Dave Harper

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Welcome to the 1st annual Harper Family Annual Report. Just an update of some of the things I’ve done outdoors this year, and some of the going’s on in the Harper household. We hope it allows us to share what’s going on with us, especially for those friends we don’t get to see or talk to enough, maybe something here will encourage you to get away from work and go have some fun, or maybe to spend some quality time with your family, or maybe you’ll find it terribly boring, that’s ok too. I’ll admit right off the bat that the inspiration for doing this report, which I hope to do each year, comes from a good friend of mine, Buck Fuller. Buck hails from South Florida, about 4 hours away from us, and is a self-described Horseman, Gladesman(as in everglades), and Pistolero. He knows more about hunting and fishing the Florida backcountry that I ever will. In addition to a report like this each year of his outdoors exploits and world travel, not a month goes by that I don’t get in the mail a copy of a magazine article that may interest me or a photo of some recent fishing outing he’s been on. I will say that getting this constant barrage of hints to get out and do something other than work, has done exactly that. I get motivated everytime he sends me something and getting his annual report is like getting a good magazine at the end of the year. Ours is no comparison to his, but I hope it enlightens you to what we’re doing in our lives, and motivates you to do the things you enjoy in yours. December 1999 Our highlight of December and probably of the year was on the 17th, when Emily’s physicians told us we could take her off the oxygen she had been on since birth. If you don’t know, Emily was born July 29, 1999, 13 weeks early. She weighed 920 grams (2lbs) at birth and spent 3 months in Neonatal Intensive Care before coming home. I can’t imagine going through anything more difficult than those 3 months, but I can also say that I feel like we were the luckiest people in the world to have come out of there with a beautiful, healthy baby girl. It seemed like every day around us there was something going wrong with one of the babies near us, a serious infection, a surgery that had to be performed, or issues with development that will effect the child and the parents for the rest of their lives. We certainly had our ups and downs during that time with her, but in the end, at least so far, Emily doesn’t have any effects of the premature birth. I can promise you that spending time every day for 3 months in an NICU ward will change your attitude about life forever, it certainly did mine. When we did get to bring her home, she still needed supplemental oxygen and medication, so we came home with oxygen bottles, compressors, tubes, monitors, etc; but as of December 17, 1999, we finally had just a normal, healthy, hungry, crying baby. We also spent a long weekend at the Anchor Inn at St. Pete Beach on the West coast of Florida. That was spent with my sister, Kelly and her family, and my dad and stepmom, Gayle. It actually ended up raining the whole weekend, just our luck, but we did our Christmas, and hung out in the tourist shops all weekend.

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