Todd Swank

September 3, 2017

Suddenly A Minnesota Golden Gopher

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for September 3, 2017

So Luke has been at college for almost three weeks now. I've had to start using a Snapchat account to communicate with him else I'd have no idea what is he was up to. Plus I'm not sure how I'd survive without getting pictures like this one on a regular basis.

He seems to be really enjoying himself at Minnesota State Mankato hanging out with old friends and making new friends as well. I'm hoping he's doing some schoolwork also.

On Tuesday, Avery was all set to move to college. He spent a lot more time saying good-bye to the dog then he spent saying good-bye to me, but I'm trying to not take it personally.

Before we knew it, we were all packed up and ready to take him to school and to begin the new chapter of our lives as Empty Nesters.

Avery is going to the University of Minnesota to study Computer Science and Mathematics. The U is nestled near the middle of downtown Minneapolis and carries with it a view of the home of the Vikings, US Bank Stadium. Which makes it all right in my book.

It didn't take long for Avery to unpack his stuff and have his mom set up his bed. She's good about that kind of stuff.

Avery's new roommate is from Beijing, China and has only been in the United States for a couple of weeks. I'm sure they will hit it off great and hopefully this will be an awesome cultural experience for the both of them.

We took Avery shopping out more time and out to lunch and then set him free to experience life on his own. We hope it works out great for him!

In an attempt to stay relevant in our son's life, we purchased Minnesota Golden Gophers season tickets and went to our first Gophers game at TCF stadium on Thursday night.

The team has a new coach named P.J. Fleck who is young and full of energy. His theme for the year is "Row The Boat" and we saw this sign in the bookstore explaining how this came to be. We had no idea the coach had gone through this with his son and it hit pretty close to home. We figured it was a good motto to get behind.

The band did their rendition of "Row The Boat" at halftime which was pretty amazing choreography. The boys have some friends who play in the band so it was neat to see them perform such a cool halftime show.

The game was a bunch of fun. The Gophers played the Buffalo Bulls and although the score was closer than a lot of people would have liked, the home team did win 17-7. We really enjoyed the atmosphere.

Our neighbor's daughter, Jill Fischer, and her husband, Joe, invited us to join their tailgating group before the games which we're really looking forward to starting. They're huge Gophers fans and really fun to be around, so we're excited to have them available to mentor us as we climb aboard and row the boat.

We tried to call Avery before the game to come see us, but he said a friend was able to get Gold seats in the student section so he couldn't leave or he'd lose his seat. He also said we couldn't come see him because we didn't have a pass to get into the student section. I started to get suspicious that maybe he was avoiding us.

Lucky for me, my camera has a really good zoom lens so I was able to find him and his friend in the crowd. Turns out he did have pretty incredible seats near the field. I probably wouldn't have left to come see me either.

All in all, attending a college football game was a bunch of fun and brought back a lot of memories of my own youth. I'm glad we stepped in there and bought season tickets.

It's going to be a good year. Go Gophers!

August 27, 2017

2017 Fantasy Football Draft

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for August 27, 2017

Luke has been at college for more than a week and seems to be really enjoying himself. Avery doesn't leave for college until Tuesday, but he decided to give us his own medical drama before he leaves us. He was diagnosed with Mononucleosis on Monday and has spent most of the week very, very sick. He seems to be recovering a bit now, although he still has a fever, loss of appetite, and is generally fatigued which the doctors tell us may last for quite awhile yet. But Avery is confident he'll be ready to go to college on Tuesday and we are hopeful he doesn't have any setbacks to allow that to happen.

Friday night was my Fantasy Football draft. This is a league I've played in now for 11 years and it just keeps getting better and better. While my Fantasy Football skills have been getting worse and worse.

I had my cheat sheets and pick lists all ready to go.

This is the traveling trophy our league competes to win each year. I was sad to see that it hasn't been mine since 2010. I think I'm overdue for another win!!

The draft lasted somewhere between 4 - 5 hours and was full of drama and intrigue.

Our league does an auction style draft and our friend, Curtis, does a great job keeping everyone in line as we bid on the various players. Steve "Cuds" Cuddihy is our commissioner and is widely regarded as one of the best in the business.

My team name is the Crippled Monkeys and you can see the results of my draft here. I tried to switch up strategies this year and didn't blow my entire bankroll on one or two superstar players and instead focused on giving myself some depth at receiver and running back. We'll see how that works out for me.

We have a fun crew of people who participate in this league. Our email exchanges may get a little "vulgar" from time to time, but I think that has built some solid camaraderie amongst us over the years.

On Saturday, we headed over to the St. Croix River to go on a late afternoon boat ride.

We haven't seen our friends, the Zitzewitzes, for awhile so we figured we'd crash their boat party while the weather will still allow us to do so.

We saw this bird on the shore when we first arrived. It was standing so still, I thought it had to be dead or sleeping. But then it quickly shifted it's head and I realized he must have been hunting for something in the rocks. Sneaky bird.

The weather was pretty rainy out, but we had faith that Captain Karl would not lead us astray. We set sail for dinner.

The river was pretty quiet and we didn't have a little of company traveling around with us. I guess that's what happens on rainy Saturdays late in August.

We arrived at our destination in Hudson, Wisconsin. I was a little disappointed that there weren't crowds waiting there to welcome us, but I can only assume it must have been a weather thing.

We stopped and paid homage to this confident young Boy Scout who sits on the shores of the St. Croix River. The statue was erected in honor of the anniversary of 100 years of the Boy Scouts.

We ate at the Postmark Grille in Hudson which was pretty darned good. Then we got back on the boat and left for home. A good time was had by all.

August 20, 2017

Prayers Answered. Luke Swank Moves Into College in Mankato

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for August 20, 2017

Great news!! We just started moving Luke into his dorm room when we got the call from Rochester. The doctor said there is no evidence of malignancy in his biopsy. Thank God!! This doesn't mean he's out of the woods as when Luke asked if that means he doesn't need a transplant and the doctor replied "You want a black and white answer and I can't give you that." He then followed up with "the only thing I want you focused on right now is getting a good report card!" We have always known that Luke would probably need a transplant at some point in his life, but the longer we can wait, the better! Right now he gets to focus on being a college freshman and we can worry about those things later. Thanks so much to all of you for the prayers and positive thoughts!! We truly believe your support has carried us through to where are today!!

Long time readers of my blog will know about our history with albino squirrels. Since our boys were born more than 18 years ago, we've had numerous encounters with albino squirrels and often times we'd see them when we were having concerns with their medical situation. I think people think we're a little bit crazy when I tell them this, but it just keeps happening. When Luke arrived home from his biopsy in Rochester on Tuesday, he saw this albino squirrel across the street from our house and Miss Sheri was able to snap a quick picture of it.

When we arrived home after dropping Luke off at college, Avery and I took the dog for a walk and this albino squirrel ran out in front of us. Some people like to tell me this is just a series of coincidences, but we like to think of them as our Guardian Angels. They just appear to be magical creatures telling us that everything is going to be OK.

This was Luke's first trip to St Mary's Hospital at the Mayo Clinic. It's a very interesting place with so much medical history having been made there. I find it fitting that Luke receives the treatment to make his life better at the same hospital where doctors created my thumb for me back in 1970 when I was only 6 weeks old.

According to Wikipedia, William Worrall Mayo settled his family in Rochester in 1863 and opened a medical practice that evolved under his sons into Mayo Clinic. Mayo Clinic is widely regarded as one of the United States' greatest hospitals and ranked No. 1 in the country on the 2016–2017 U.S. News & World Report List of "Best Hospitals" of the United States, maintaining a position near the top for more than 25 years.

While we were waiting for Luke in recovery, we went outside to take some pictures. I was surprised to run into an old friend, Kurt Lippert, who has been in Rochester for the last month or so with his wife who has been rehabilitating form a brain surgery to remove a tumor. Her story can be seen here for friends of Kurt and his family:

https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/jeannelippert

Please keep the Lippert family in your prayers also.

Avery had his annual check up with the cardiologist to see how his surgically repaired heart is doing. We are pleased to say that his appointment went very well and there doesn't seem to be anything new to be concerned about. Thank God for that as I don't think our family could have handled anything new with Avery this week.

Luke and one of his oldest friends, Jackson Walters, started school at Minnesota State University Mankato this week. Luke isn't quite sure yet what he wants his major to be but has indicated interest in business and science. He's focusing on general ed classes for the time being while he figures out what he wants to do with his life.

It's only about an hour drive from us to see Luke on campus, but everyone keeps telling us he's not supposed to come home until at least Thanksgiving. He's only been gone three nights so far, but I already miss him. I think he misses us too, but I wouldn't know as he hasn't really been calling us yet or anything. I suppose that's a good thing.

We had fun with the Walters family helping the boys move in to their room. I was pretty impressed with how nice they have it. Way better than where I lived in college. I literally spent two years living inside a walk-in closet.

The nice thing about Mankato is that there's lots of people from Prior Lake who go there so we see people we know. Like our old friend Dayna Bunker who's going to be a junior this year and was helping the freshman with move in day. We thought that was pretty nice of her.

On Saturday night, Avery and I took Miss Sheri out to dinner to celebrate her 50th birthday. I can't believe my wife is 50 and I'm so close behind her. I still feel like we are in our twenties!

We weren't sure if we were going to be in a celebratory mood or not giving the news we were waiting to receive on Luke so we waited until the last minute to plan a party for her. She decided she wanted to sing Karaoke for her birthday and a bunch of really fun people showed up to participate. We're so lucky to have so many good friends in our lives.