Wow!!! what a week!!!

 I don’t recall where I left off updating you on the forever changing  saga of the elder DeKuipers………………..so I will just start from about a week ago!

The Tahquamenon race was great, Randy got second in the 10 dog race and Moe (aka Jim Moyer) ran 5 of our dogs in the 6 dog – our lead dog created a little bit of a “off course” maneuver (even though it wasn’t groomed for the race she remembered going gee at the corner while training- most of the race course is on the trails we have used for training for the last 4 months

Oh and I got run over by our dog team…………the man in the chute tying the teams off for the start wasn’t quite practiced yet when Randy went out so he let the team go ahead about 10 feet before Randy stopped them and because I was up holding the leader out I got trampled, popped back up and untangled the dogs that were tangled – the bad thing is that the healing of my pelvic floor muscles/groin that had healed over the last 3 months, was re-injured!!!  Our son-in-law Bill was pretty funny when he heard me tell the tale he started singing “Grandma got run over by her dog team”!!!!!!

So Sunday was a non-walking day and stay on the couch day and anxiety because we intended to leave Wednesday for Baldwin for the next race!  And that means packing up most of our house to go into  the trailer which is ¼ mile from our house (parked in a public parking lot on the west side of the road so we don’t get it snowed in when it’s time to leave!!!)– so lots of loadinng and unloading with the pickup and deciding what to take and what to leave---

Well that process and me being re-injured took a lot longer that what we would have expected so we ended up leaving Thursday afternoon and only making it down to Gaylord at the Walmart parking lot overnite – the drive was a little stressful what with me driving the pickup and Randy with the truck and trailer and high winds going over the bridge and snowing and I ran out of windshield wiper fluid so spent some anxious not seeing too pretty good when a car’s lights were shining on me!!

Made it to Baldwin about 1 and parked in the lot across from the catholic church we belong to and prepared for the celebrity/sponsor race.  The whole race weekend was organized by Moe and Lydia and we had volunteered to help so we provided 2 teams of 2 for the sponsor race – they had dual starts and eliminate for the sponsor trophy – it was very fun and Moe and Lydia had made up fun names (one of ours was the Kettle Korn Express!) for each of the teams and we all had fun – the younger DeKuiper family came for the sponsor race and the driver’s meeting and stayed in town at the Pere Marquette Lodge (and they loved it) because 3 of the kids were racing in the real race the next 2 days. (Aeja, Oak and Aurea all of whom had never been on a sled behind a dog team….)

The first race was bitterly cold but we were all troopers and got the dogs ready for Randy in the 8, Oak and Aeja in the 4 and Aurea in the 3 dog junior using 2 of Moe and lydia’s dogs.

We were a little concerned for all of them as it’s not an easy course and  they no experience – also there was only one other junior in the race with Aurea and we knew she had lots of experience since she had like 70? Miles on her team and had raced at Tahquamenon – 

Well amazingly Aurea came in 2 minutes ahead of  Aubrey without a any problems!!!!

Not so much for Aeja and Oak…………….apparently Aeja fell and lost her team (and never did recover it – it was brought back by a trail helper) and after he went by Aeja , Oak fell and lost his team but did recover it and finished with trail help catching his team!!!  What troopers!!!  (Reminds me of my years racing and falling and losing………..)  As it turned out there ewas a problem with timing the race? And they threw out all of Saturday’s times for the 4 dog race – which meant because Aeja had walked 4 miles to the finish line she qualified to race again Sunday and they both had a fresh start to “redeem themselves”!!!

Sunday was also cold – lots of cold fingers and toes – and we also got to see Mitzi and her family and Luke and his!!!  So out of our whole family we were missing only 2 adult kids and one grandkid!!!  You can bet Grandpa and Grandma had a one-of –a-kind great day!!!!

So Aurea had another trouble free run and wins!!!  And even thought she fell again……….she didn ‘t lose her team and both Oak and Aeja finished 5^th and 6^th (I think/remember?)

We took all the family out for dinner and it was one of those “remember always” days!!!

The next saga in our travels started Sunday when we mentioned to our nurse practioner and vet tech daughter-in-laws the we had a dog having poor appetite and vomiting and diarrhea =we found a stethoscope and listened for bowel sounds and heard nothing and began to think bowel obstruction – so Moe got us an early Monday morning appointment at his vet to evaluate – xray showed a mass in her abdomen 10 cm but he said we would have to find someone else to treat is as he was covering for the vet clinic owner and didn’t have time…………all the vets in west Michigan were at a convention in Florida!!!  Worst timing!!!  We finally got an appointment in Big Rapids with a referral from Moe’s vet calling from Florida and were seen there Tuesday.  More xrays and ultrasound and she determined that she needed surgery and had a cancellation so she could do it Wednesday – which was good because we had been thinking it was life threatening if she developed a leak in this fluid filled mass!

Surgery went well, we brought her back to our trailer where we are parked in the lot next to St. Anne’s and she is eating and acting very well!!!

So the fall out from all this is that we would have left here and gone to Wyoming for the stage race where we have paid a non=refundable entry fee of $1000 but had to notify them we would not be coming – we had only 14 dogs making in the pool we could use and this broke the camel’s back –we also had to cancel snowmachine reservations we had made in Alpine WY where we trained last year to acclimate us and the dogs in advance of the race – we were supposed to get only ½ of our fee of $300 back but she said everyone that worked there is a dog person and they would refund the entire price!!!

So this is Thursday, we have our dog back, and think we are going to a couple of races in Wisconsin so the plan is to go back up to the UP and our rental cabin, open it back up and put the dogs back out in the dogyard and train for a couple of weeks!!!!  And me drive the yellow truck back up because we don’t really have any other transportation to go the ½ hour into Newberry  without taking the 8 miles to the gallon blue truck!!!!

I will try to be more up to date the next several weeks!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don’t recall where I left off updating you on the forever changing  saga of the elder DeKuipers………………..so I will just start from about a week ago!

The Tahquamenon race was great, Randy got second in the 10 dog race and Moe (aka Jim Moyer) ran 5 of our dogs in the 6 dog – our lead dog created a little bit of a “off course” maneuver (even though it wasn’t groomed for the race she remembered going gee at the corner while training- most of the race course is on the trails we have used for training for the last 4 months

Oh and I got run over by our dog team…………the man in the chute tying the teams off for the start wasn’t quite practiced yet when Randy went out so he let the team go ahead about 10 feet before Randy stopped them and because I was up holding the leader out I got trampled, popped back up and untangled the dogs that were tangled – the bad thing is that the healing of my pelvic floor muscles/groin that had healed over the last 3 months, was re-injured!!!  Our son-in-law Bill was pretty funny when he heard me tell the tale he started singing “Grandma got run over by her dog team”!!!!!!

So Sunday was a non-walking day and stay on the couch day and anxiety because we intended to leave Wednesday for Baldwin for the next race!  And that means packing up most of our house to go into  the trailer which is ¼ mile from our house (parked in a public parking lot on the west side of the road so we don’t get it snowed in when it’s time to leave!!!)– so lots of loadinng and unloading with the pickup and deciding what to take and what to leave---

Well that process and me being re-injured took a lot longer that what we would have expected so we ended up leaving Thursday afternoon and only making it down to Gaylord at the Walmart parking lot overnite – the drive was a little stressful what with me driving the pickup and Randy with the truck and trailer and high winds going over the bridge and snowing and I ran out of windshield wiper fluid so spent some anxious not seeing too pretty good when a car’s lights were shining on me!!

Made it to Baldwin about 1 and parked in the lot across from the catholic church we belong to and prepared for the celebrity/sponsor race.  The whole race weekend was organized by Moe and Lydia and we had volunteered to help so we provided 2 teams of 2 for the sponsor race – they had dual starts and eliminate for the sponsor trophy – it was very fun and Moe and Lydia had made up fun names (one of ours was the Kettle Korn Express!) for each of the teams and we all had fun – the younger DeKuiper family came for the sponsor race and the driver’s meeting and stayed in town at the Pere Marquette Lodge (and they loved it) because 3 of the kids were racing in the real race the next 2 days. (Aeja, Oak and Aurea all of whom had never been on a sled behind a dog team….)

The first race was bitterly cold but we were all troopers and got the dogs ready for Randy in the 8, Oak and Aeja in the 4 and Aurea in the 3 dog junior using 2 of Moe and lydia’s dogs.

We were a little concerned for all of them as it’s not an easy course and  they no experience – also there was only one other junior in the race with Aurea and we knew she had lots of experience since she had like 70? Miles on her team and had raced at Tahquamenon – 

Well amazingly Aurea came in 2 minutes ahead of  Aubrey without a any problems!!!!

Not so much for Aeja and Oak…………….apparently Aeja fell and lost her team (and never did recover it – it was brought back by a trail helper) and after he went by Aeja , Oak fell and lost his team but did recover it and finished with trail help catching his team!!!  What troopers!!!  (Reminds me of my years racing and falling and losing………..)  As it turned out there ewas a problem with timing the race? And they threw out all of Saturday’s times for the 4 dog race – which meant because Aeja had walked 4 miles to the finish line she qualified to race again Sunday and they both had a fresh start to “redeem themselves”!!!

Sunday was also cold – lots of cold fingers and toes – and we also got to see Mitzi and her family and Luke and his!!!  So out of our whole family we were missing only 2 adult kids and one grandkid!!!  You can bet Grandpa and Grandma had a one-of –a-kind great day!!!!

So Aurea had another trouble free run and wins!!!  And even thought she fell again……….she didn ‘t lose her team and both Oak and Aeja finished 5^th and 6^th (I think/remember?)

We took all the family out for dinner and it was one of those “remember always” days!!!

The next saga in our travels started Sunday when we mentioned to our nurse practioner and vet tech daughter-in-laws the we had a dog having poor appetite and vomiting and diarrhea =we found a stethoscope and listened for bowel sounds and heard nothing and began to think bowel obstruction – so Moe got us an early Monday morning appointment at his vet to evaluate – xray showed a mass in her abdomen 10 cm but he said we would have to find someone else to treat is as he was covering for the vet clinic owner and didn’t have time…………all the vets in west Michigan were at a convention in Florida!!!  Worst timing!!!  We finally got an appointment in Big Rapids with a referral from Moe’s vet calling from Florida and were seen there Tuesday.  More xrays and ultrasound and she determined that she needed surgery and had a cancellation so she could do it Wednesday – which was good because we had been thinking it was life threatening if she developed a leak in this fluid filled mass!

Surgery went well, we brought her back to our trailer where we are parked in the lot next to St. Anne’s and she is eating and acting very well!!!

So the fall out from all this is that we would have left here and gone to Wyoming for the stage race where we have paid a non=refundable entry fee of $1000 but had to notify them we would not be coming – we had only 14 dogs making in the pool we could use and this broke the camel’s back –we also had to cancel snowmachine reservations we had made in Alpine WY where we trained last year to acclimate us and the dogs in advance of the race – we were supposed to get only ½ of our fee of $300 back but she said everyone that worked there is a dog person and they would refund the entire price!!!

So this is Thursday, we have our dog back, and think we are going to a couple of races in Wisconsin so the plan is to go back up to the UP and our rental cabin, open it back up and put the dogs back out in the dogyard and train for a couple of weeks!!!!  And me drive the yellow truck back up because we don’t really have any other transportation to go the ½ hour into Newberry  without taking the 8 miles to the gallon blue truck!!!!

I will try to be more up to date the next several weeks!!!