Bryan Bergman & Leigh Perreault

Things are crazy for us right now, as we prepare to head to Kiev on March 12 to adopt children, hopefully a sibling pair. We'll spend about a month in the Ukraine before the process is complete and we can bring our kid or kids home. The last few months have been a frenzy of getting their room ready, child-proofing the house, working hard for our jobs to not make the upcoming 2 month break for the adoption process as obvious to the National Institutes of Health (where the grants that pay our salaries are from), and enjoying our last few weeks of non-parenthood.

Bryan's research is investigating why people get Type 2 diabetes, which is very exciting right now as we have some great data being produced! I won’t bore you with the details – but only 2 other labs in the world can do what we are doing – and hopefully our data will help promote better pharmaceutical agents to prevent and treat Type 2 diabetes. Leigh is also producing some really exciting data on the physiological differences between different types of pre-diabetes. Not much is known about pre-diabetes. So her work will hopefully direct better therapies to prevent the onset of Type 2 diabetes in this high risk group.

We traveled quite a bit for work again which is not as exciting to talk about, and took a memorable vacation to Aruba to relax and try our hand at scuba diving and windsurfing. We also tried this crazy idea called “laying on the beach and doing nothing”. It was fine for a few hours, but after that it was a touch boring. So instead we snorkeled, ran, dove, swam, etc… it was a fantastic trip.

Last fall we also took a trip to the Canadian Rockies to see the fall colors. It was breathtaking taking in Lake Louise (pictured here), Lake Moraine, Banff, etc… the colors were hard to describe surrounded by the sharp peaks of the Canadian Rockies. Leigh called it the "Bergman Boot Camp” because our idea of fun was to trail run and mountain bike our way through the parks. That way we saw so much beautiful scenery more quickly, and while exercising at the same time. We also went caving in Canmore which was a really fun adventure!!!

Last year Bryan did what may be his last full mountain bike racing season. It was very successful, as he moved to the Semi-pros and nearly won the national championships for his age group (an ex-pro beat him). Leigh has been staying fit as well, and is eyeing a 50km trail run as her next event.

So things are good here – now we are just preparing for parenthood!!!

Regards,
Bryan and Leigh