September 2006

This past Saturday (Sept 16th) was the annual HeartWalk to benefit the American Heart Association. We have been participating in this event since its inception in 1991. Alex has turned into one of the events biggest fundraisers here in Indianapolis. I imagine over the years, she has raised more than $80,000 for this event alone! This year there were thousands of people in downtown Indianapolis raising much needed funds for research and education about Heart Disease and Stroke. Locally, the event was anticipated to raise close to $1,000,000. Alex's goal was to raise $15,000 and she may very well reach $17,000 which would again probably make her the number 1 fund raiser in Indianapolis for this event! Below are a couple pictures from the event. It was a beautiful, sunny day and the Walk was nice!










Alex preparing to cut the red ribbon to start the Walk. Each year she has special TEAM ALEX t-shirts made. On the back of the Shirt the various Corporate ($1000 or more donation) and individual donors ($500 or more donation) are listed.












Alex and her Aunt Debbie before the Walk began.












Alex being interviewed LIVE at the event on the NBC Affiliate in Indy!

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DID YOU KNOW:

Each day an average heart “beats” (expands and contracts) 100,000 times and pumps about 2,000 gallons of blood.

About 1% of kids are born with Congenital Heart Defects? Of those 1%, Alex is in a more rare category due to her having a single Ventricle (she was also born with Pulmonary Stenosis and Transposition of the Great Vessels).

Alex has a 2-chamber heart (normally it's 4 chambers) and a pacemaker. She takes about 4-5 different medicines, some of them 3 times a day. She has a special machine which is used to call into the hospital over the phone so they can monitor the pacemaker. The old/unoxygenated blood in her body never really goes into her heart...it gets sent directly to the lungs! The sole purpose of her heart is to pump the good/oxygentaed blood to the body through the Aorta.
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Thanks for reading and thanks for all of your support! ! ! ! !

Ellen's Birthday Weekend

We celebrated Ellen's birthday last weekend with some motorcycle riding! Just what she always wanted. She was a trooper. Linda and Dave came down from Wisconsin and we went riding south of Indianapolis through the winding back roads. We had lunch at the Story Inn (www.storyinn.com). Loophole and the FTC also joined in the ride.

Ellen and Linda at the Story Inn.

Ellen, Dave, me, Linda (nice helmet, Dave)

I also learned something about Ellen that I didn't know after 18 years of marriage. Apparently there was a tradition in High School of eating ice cream cake rolls. But you could use no utensils and you passed it along to the next person so they could have a bite. So...sitting on the back deck we shared the cake roll....

ALEX UPDATE - Alex seems to be recovering nicely. Her incisions are healing but still "itch." She has a 24-hour Holter monitor the other day and we don't have those results back yet. She is being seen back at Mayo Clinic on July 17th. Regarding Marching Band...she will play in the band but will play keyboard (in the Pit) so she doesn't have to actually march on the field. This will work out great for this year!

BOYS - Chase comes home from camp tonight. He goes to another camp the week of July 10th in Wisconsin and the next week he has Scouts camp. Busy dude this summer! Nate went to camp a couple weeks ago. He also has soccer camp coming up.

More picstures to follow! Have a GREAT and safe 4th of July.

Disney World - April 2006

We went to Orlando for Spring Break. We had not been since 1999 so it was fun to go back. We visited Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and MGM Studios. We also saw the Cirque de Soleil show at Downtown Disney...very cool


Nate LOVES riding Dumbo with his big sister!




The kids by Cinderella's Castle





We were selected to be the GRAND MARSHALLS of the afternoon parade. They gave us these free Mickey hats and we led the parade...there were an estimated 40,000 on the park that day!


This is the car we rode in as the Grand Marshalls!


At 3-D presentation



Can't go to Disney without riding the Tea Cup ride. This was BEFORE the ride...we are not queasy yet!