A River Ride Down to Red Wing, Minnesota

A River Ride Down to Red Wing, Minnesota

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for September 18, 2016

On Saturday, we connected with our good friends, The Zitzewitz Family, to go on a boat ride down the river to Red Wing, Minnesota.

This has kind of been our annual thing.  The past couple of years we stayed at Treasure Island Casino, but this year we decided to go a little further South.

Captain Karl drives us around.

While we all sit around him and admire his skills.

I like watching the trains go over the bridge over the river.  Then I wonder how old is that bridge and when was the last time it was inspected?  Trains are heavy!

Ana is King of the World!  Or Queen.  I'm not sure which.

Our favorite thing to on the river is bird watching.  Although it kind of felt like this guy was watching us!

We kind of felt like we were getting watched all over the place!  Especially by the bald eagles.  They were totally stalking us.

I swear we saw more than 20 bald eagles during our trip.  We are so fascinated with these majestic creatures.  They were endangered when we were kids, so it's nice to see their population has come back so strong only 30 some years later.

This guy tried to run a stop light so we called the cops on him.

We try not to laugh at birds when they are having a hard time, but when this guy fell off the bridge backwards we couldn't help ourselves.

We were lucky enough to have to go through one of the locks on our way down.  These are maintained by the US Corps of Engineers and they basically raise or lower your boats to different parts of the river.  It's an interesting process to go through.

It gives us time to enjoy each other's company before we start traveling down the river again.

It's a nice feeling when they open the gates and let us out of the lock.  You start feeling claustrophobic in there.

We finally arrived at our destination,  The Red Wing Marina in Red Wing, Minnesota.  

We got out of the boat and went straight to take another picture of ourselves.  We didn't think we had enough of those yet.

Then we went to dinner.  Then we went to bed.  We were all very excited to get back on the boat again so we could head back home the next morning.

It was nice and sunny for the ride back home.

We had to wait for three barges to come through the lock before we could go back into it again.  I'm amazed they could fit all of these in there.

When we saw the bridge where we had to leave the Mississippi River and get back on the St. Croix, we knew our trip was almost over.  Then we cried and cried because it was so sad for all the fun to end.  It was a good weekend on the river!

A Couple of Golf Tournaments

A Couple of Golf Tournaments

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for September 11, 2016

We spent Labor Day with our old friends, Jeff and Cathy.  They have a party every year on this day.

The main focus of the party is Jeff creating delicious pizza after pizza and the rest of us devouring them.  It's a great annual tradition!

On Thursday, Oracle Direct Minneapolis had their annual charity golf tournament and bags tournament.  Since my bags game is slightly better than my golf game, I figured I'd sign up for that event.

  

Erin and I started at Oracle on the same day together and have been buddies ever since.  So I asked her to be my partner.  Our very first match I was excited to see we were going up against my boss, Will.  I notice it looks like he was going straight for my skull with this bean bag, so you can tell the match was pretty intense from the get go.

My friend, Orlando, was feeling pretty strong about his game, but we never had the chance to face off against each other.

Erin and I did surprisingly well despite the fact that Erin's partner really sucked.  We won 3 matches and lost 2 before we were doubly eliminated from the tournament.  We sure had fun, though.

These are the teams we played against:

On Friday night, I drove to Clear Lake, Iowa for the 10th annual Cabin Classic at Jason Alexander's place.  The usual crew was there and we all lamented the fact how quickly 10 years go by.  We drowned our sorrows with some fun hours spent playing cards and golf.  Then we weren't sad about the 10 years going by so fast any more.

We played 27 holes of golf in Thornton, Iowa.  The weather was great and we nearly had the golf course all to ourselves.  Couldn't ask for a much better tournament than that!

Luke and Avery had their Scout Master conferences which is one of the final steps they need to complete before they earn their rank of Eagle Scout.  We're so proud of them both for this accomplishment.

Scoutmaster Erickson has been so helpful to the boys and it was great hearing each of them chat with him while over-viewing their history in scouting and the things they enjoyed the most.  It feels like we just joined Cub Scouts not long ago, so it's pretty crazy hearing them sum up their years in scouting.  

Where does the time go?

Enduring Hearts: A look back at the Star Tribune article on Luke and Avery's first day of kindergarten

Today, my sons Luke and Avery started the first day of their senior year in high school.  I just can't believe that time has flown by so fast.  It feels like only a short time ago that they first started school.  Which reminded me of this article that was published in the Star Tribune back in 2004 about their first day in kindergarten.  I thought some of you might enjoy reading it.

Enduring Hearts

Born with heart maladies, twins Luke and Avery Swank have had 14 surgeries in five years. But when they stepped into a Prior Lake school for the first time, their parents' prayers were answered.

By Tom Ford,  Staff Writer

   

``Ta da!'' said a smiling Luke Swank as he showed his kindergarten teacher the picture he'd drawn of his family aboard a school bus. A few minutes before, Luke's fraternal twin brother, Avery, held up a graham cracker for examination. He had frosted it and arranged red, yellow and green Skittles to make a stoplight.

``Ooh, I finished it,'' he said.

For kindergartners, pretty big achievements.

For Luke and Avery, huge. The Prior Lake 5-year-olds have already endured a combined 14 surgeries, mostly to fix holes in their hearts.
The boys stepped through the door of Pond's Edge school for the first time Sept. 2, Spiderman backpacks strapped to their shoulders, hand-in-hand with mom.

It was a day that parents Todd and Sheri Swank feared might never arrive.

``I got in the van and I cried the whole way to work,'' Sheri said. 

``We never really allowed ourselves to dream about what tomorrow was going to be like.''

Such dreams didn't mix with the prayers for blood clots to go away and for hearts simply to beat.

``We went through hell with these little guys,'' said Todd.
Their trials began with an unexpected silence during an ultrasound examination.

The couple were excited over their first pregnancy and the knowledge that they had twins.

Then, ``the technician got real quiet,'' Sheri said. ``She didn't say anything.''

She had spotted holes in the boys' hearts.

Doctors told the Swanks the problems could be corrected through surgery.

Todd envisioned perhaps one surgery and a delay in the trip home from the maternity ward.

``It was nothing like that,'' he said.

Prompted by concerns over Sheri's rising blood pressure, doctors delivered Luke and Avery by Caesarean section five weeks early.
In the crowded delivery room, Todd got another surprise when a nurse pointed out Luke's hands. His left thumb was underdeveloped, and his right thumb and index finger were fused together.

Luke had the same disorder, Holt Oram Syndrome, that his father was born with. It usually causes arms and thumbs to be abnormally short and shoulders to become narrow.

Todd had no left thumb and when he was only a few weeks old, his right thumb was removed and replaced with his index finger, leaving him with eight fingers.

Doctors eventually performed the same procedure on Luke's left hand, meaning he has one more finger than his dad.
It's thought that the syndrome is responsible both for Luke's hand and heart maladies.

A week after their birth on July 14, 1999, Luke and Avery got to leave the hospital. Both went home with food tubes in their noses and hooked up to heart monitors.

The following week was a blur of 25 to 30 monitor alarms each day and repeated spells when the boys vomited and turned blue.

``We were at this point terrified that we didn't know what we were doing with these children who were so sick,'' their father said.

So they took the boys to the emergency room.

Their blood flow was too out of control and it was decided that surgery couldn't wait. Back-to-back operations were scheduled in which doctors put rubber-band-like devices around the boys' pulmonary arteries to restrict the blood flow out of the heart.

The surgeries went well and, afterward, Luke and Avery got to stay home for nearly two months.

Todd and Sheri could finally start learning how to take care of two infants who sometimes didn't even look sick.

By the end of November, that changed for Luke, leading to several ``black'' days for the family, Todd said.

Luke wasn't eating or growing, and doctors ruled that it was time for more work on his heart. He returned to the operating room, where his heart was converted into two chambers, a procedure deemed vital but one that would necessitate even more surgeries later.

At one point, their cardiologist pulled Todd and Sheri into a conference room - ``where you never want to go,'' Sheri said - and told them that things weren't going well.

``I thought he was dead, I really did,'' Todd said. ``I went for a couple days thinking that he was gone, that this was all for nothing.''

Sheri had more hope.

``I don't know, I just didn't think it was his time,'' she said.

After the operation, Luke's heart stopped and he was put on a machine that pumped his blood for the next six days.
By about the third day, Luke's condition turned around. He recovered, and by Christmas, the twins were together at home.

Ten heart, hand and hernia surgeries followed. Luke was in the hospital most recently in May, to fight off an infection he had contracted in a previous operation.

Through it all, Todd and Sheri have maintained a good-humored resolve.

``It's your attitude that makes everything,'' Todd said. ``What else do you got?''

In the family's 2000 Christmas letter, they wrote that Avery was demanding a recount after learning that Luke outpaced him in the surgery count six to three. In another, Todd joked that he and Luke would soon launch their own line of gloves.

The positive outlook has brought them to a new point in their lives: neither Luke nor Avery have any definite surgery on the horizon.
Todd and Sheri's once-detailed recollection of their sons' many operations is slipping, a rather nice relief.

``I may not have written that one down,'' Sheri said when searching for information on Luke's last surgery. ``That's pretty cool.''

They finally took the boys to Disney World this year, and they are getting big ideas about school and other activities.

``We had lived so day to day,'' Sheri said. ``Now it's like, `I think we're going to sign up for gymnastics.' ''

They can think about basketball-playing Avery's potential to grow up as a good athlete, and their guess that the ``charmer'' Luke might turn into a speaker of sorts.

Both boys still go to check-ups with their cardiologist every six months. While Avery's heart now might develop normally, Luke's heart must work harder than most, making it important for him to take it easy on the playground.

Doctors expect that Luke will eventually need a device to help pump his heart.

Because of his hand condition, he will always face challenges in picking up or gripping things - tasks such as pulling a zipper.
Todd is trying to walk the tightrope of convincing Luke, and Avery, that they shouldn't think they can't do things, while still recognizing their limits.

``Sometimes it's like, `Oh, crap. Maybe they shouldn't be doing that,' '' he said.

He does want his sons and the obstacles they have overcome to be an inspiration to others.

But he and Sheri have been in hospitals enough to sometimes regard their family's obstacles as almost minor.

``We sat next to people and babies that didn't make it,'' Sheri said. ``It was like, what are we complaining about?''

Experience has taught Todd and Sheri to realize that this new time - with Luke and Avery bringing home coloring projects and songs from school - can be a transient gift.

So they are greeting kindergarten with a mix of realism and hope, a sentiment crystallized in the prayer Todd has recited with his sons every morning and every night since they were born:

``Thank you God for Luke and Avery. Please God, continue to get Luke and Avery through all their setbacks, be healthy, happy children, and go on and be successful adults.''

Tom Ford is at tford@startribune.com.

Minnesota State Fair 2016

Minnesota State Fair 2016

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for September 4, 2016

For some reason we went to the Minnesota State Fair over Labor Day weekend.  Every year I get excited to go to the fair because I love seeing all the neat stuff.  Every year I forget that there's a million other people who have the exact same idea which makes seeing all the neat stuff incredibly unpleasant because there's just too dang many people!

We arrived relatively early and stopped at the dog place to see all the dogs who are well trained and we wonder why our dogs aren't that well trained.  Then we feel guilty about our skills as pet owners.

We then go in the pet building and wait in long lines so we can pet other people's dogs.  Of course we have two dogs at home that we don't need to wait in line to pet, but that's not the same.  These are different dogs and they need to be petted as well.

We've been practicing petting dogs for a long time right now so when we have an opportunity to do it at the fair, we think we really know what we are doing.

Before we leave the pet building we like to stop by and watch the dog surgeries which they do behind a glass wall set up in front of several sets of bleachers.  Because watching dogs getting neutered is absolutely fascinating!

After watching dog surgeries for awhile, we find that we have built up incredible appetites that can only be satisfied with a pile of dough that has been deep fried and covered with powdered sugar.  

We then walk around the fair until we find more dogs to watch.  These were billed as stunt dogs!

I'm not sure if jumping off platforms into the water should qualify as a stunt or not.  I think they should have to be set on fire or something first before they can call it that.

After we get our fill of dogs, I like to walk through the buildings with arts and crafts.  My boys don't really enjoy it so I find myself having to walk relatively quickly.

I don't know a lot about art, but I do always find some different ones that inspire me.  

This one was called Busted.  Poor guy.

This piece makes me happy.  I guess it made others feel that way also judging from the big blue ribbon stuck to the top of it.

We went to some different buildings to see cool stuff people were selling.  This booth called "Me 3D" was selling realistic 3d printed figurines of people.  Unfortunately, they cost several hundred dollars each otherwise I would have been all over it!

We also always look at getting a hammock, but never end up pulling the trigger.  I'm sure they're not nearly as comfortable when you get them home.

We decided to go get some more food, but remembered that the other 999,000 people were there doing the same thing.  Can't believe how many cheese curds this joint must produce in a day.

But the biggest draw is Sweet Martha's Cookies!  We always gotta get a bucket of those before leaving and we're not alone.  According to the Star Tribune, in 2015 their management estimated they sold more than 1 million cookies every day!  That's a whole bunch of cookies.