It's a girl

OK, so Aimee is preggers, and the scans show ...

It's a girl.

Imagine.

Bit it's true.

The little lady is due early next year.

Here are some photos of the li'l critter.

See the resemblence?

The rugrat to be is looking up with her head at the right and heart to the left.

Above, the baby's foot is an inch long, as measured by the dotted line. See those cute little toes?

This shot is how we can determine her gender. Just read the words and figure it out for yourself (Hint: There's an arrow where something would be if she were a boy!).

Here she is looking upward again, with her head to the right, heart and abdomen to the left.

This is a 3-D shot of her legs, as if she were sitting, facing the right. Aren't those feet cute!

Come Sail Away

We took a little trip this past weekend. With our little sailboat. Into the Gulf of Mexico and out to sea.



It was the farthest we'd ever traveled offshore with the boat. We went from Fort Desoto Park (the best beach in the U.S., according to at least one noted expert) to Egmont Key at the edge of Tampa Bay where it mingles with the gulf.



It was really a great trip and I am glad we made it.

That's because it was more than just a trip. It was an adventure.



Sure, how big an adventure could it be?



Well, imagine a trip involving a woman overboard, a daring (work with me) rescue in the middle of a shipping channel just as a vast cruise ship was within minutes of passing, an island picnic, a sailing ship grounding on a sandbar as the red-hot sun flirted with setting and then an encounter with dolphins, sand dollars (the vicious kind) and even a shark.


I hope you enjoyed the photos...there will be more to come in the future.

A healthier brother

Somehow, Dan was able to go home Saturday, just a couple days after experiencing a heart attack.

He's much healthier now, thanks to the stent in his lower doohickey artery, or whatever it's called, that was fully blocked before.

Dan even sent me some images of his heart, before and after the near-fatal event.

The first image is the clogged heart and the second is the new, improved Dan Kohn Heart.

We have our father and his legacy of heart problems to thank. But that's OK. It could be worse.

Dan said he's feeling much better than he was last week soon after arriving to work one morning. He said he was surprised because the pain wasn't quite as bad as he thought a heart attack would feel.

I guess no one really knows what to expect.

Let's hope most of us never find out.

Unnerving news

I received a very disturbing call Thursday just before heading into work.

It was my brother-in-law Brice calling to let me know my younger brother Dan Kohn had a heart attack a short time earlier. The news was sketchy, but apparently Dan had a clot in his lung which caused the trauma. Brice said he'd call back when he heard more.

A text and photo message a couple hours later eased my concern a bit. It was a shot of Dan in the ICU and a note: "Dan is in recovery doin ok. One stent." I was in a meeting, but that really made me feel better. Once the meeting ended I called Brice, who was with Dan in the ICU. I also spoke to Dan and he said he was feeling much better.

He said when he arrived at work he felt a horrible chest pain and drove himself to the emergency room. I nearly scolded him for placing his life and others in danger rather than dialing 911. He said he'd heard it several times already. Still, Dan was alive and Dan would make it .

Hearth disease is part of the heredity both Dan and I inherited from my father's side of the family. I was lucky enough to also inherit much stronger heart genes from my Mom's side, and so far haven't had such problems, save for high blood pressure.

But Dan isn't so lucky. Our paternal grandfather died young of heart problems. Our uncle, Daniel Kohn, our father's older brother, died of a heart attack at a young age. Our father, Mel Kohn, had his first heart attack at age 36. So this legacy isn't one to take lightly. We've both beaten those odds so far.

Dan knew of this genetic blessing and was working on it. He'd been working out and training to run a half-marathon later this year. He'd lost weight, lost his gut and is in pretty good shape. But that wasn't enough to clear out the single artery in his heart that was completely blocked.

The half-marathon is off for now, but Dan's healthy life will experience a renaissance and I know Dan will be healthier a month from now than he was a month ago.