Long overdue update

Tina and I took a vacation for our 2nd anniversary.  We started by going up to International Falls and crossed the border into Candaa where we met two couples who are cousins of my good friend, Michael Callaghan.  They took us to an island one of them owned on Rainy Lake and we spent a wonderfully pleasant day with them.  Good conversation and good food and good views.  They were fun to be with and excellent hosts.

We came back across the border and then visited Voyager's National Park, a National Bear Museum near Ely and then drove 25 miles down a dirt road (a detour due to flooding) to the North Shore of Lake Superior where we stopped at the Lemon Wolf cafe in Beaver Bay, one of our favorite eating places in MN.  We spent a night in Duluth and then headed west for our cabin in Randall, MN.  We spent most of the week there.  Tina busied herself with a lot of projects around the place, enlisting my help as needed.  For some reason, she finds projects relaxing.  I worked on and finished two talks in my series of talks that I have been doing the last few years.  We both read a fair amount.  The deer flies were out in force so that limited the amount of time spent outdoors near the water.

We took one day and drove up to Itasca State Park which is where the headwaters of the Mississippi River are.  I remember taking our little kids there 25 years ago and it is memorable because you can actually walk across the Mississippi River at that point because it is so shallow as it starts its journey to the Gulf of Mexico.    We also took in an annual butterfly walk where I was surprised to see so many species of butterflies.  We caught the first half of a free folk concert before heading back that night.

I spent a Saturday over at the Catholic Charismatic Renewal Office recording 3 talks.  I now have ten talks I am selling.  I have sold over 700 copies of these talks in the last couple of years.  Some people seem to really like them but most of those who listen never let me know what they think so I don't assume that people are being amazed by them, but rather they are going ho-hum.  My two most challenging talks are still in the future.

We have continued to work on Park House.  The kitchen is pretty much done.  A working dishwasher, new counter tops,  new floor, some additional cupboards, new sink, etc.  Quite a difference from the run down kitchen it used to be.  Still have a lot of work to do on the house.

The Sorianos moved out of our St. Anthony house last week.  Very sad to see them go, but they now are the proud owners of their own house again.  They bought a nice house in West St. Paul which is much closer to where both of them work.  We went to mass with them at their new parish and there were a number of people we knew who attend that parish.  It is way too quiet around our house now.  We miss them all.

I just finished up 3 conferences in 3 weeks, including one out of town in Peoria, IL.  We are both exhausted and looking forward to a trip to Salt Lake City to see Erin, Steve and Isobel this coming week.

Tina's knee has been bothering her for quite a while and she is facing knee replacement surgery at some point in her future.  However, she recently found out that she is eligible for a partial knee replacement which will work out much better for her.

My prostate cancer is still around in my body, but not causing too much in the way of problems.  We had a brief scare when some counts in my liver were elevated and my new primary doctor wanted a CT scan done to make sure the cancer had not spread to the liver.  We got the results this morning and my liver is fine.  The oncologist thinks the elevated numbers might be due to having gallstones, which I never knew about before.  He said that at some point I should have my gall bladder removed, but it is not urgent.  My PSA is up a bit but still under 1 so he is not worried about that.

Tina and I are enjoying life together a LOT.  The Lord has been very good to us.