, I am hosting Guest Writer Week!!!! If you are interested in being a guest writer on my blog next week, write up a crazy post about absolutely ANYTHING, and email it to me by Sunday. I need at least 5, but will post everything I receive. I can't pay you except with my love, gratitude, and up to 5 links back to your own blog (if you have one). I especially expect to hear from those of you who refer to me as "pet" or have received favors from me recently - such as my surgical empathy, monetary donations, pictures, pig music, and so forth (wink wink).

Reproductive Wednesday

Welcome to another edition of Reproductive Wednesday! If you have no clue what I am talking about - each week I post a reproductive story or two and then ask to see your stories - and you let me know when you post them on your blog so I can read about them! Like I always say! "If I can't be productive, at least I can be reproductive!"

Soooo - today, Mike and I would like to make an announcement...we are expecting undecaplets! That's right - 11 babies. I have put a counter on my side bar so you can stay tuned to when they are due. Only the babies we are expecting don't look quite like the counter, but more like this picture:

We found mom laying eggs in our sand box last Saturday. The next day, we dug them up and put them in our aquarium:




(the kids say we look a little crazy since we have an aquarium with only sand and a thermometer)

HS Reunions Rock

I just returned from my high school reunion and one of the highlights of my middle age! We arrived into Las Vegas late Thursday night and spent Friday and Saturday doing reunion things, then were able to spend Sunday and Monday doing Mike and Stephanie things. Here are some highlights:

72 of us (out of 246)

Me with two very close friends from high school - but one with very disappointing behavior....

Unfortunately the fog machine set off the fire alarm system in the entire hotel :( The fire department arrived in full uniform to put out the 'fire', and then stayed to dance with us for just a moment.

Here's me finally coming clean about my 3rd grade crush - closure!

I had this picture taken because my blog friend Mindi has posted several pics of Steve, and has very good readership, so am hoping it has the same effect here.

Quick Steps

On this chilly, wet, Saturday morning, I ran Fitger's 5k run in Duluth, MN. My time was a slow, but not horrible, 31 minutes. Duluth is one of the neatest cities I've ever been in (you can look at Duluth here). Tomorrow, Sunday, is the race that I am organizing. It was originally planned for April 12, but we had to postpone it because of the 3 feet of snow we received that week.

The VASA

A couple of weeks ago, our family drove 2.5 hours away from St. Ignace to the VASA
to do some competitive cross-country skiing. Mike skied the 12k and Liam the 10k race Saturday morning. All 5 kids skied the kids races that afternoon. Sunday, Jonathan skied a 6k race, and Liam and I were going to ski the 16k race. The temp was 0 with a wind chill of -15. I thought it would be fun to use our skate skis, but it turns out that wasn't such a great idea - it was a classic race, groomed only for classic skis. After about 4 km, it was impossible to skate, and our slippery skate skis didn't go so fast on those classic tracks. It was a painfully slow, and painfully cold 12k (we took a shortcut and knocked off 4k). A valuable lesson was learned though - do NOT wear skate skis in a race groomed for classic skiing. I am so proud of the kids for their great skiing, especially Liam, who logged in more than 25 km
of skiing that weekend! There are x-c ski races throughout America and the world - a goal of mine is to participate in a ski marathon in Europe someday. I am not fast, but I love exercising outside in the beautiful snow.

We are back home in sunny but super cold Minnesota, and hoping to get outside to do some more x-c skiing before spring settles in. It is absolutely my favorite sport, and I hope to pass my love for it on to our children.