The JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes for my area was held Saturday at the Mall of America in Bloomington, MN (very near Minneapolis).

Thanks to many generous friends and family I was able to raise a grand total of $1,175 in donations. I think that is just wonderful. I never expected that I would be able to generate such a large sum in donations. Thank you to all who donated.

The turnout was very impressive. We arrived at about 7:15 AM, and even driving through the parking lot there were TONS of people making their way inside.

It was a very encouraging experience to see all the people coming together. There were many individuals, but also many teams, groups and companies. Many had matching shirts with nifty slogans on them, some shirts & sweatshirts had pictures on them, and others carried big flags or banners.

As we worked our way through to where we were meeting our team, there was a pretty large team, made up mostly of teenage kids and a sprinking of adults. They appeared to be playing some type of a game or something to pass the time waiting for the walk to start. “Bang Bang Clap”, “Bang Bang Clap”, “Bang Bang Clap” – it sounded like a battle cry or war chant. It was exciting, and they were excited to be there!

In fact, EVERYONE was excited to be there. It was so great to see soo many people, all affected by diabetes in some way or another, come together for this event.

After the walk was done we got some breakfast and then walked the kids around to some of their favorite attractions at the mall. I was a little surprised with my blood sugar. I woke up this morning at 113 (and yes, I’m proud of that). I didn’t have any breakfast because I figured the JDRF would have some stuff there. I ended up not eating anything until our breakfast, which was a good three and a half hours later, AND I had been walking (slowly) around the mall, pushing the stroller with at least one kid in it (sometimes both).

The interesting thing here is that when I tested for breakfast, I was up to 169! So I had gone up quite a bit in that bit of time, but had nothing to eat.

I think my body is just weird in the mornings – it doesn’t like when I have to wake up early (neither do I). I think it’s pumping a bunch of “get up get moving” hormones out, and it makes me a little insulin resistant.

I corrected for the 169 and SWAG bolused for the unfamiliar breakfast.

Afterwards we took the kids to this place called “Dino Walk”, which is a large area of the mall were there is a big dinosaur exhibit. My son had wanted to go in there for a long time, but we never could afford the admission!

We were in the gift shop area when the manager started talking to my wife and it turns out we all went to junior high school together. How on earth he recognized us after over 15 years is beyond me! He got us into the main exhibit, and we hung out in there for at least a couple hours. It was a blast! There were life sized dinos, many TV monitors with informative shows playing, computers and toys for the kids, a large movie theatre playing dino based shows (like what you might see on Discovery or something), and even a place for kids to dig for fossils!

I checked my blood sugar after we had been there for a while (a couple hours after breakfast), and it was 128. That is great, BUT I’ve still got almost 10units of insulin on board. So….. looks like were stopping to eat again on the way out.

When we were all done we packed up and headed out. The kids were asleep before we left the parking ramp.

I had a lot of fun, and all in all it was a very good day.