I am in Norway traveling on a train from Oslo to Bergen to meet my mom there. It is a gorgeous ride through the mountains, past glaciers and fjords. I highly recommend it! It is T-minus 4 days until I depart at the Sweden/Norway border with my guide Elise Koren from Norrøna Hvitserk Adventure. It is strange. The time is very near yet I feel more calm that I did a week ago....

I re-read this article today and it is crazy to think about where we have come from. So much changed in Tia’s life and in our lives, yet again, in the course of a phone call… »» For These Kids, Following This Diet Is a Matter of Life or Brain Damage Some of the many syringe Palynziq shots she has given herself It was Monday, December 16, 2019, and eleven and a...

Flying to Norway this November/December was not in the cards, so my guide and I “met” each other in the next best way we could imagine- through a Skype call. We had a 90 minute meeting last week that felt like we were in the same room. This call bridged the 4,000 miles between us in a way that gave me a sense of her, and she a sense of me. The visual...

It was September 18, 2003 and I did not expect Tia’s first birthday party to unfold the way that it did. Tia’s godmother, Mitzi Gaskins, got everyone’s attention at the end of the party. Mitzi stepped through the crowd of young mom’s and babies holding one of those giant checks that are presented when funds have been raised for a cause. These are the checks that say, “something big is happening.” What...

Inquiring minds want to know, “What are you doing now to train?” My friends are curious about what I am doing when I disappear for 2-3 hours per day and don’t answer their calls and texts. The training spreadsheet below will give you a pretty good idea. This is a snapshot of three weeks of training in September. Tiffany Nesfield, my fitness coach, has prescribed a combination of strength and endurance training –...

We should have done this earlier! In a recent meeting with Tia’s college counselor, it became clear to us that by choosing to not share her Classical PKU diagnosis with her high school teachers, perhaps we had left her at an academic disadvantage. Tia finally agreed to allow me to have a meeting with ALL of her teachers in one room. I am going to tell them about PKU, and how it will...

I have read that mistakes grow the brain and that mistakes give you an opportunity. Many mistakes are serendipitous and may help you get you to a place where you need to be. Which makes you wonder, are your self-imposed mistakes, at least in some form, subconsciously intentional? I made a biggie this week and it was self-imposed. On Tuesday I dragged a tire for four miles which took me 93 minutes with a...

My harness has arrived! This harness was sent so that I could use it to train pulling tires, and eventually the pulk sled across the snow in Norway. This harness has good juju. I’m lucky and honored to have it. This harness smells like a combination of gas and earth. It has mud splashed across one side. My curiosity is so piqued about the smell. What adventure of Ann Daniel’s caused this harness to smell so strongly...

I left the gym yesterday with burn marks and bruises down my arms. Ava and Georgia (my 10 year old twin daughters) got very upset when they saw me. “Did someone hurt you?” “Were you in an accident?!” My explanation sounded strange: Mommy is squatting holding a 40lb bag of sand and then flipping it up on to her arms and swinging up on her toes. I showed them the movement with flair to try to get...

This project has been an exercise in stepping in to the unknown. To say that I’ve had a few moments of self-doubt is the understatement of the century. In fact, the ugly truth is that I’m frequently filled with self-doubt and fear when it comes to what I’m tackling with Norway. Frequent means that I probably question something major on a daily basis. The fears range from, will I be able to do the skiing...