Busy Holiday Times!

Since my last real post in late November, Christmas, New Years, the Fiesta Bowl, the beginnings of my "shot therapy," and a surprising hospital stay for Ethan have come and gone! Idaho's Legislature reconvened in the refurbished Capitol building, and I've started my 25th legislative roller coaster.

Christmas was different this year. My parent's decided to stay in Twin Falls rather than brave

the roads (or another bus ride...they just can't quite get comfortable with that loss of independence). As a result, we had a quiet Christmas morning. Ethan had previously asked Santa for only two things: A Transformer Devastator as well as a Wii game. Santa obliged! Ethan was a bit concerned about how Santa would fit down our chimney. I also took Ethan to the Elk's Club's Christmas for Kids event where one of our exalted members (A Scotsman with a happy chuckle seemingly reinforced at the bar!) dressed as Santa and greeted the kids. Ethan's reaction? "Daddy. I don't think that's the real Santa. He must be one of his helpers."

After Christmas, I decided to go to the Fiesta Bowl to watch the Boise State Bronco's take on the Horned Frogs of TCU. I missed the bowl three years ago, and I had a great time along with thousands of other BSU faithful who made the trek to Phoenix after the new year. The only downside? Garmin GPS has no way of knowing when road construction closes roads and causes detours. As a result, I did spend one morning, in the dark, trying to get back to my hotel after dropping off a buddy at the airport. Oh well. Considering Garmin has been in the news lately for stranding at least three users on snowy mountain roads, being stranded in Phoenix could have been worse. Plus we won!

When my plane landed back in Boise on January 5, Ethan was sitting in his customary spot right outside the security doors in the Boise airport. He grinned, and ran into my arms, kissed my cheek, and immediately demanded we go play video games. The standard Ethan airport greeting. Later that night, he started to cough a bit. Heather and I had been discussing that he seems to have a chronic cough and that perhaps we should seek alternative opinions. Fate intervened. He spent that night coughing and then vomiting. The next morning, the pediatrician sent Ethan and his mom to St. Lukes Hospital where he spent two days (one night). It is now apparent he has asthma, and our next step is an allergist to see what triggers the attacks...although this was the first tangible one. Perhaps he's had mild attacks before? Who knows? We've been pretty lucky with him. No childhood ailments really, and countless friends have now indicated they "had it as a kid and out grew it."

By the end of that second day, Ethan was Ethan. He seemed fine. However, confined to a hospital bed in a cramped room, when I entered the room after work, he put on a brave face though his bottom lip quivered and his eyes watered as he said, "Daddy? I'm just unhappy. I want out of this place. I want to go home." I know there will be a time when he doesn't want to hang out at home. I know there will be a time when on a Saturday morning he doesn't pile onto my lap in a cloud of blankets content to watch cartoons with Daddy for a couple of hours. I know there will be a time when he is out of breath not from an unexpected bout of childhood asthma but from running out the door with his buddies. So, as Heather and I spent countless hours hovering over our little boy who celebrates his fifth birthday in a week, I also realized that these are really special times.

And, now that we know he's out of the woods (and the hospital), I couldn't help but consider that the hospital stay happened 6 days into a new insurance deductible. Ah...timing!

The Two Faces of the American Dream

The massive wave of Norwegian immigration to Minnesota from the 1850s through the early 20th century wasn't a casual choice; it was an escape from crushing land scarcity and economic desperation. My ancestors, the Dunhams, arrived in 1851 and built a life in Otter Tail County in Minnesota. My great-great-grandfather, Jens Christian Dunham, didn’t just survive—he thrived. He served in the Minnesota legislature as a Republican from 1888 to 1890 and later became a staunch advocate for President Teddy Roosevelt. He was the literal embodiment of the American Dream: an immigrant who fled poverty to become a lawmaker in his new home. Fast forward a century, and a new wave of immigrants—this time from Somalia—is following that exact same blueprint. Like the Norwegians before them, they fled hardship to build a future in Minnesota, and many have run for office to serve the state that welcomed them. Yet, the political rhetoric surrounding these two groups couldn't be more polarized. Don...

Phantom Blindness and Taking a Break after Strokes

I met with my eye doctor last week about taking some time off from my vision therapy. I have been doing therapy since my stroke almost two and a half years ago. I am tired, and a need a break. My doctor said, “This is completely understandable. Take some time off.” At the appointment, my doctor tested my vision. Because of the strokes, my vision was affected, and I have a problem in my field of vision on the right side. I have a deficit with my right side peripheral vision. However, it is getting better. During the test, I told him that I “sense things on the right side of my peripheral vision.” It seems that I know that something is there, but I cannot really distinguish what it is. He told me that there is a body of thought describing phantom vision or phantom blindness. A Polish researcher, L. Bieganowski, described this phantom blindness this way: “The subject of the paper is the phenomenon of phantom vision. It occurs among the blind (or almost blind...

Greek orthodox and Catholic‘s

Being a history buff, I’ve always understood that the Catholic Church was split in about 1000 A.D. Our Greek tour guide mentioned the differences a little bit yesterday, but she did not capture the full history. Today I saw a small Greek orthodox by the roadside and I’m going to insert about the history. Eastern Orthodox Catholics and Roman Catholics are the result of what is known as the East-West Schism (or Great Schism) of 1054, when medieval Christianity split into two branches. The Byzantine split with Roman Catholicism came about when Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne, King of the Franks, as Holy Roman Emperor in 800. From the Byzantine viewpoint, this was a slap to the Eastern Emperor and the Byzantine Empire itself — an empire that had withstood barbarian invasions and upheld the faith for centuries. After Rome fell in 476, Byzantium was the only vestige of the Holy Roman Empire. Charlemagne’s crowning made the Byzantine Emperor redundant, and relations between the East and...

Dunham Family and My Stroke Story!

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