Reflections

Here we are at the memorial for Beth today.

My Ph.D. mentor, Kate, hosted a memorial brunch today at Gandy Dancer for our former lab manager, Beth. It would have been Beth's 57th birthday, but we lost her last fall after a long, brave battle with cancer. After the brunch, we all headed back to Kate's lab to work on making a themed crossword puzzle in honor of Beth, who did the New York Times crossword puzzle every day.

I really enjoyed my time with everyone who was able to take part today-I miss woking with them on a regular basis. I was very lucky to have such an awesome Ph.D. adviser as Kate, and she continues to include me in lab activities and give me advice, which I really appreciate. She just always has so much faith in me, even (especially) when I don't have faith in myself! I think one of the best things about Kate is her ability to make everyone feel so welcome and an integral part of her lab. Kate is really an inspiration to everyone who meets her, and even after lab members move on to to other ventures, they almost always remain in touch. We all want her to remain proud of us.

It was Thank your Mentor Day last week on January 22, and even though this is late for this year, I want to acknowledge how grateful I am to have mentors like Kate to encourage me and help me to become the best person I can be. I could never repay her for all she has given me and done for me.

Florida highlights

Brad and I had fun last week visiting his mom Eileen and Ralph at their home in Florida, even though part of the week had the coldest weather the area had seen for 17 years and Ralph spent 3 days in the hospital. We are so relieved that Ralph is back home now and feeling much better.

We ate out a lot to try some of their favorite spots, and went shopping at some of the shops we don't have around here. Brad and I spent a couple of afternoons at the library in order to catch up on our email and other online work, using their high-speed internet access. The weather actually dropped into the 20s on several nights, but towards the end of the week the temps were back in the high 70s during the day. Brad and I spent time walking around the complex and lounging around their complex's pool and hot tub area on the warmer days.

Here are some photos from our trip:

We visited Ave Maria, a university/town that Tom Monaghan (who started Dominos Pizza) started. The church and surrounding areas are pretty, but there is still a lot of work to do before it is done.





We watched the historical inauguration of Barack Obama on tv, and yes, this is a picture I took of the tv screen (I know I am a dork)


Brad and Ralph were not able to have their golf competition, so that will have to wait for the next visit. Here is the trophy in the clubhouse that has Ralph's name on it from his golf championship at the complex.

We saw a lot of dog-walkers in the complex, some of the owners were actually walking with their dogs, while others-not so much.


On Friday night, Brad and I played in their weekly dominoes game. It was a lot of fun...


...and I won the jackpot!Lucky!


After a full week, with Ralph finally out of the hospital, Brad and I headed home. I sat next to Avery Johnson (former NBA player and coach) on the airport tram. Of course, I didn't know that until Brad told me afterward. On the second leg of our return flight, the first-class section was filled with WWE professional wrestlers. When we got to the luggage area, there were lots of groupies gathered for autographs and pictures. It was kind of exciting. Brad did not want his picture taken with any of them, but he did manage to sneak in a couple of shots of the others, anyway.


Next weekend Austin is coming here, so we are eagerly awaiting his visit!

Watch this space, we hope to catch up soon...

I know we have not been very good about keeping up our blog. I had hoped to catch up while we were in Florida this week, but obviously that did not happen. I hope to backtrack and fill in some of the things we have been up to since our last blog post soon. In the meantime, here are a few pictures from our Florida trip...

Eileen and Ralph left their Christmas decorations up for us to enjoy-very pretty!


We went to dinner for Brad's birthday with some of the "Florida gang"


Brad's mom made him a delicious cake-chocolate with white frosting (his favorite)!


We saw an armadillo at "Barefoot Beach"


Caitlin would be glad to see that they serve Coke products at the pavilion (how did that Pepsi machine sneak in?!?)


The beach was very pretty and we found lots of nice shells-hopefully they will make it back intact on the trip home!

Caitlin's Mott Tile

The University of Michigan Hospital is building a new C.S. Mott Children's Hospital and Women's Hospital. There will be a garden decorated with tiles that former patients of the hospital have painted. Caitlin made one last summer, and yesterday she received a framed picture of her tile in the mail. It looks great! Of course she put tulips on it as a tribute to her favorite city, flower and time of year :) The accompanying letter says that they will be sending a pamphlet with the exact location of "her" tile as well as the others that have been made (when it is available). We are all looking forward to it, and are so grateful that our Caitlin is doing so well!

Hope College Parent's Weekend Canceled!

Therese and I planned to visit Caitlin at Hope College for Parent' s Weekend, but there was a change in plans. Caitlin called us on Friday afternoon while we were on our way to Holland to tell us that Hope College has been shut down. There was an outbreak of Norovirus that has made more than 130 people sick. All weekend activities including the football game were canceled.

Since we had a hotel room and plans to take Buddy to the kennel there, we thought about picking her up to spend the weekend with us at the hotel. Caitlin called later to say that school will be closed until Tuesday morning so she wanted to just come home for the weekend. We canceled our reservations and headed to Holland to pick her up. Buddy really freaked out when he saw Caitlin!

One of Caitlin's friends, Jenny, who lives on the east side of Michigan too came back with us and her parents picked her up at our house. She didn't want to stay in Holland, especially since Friday was her 18th birthday. Jenny's dad is going to take them back to Hope on Monday night if the school is open by then.

We will certainly make a trip to B-Dubs while Caitlin is in town and maybe play our new Domino game.

Austin's visit

Austin came to visit by himself for the first time last weekend and we had so much fun! Even though he hadn't seen us for 3 weeks, he came right to us with hugs and kisses when we met Jillian and Brit for the "switch" Friday night.

When we got to our house, he remembered where everything was and went right to his favorite toys. He is a great block tower builder! See how high his tower is-sorry Buddy is in the way so the bottom can't be seen. He likes knocking them down as much as he likes building them, though.



Every long object is either a bat or a golf club for that boy, and anything circular is a wheel. If he sees the camera, he immediately stops what he is doing and says "cheese"! (Austin loved chasing Buddy around yelling "Buddy" with the towel Buddy likes to chew, but we couldn't get a good video all weekend, because he kept stopping and saying "cheese" when we tried). When it was time for bed, he went right to sleep without a peep and slept all night both nights! Well, he did get up at 5:30 AM on Sunday, but he went down for a 45-minute nap at 7, so it wasn't too bad for sleeping in unfamiliar surroundings.

On Saturday morning, we went to the Ann Arbor Hands On Museum and he especially loved playing with the water table and the fire truck. The fire truck had a place to put balls down a hole, after which they went down a ramp and into a bucket. He played that game for quite some time, and even learned to take turns with some of the other kids there. He observed the older kids very closely and then copied many of the things that they did.













Austin also thinks that wet rocks are very pretty, just like his mom and his aunts ;)


After getting a tiny pumpkin at the Farmer's Market, and eating Thai food for lunch (his favorite was the mini-corn), he took a nap.

When he woke up, we took him and Buddy to Gallup Park, where there was a playground area and a big sandbox.




Austin even talked on the phone with Jillian and Brit when they called-he is so amazing-not that I am biased or anything ;)
Sunday morning, Austin and I made cupcakes. He had a lot of fun helping, but I think he decorated himself more than he did the cupcakes!




After lunch and a nap, we returned him to Jillian and Brit and ate dinner together at Chipotle in Maumee before heading home. It was a great weekend and we can't wait to have Austin visit again.

Here is a video of Austin and Buddy. Buddy already has the towel and Austin can be heard to say "cheese" at the very beginning. Yes, I am wearing Grandma Teresa's housecoat; it was just after we decorated the cupcakes.

lab logo

Here is a little logo that I designed for our lab. It is a fluorescent confocal image of the male germline stem cell niche in a Drosophila (fruit fly). I like the play on words-amusing on several different levels-well, it makes me laugh ;)

recharging

Yesterday, Brad and I went to a forum on human embryonic stem (ES) cells that was open to the public. At the reception afterward, we met a woman with breast cancer that was being treated by one of the organizers of the event. I had a nice chat with her; she was very interested in my research and the story of how I got to where I am. I have never worked with human ES cells, but I have worked with mouse ES cells, and studied the influence of steroid hormones (such as estrogen) on tumors. Her tumor is responsive to anti-hormone therapy, so we talked about that and her growing interest in the research science leading up to treatment.

I really felt a renewed sense of purpose after talking to her. Sometimes research can get very tedious and I have a tendency to get bogged down in details. I had forgotten how nice it was to talk to someone who wanted to hear about science without being afraid that I was boring her or worse-that she thought my work was unimportant or "funny". Well, since my current research involves dissecting out fruit fly testes to study germline stem cells, it can be amusing-but that doesn't make it any less important. I don't mind joking about it if I know that the other party is laughing with me and not at me.

Yesterday's brief encounter meant a lot to me and I felt recharged today and ready to face the next challenge.

Fun at Domino Farms

We celebrated our 29th wedding anniversary on August 31st. Jillian, Brit and Austin were up for the weekend and we had a real nice time. We took Austin to the Domino's Farms petting zoo that is just a couple miles from our house. Austin had a chance to feed several different animals. He was a little scared at first but quickly got the hang of it and was pretty brave.

Austin - Chicken with the chicken

Austin getting brave!

Therese and Brad on the hayride.

Brad "wins" Tiger tickets

Brad won 4 tickets to a Detroit Tigers baseball game on a radio trivia contest. He had to answer 3 sports questions and they told him that he got them correct and won the tickets. He was driving to visit a customer and hung up after providing his contact info. As it turns out, there was a big hullabaloo with people calling in to tell them one of the answers was not correct. The question was about a former Michigan football player who set a rushing record with the New York Giants and he said Jamie Morris. He played at Michigan, works in the athletic department now and also works on some of the radio shows on that station. As it turns out, he only played with the Washington Redskins and the actual answer was Joe Morris (his brother - who played college at Syracuse)

Brad didn't know anything about this until the next morning when they were laughing about Jamie playing for the Giants - They even called him and had him on the air. Well, we still got the tickets and invited Pat and Rick Lenderman to the game. We had great seats and free parking right next to the stadium. The tigers lost to Oakland, but we still had a fun night.

Rick, Pat, Therese and Brad

The Rally Cap didn't work this time :(

Brad drives at Michigan International Speedway!

My company (White-Rodgers) sponsored a contest for my customers to win a chance to drive a NASCAR stock car at Michigan International Speedway through the Richard Petty Driving Experience. I was also able to drive one of the cars for 8 laps on the track and got up to nearly 140MPH! What an experience!!

Nearly 100 people attended and about 50 either drove cars or rode with a professional driver.

Brad climbing in.

Ready to race!

Richard Petty Driving Experience participants

Brad driving on the track!

Therese receives more awards.

Earlier this Summer Therese applied for and was awarded a prestigious NIH sponsored Post-Doctoral Fellowship from the Center for Organogenesis. This will cover her salary and some travel expenses for the next two years and will enable her lab to have more money available for other research. Recently Therese attended the Cell and Developmental Biology Department annual retreat in Kalamazoo. During the retreat she was awarded the prize for the best research poster. In addition, she was on the winning team for the game competition and received another award! You go girl!

See-scientists do have a sense of humor

Yeah-I think it's funny :-)
BTW-Drosophila are fruit flies-and they are the model system that we use in my postdoc lab.

It's coming...leaving the nest

Caitlin will be off to college soon! She received her first semester class schedule in an email, along with links to building locations and professors. Her first Biology discussion session is with the professor for whom I was a summer intern back in 2001.

We also attended our area's sendoff party for first-year Hope students. She was able to meet some of her future classmates; one guy has his own web-designing business and is teaching himself Japanese. She even won a door prize-a Hope travel mug.

The sendoff was at a picnic shelter in Farmington Hills. There was a birds' nest in one of the rafters with baby birds in it (see photo above). They were pretty much overflowing the nest, so they must have been very close to leaving the nest, too (just like my baby). As I took a picture, the mother bird flew in to feed them and I got the shot just as they opened their mouths. I really like this picture; I wonder if the mother bird will miss her babies, too.

We're finally back - lots to catch up on.....

Wow...It has been over six weeks since we last posted. It hasn't been because there was nothing to post, but rather that we were too busy to write anything.....If you attempt to read the entire post, you may want to do it in a couple of sessions.....

And now a quick update on what we have been doing since the beginning of June:

June 4th - Caitlin graduated from Ann Arbor Huron High School - Home of the River Rats!! The ceremony was long since they had more than 500 graduates. Caitlin went to the all night party afterward and had a great time.
June 7th - Caitlin had her graduation party in Sandusky at Chett & Matt's Pizza - Always a regular stop when we are in Sandusky. We had a lot of fun spending time with family and friends while eating lots of Hot Wing & Cheddar Pizza.

Week of June 9th - We had a new driveway poured this week. The old driveway was full of cracks and really needed to be replaced when we moved in, but we tried to put it off for a while. The city of Ann Arbor had gone around town marking sidewalks that needed to be replaced and they said that two of the ones by the driveway needed to be done. Since we had to do that, I got a whole bunch of estimates and found a very reasonable one. This company was from a small town south of Ann Arbor and has been in business for three generations but was still a small family business. I checked out their references and saw some of their work and they got the job. We now have a new approach, four pieces of sidewalk, a small sidewalk path to the front porch and new front step. This made a huge difference in the look of our property, especially since we replaced the garage door several weeks ago too. They admitted that they gave me a better price because we are the first house in our development and they wanted the chance to get more business in our neighborhood. It worked out for both of us....I got a real good price (and a nice job) and they were able to get several other jobs in the neighborhood. They were there for a couple weeks on all the other work they got.

Weekend of June 14th - Brad & Therese met Jillian, Britt and Austin in Toledo and piled in the van to drive to Mason, OH for the wedding of one of Jillian's best friends from college. (Caitlin stayed home with Buddy) We loved spending some quality time with Austin while Jillian and Britt went to the rehearsal dinner, etc. It was a fun trip and served as a warm up for the upcoming trip to North Carolina.
June 21st - Therese's cousin Tim and his family (from Texas) and her sister Jackie and her kids (from Virginia) were visiting Sandusky so her brother John hosted a small family reunion for those who could make it. We all had a fun time catching up and playing games.




June 26th - My cousin Kevin and his wife Robin along with their children Theo and Loren came to visit us while they were "up North". (Kevin and Robin are both Doctors at the University of Alabama at Birmingham). They spent some time with Kevin's family in Sandusky and did the Cedar Point thing. Then they drove up to Ann Arbor to spend a little time with us before Theo checked out the University of Michigan's Engineering School the next day. We cooked some ribs and chicken and had a lot of fun telling old stories and playing Wii Fit. They have a Wii game but have not played the Wii Fit before. They were pretty good at the games and we had a lot of laughs.

June 27 - July 7th - The family road trip to visit the Schreiners in North Carolina!! We had been planning this trip for months and figured it would take about 14 hours so we decided to leave on Friday evening when Austin was ready to sleep. We drove to Sandusky from Ann Arbor on Friday afternoon, put Buddy in the kennel, picked up a car top carrier from a relative of Britt's family (a whole other story). After getting everything securely attached, we packed the van up and headed south. I just got a new Dodge Grand Caravan Stow and Go a few months ago and it worked out perfectly for the trip. We were able to pack everything we needed (especially golf clubs) without being too cramped. The carrier worked out great and we never had a problem (thank goodness, because I wouldn't want Mark to find out about it if the carrier fell off or something crazy like that - I would never hear the end of it....).

I drove the entire way and Therese road shotgun while she felt the knockout effects of the motion sickness patch she used. Caitlin and Austin sat in the two middle seats while Jillian and Britt had a little extra room in the back three seats. When we got to Jacki and John's house, we parked, unloaded the van and never moved it again until we left for home. It felt good to have a week off of driving. Most places we went to required us to take two vehicles so we took John's big Ram truck and Jacki's new Toyota that she just got a few weeks ago.

One small problem when we unpacked - we found that a bottle of corn syrup had broken in the bottom of the Stow and Go sections and created quite a mess. Thanks to John's shop vac and lots of soap and water we got it cleaned up as good as new. (note to self - next time buy the Scotcheroo ingredients after you get to your destination.)


The week was probably one of the best vacations we ever had. We spent time playing Euchre, Phase Ten, watching John and Britt play GTA, golfing, playing cornhole, playing darts, playing Caitlin's new Nintendo DS, watching movies, cooking and eating a lot of food! Jacki made some great breakfast food - it was like being at a very nice bed and breakfast with an awesome rate! We went to play miniature golf at a pretty fun place and went to a very nice aquarium for one afternoon. Austin really liked banging on the glass of the huge tank and sharks swam by and he even touched a stingray in one of the tanks.

Jacki had set things up for us to get a family picture taken at the beach on Tuesday of that week. It was a beautiful evening and we got some fantastic pictures of the entire family as well as various group shots of families, girls, guys, etc. We ended up buying the rights to all the pictures so we could make use of Therese and Jacki's Photoshop skills to get copies of any pictures we wanted. My favorite is the entire family walking along the water and jumping in the air. Some of those shots turned out great.

While we were there, Jillian and Britt told us the big news - They are expecting again! After we returned, it was confirmed and the due date is 2/27/09. We all look forward to the new addition to the family!

While in North Carolina we went to visit Joe and Collette Samstag. Brad graduated with both of them and Joe is actually Britt's great uncle. Brad, John, Britt and Joe went golfing in the afternoon and later the others came to meet us and take a tour of Hatteras Yachts where Joe works. We were able to walk through several huge yachts to see how the other half (maybe .00001%) lives. One of the yachts was 110 feet long, but you can pick it up for less than $10 Million....They were incredible.

We then went to Joe and Collette's for a nice cookout and evening together. Joe pulled out a picture of the old "Vulture 50/50 club" from high school that he still has in a frame (if you don't know, ask me about it sometime.) I'm glad we had the chance to get together while we were there.
Austin decided to start walking the day we got back to Jillian and Britt's, so Jacki and John didn't get to witness that. He did learn to say "Jacki" while we were there, though :)



July 8th - We took Caitlin to meet her group to begin their trip to Australia. The trip was two weeks long with one of the weeks being World Youth Day that brought about 200,000 young people from throughout the world to see the Pope and take part in various activities. The first week was "Days in the Diocese" and Caitlin stayed with a family and took part in many activities and sightseeing. We only communicated by e-mail a couple times and have not talked with her since they left. We will be picking her up late Monday night (early Tuesday morning). We look forward to seeing all the pictures and hearing the stories of the trip.

While Caitlin was in Australia, she got the notice of who her Hope College roommate would be. Her roommate is from California and we e-mailed the info to Caitlin. The next day, we noticed that they were already friends on Facebook. Wow, this internet thing may catch on after all...haha


Week of July 14th - The Annual Ann Arbor Arts Fairs were held this week. There are actually four different fairs, and two of them are among the largest art fairs in the country-drawing exhibitors and attendees from all over the U.S. and several foreign countries. They say that about 500,000 people attended in the four days of the festival. Therese again had some of her artwork displayed and for sale at the BioArtography booth. She also worked the booth for several hours on Friday.
Therese and I went to the fair 3 of the 4 days and did not come close to seeing everything. On Friday night, Therese and I went to the fairs with our friends John and Lee Anne after a cookout at their home. It was a lot of fun and Therese bought a hand-painted scarf.



If you have read this far in one sitting I would be pretty amazed. Thanks for checking it out and have a great summer!