Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to you! We're so sorry that all of you couldn't be here to share a wonderful Christmas with us. We were thankful to have Kathryn's sister, Kerry, with us as well and Grandma and Papa Gray. We had a wonderful celebration.

We spent Christmas Eve together going to Church, having dinner, and swapping stories. The boys actually went right to sleep. Christmas morning started about 7:15 a.m. (not bad!). Hudson and Landon got to see their two unwrapped presents (a battery-powered Mustang for Hudson and a Cadillac Escalade scooter for Landon) and play with them for a few minutes and then we all ate breakfast. Then we opened gifts. Hudson was of course really into it. He ripped apart the paper and couldn't wait to see what was inside. Landon was pretty overwhelmed. He didn't get into ripping wrapping paper and just wanted to play with the first toy and didn't really care about checking out anything else for quite a while. Overall, they had a ball and so did we.

The best part of the day, though, was the afternoon of Hudson driving the new Mustang in the cul-de-sac. Landon decided he'd try being his passenger and ended up loving it. Hudson taught him how to shift for him. He then discovered that at one end of the cul-de-sac if he turned quickly and hit the brakes, he could get the Mustang to skid sideways. The sight of the two of them cruising in that little car together was priceless.

In case you aren't aware, you can "click" on the photos above to view an enlarged version of the image. We love you all.

Christmas is Coming

Hello everyone. Merry Christmas to you all. The Arizona Grays are doing well.

Grandma and Papa (Gray) arrived in Arizona two weeks ago. We have enjoyed having them over as have the boys. They also traded in their old car for a Honda CR-V and Hudson went with them to the dealership to make the final deal. He was really helpful.

We're excited for Christmas. Rick will have the whole week off (sort of) and we're looking forward to spending a lot of time as a family. Kathryn's birthday is next Thursday, too.

We had a recent "snow day" in our neighborhood park. They hauled in a truckload of snow and the boys and other neighborhood kids had a blast.

We love you all and wish the blessings of CHRISTmas for you all.

Funny Hudson Quote of the Week

Hudson likes to have the whole family pretend we're other people or things. When we're the Oppers, Hudson consistently wants to be Callie. We've also been praying a lot lately for Aunt Bonnie's herniated disk and Uncle Steve's kidney stone. Hudson suggested that the family pretend to be the Oppers, and Kathryn (to tease him) said, "OK, I'll be Callie and you be Uncle Steve." To which Hudson said:

"Hey!! I don't want to have a kidney stone!!"

We're slacking on the blog!

We have really been slacking on blog updates - I can't believe it's been almost a month since we've posted here. Sorry to those who check regularly! We really do have the goal of updating the blog once per week so don't give up on us!

We're doing well. Kathryn's belly continues to grow but she's feeling well. Rick is in the middle of interview season for the new surgical residents at Mayo Clinic. It's a fun but busy time. Hudson is doing well. He is still a stickler for rules and order, as any good firstborn would be. He's become pretty sweet to his little brother instead of just trying to annoy him most of the time. Landon continues to be our little ham. He never hesitates to put food on his head or do anything that will draw the attention of the crowd.

We've been doing a lot of decision-making with our house we've contracted to build (probably part of the reason we've been lax in keeping up the blog). We've now finished the planning of all the appliances, the lighting, the flooring and counters, the cabinetry, the color schemes, and the wiring. It took us seven 2-3.5 hour appointments to get all that done, so we're happy to take a break for a while. It's been fun, excrutiating, exciting, and frustrating all at once. We're happy how the plans are coming along.

Grandma and Papa arrived in Arizona last Sunday. The boys (and us) have been really excited to have them here. They've been able to spend a few afternoons with us and we've had a great time.

We're excited for Christmas. We love you all very much and wish God's blessing for all of you in this season.

Trip to Michigan

We had a great trip to Michigan. We loved connecting with family, especially seeing Hudson and Landon with their cousins. We also had a great time connecting with old college friends of Rick's. We built a lot of great memories, and these pictures do it just partial justice:

With some Opper cousins in a leaf pile


Papa with Hudson


Papa comforting Landon

Trip to Michigan

Caleb, Callie, Hudson


Papa reading "Rainbow" to Hudson


Caleb and Landon

Caleb and Callie reading to Hudson


Grandma Hunting Squirrels


Arizonans trying our hand at snowballs


Hudson four-wheeling with Grandma

New Baby Photos

Hi everyone - well there he or she is. We had an ultrasound on Friday 10/6/06. Everything looked good. We decided to not have them show/tell us the baby's sex during the ultrasound. Everything looked good overall. I'll explain the above pictures:

The first photo is with the head at the left, facing up with the body going to the right curling up with his/her rump curling to the top right and legs coming back toward the left.


The second photo is a shot of both feet.

The third photo shows a profile with the head/face at the left and the chest on the right. The dark areas in the chest are the heart and stomach and the white sections toward the bottom are the vertebrae.

The final photo is a close-up profile of his/her face.

We are blessed an thankful that everything looked good with the baby. The only finding of note was an intracardiac echogenic focus (click to follow link to more information). This is a "white spot" on the ultrasound in the heart. In the absence of other ultrasound findings in a woman over 35 (as is our case) what it means is that the risk of the baby having Down's syndrome is 0.5-1% instead of 0.25-0.5% without this finding. It's actually a not terribly unusual finding on an ultrasound in the second trimester. We are simply praising God and trusting Him in every way for this baby.

Thank you all for your prayers. We love you.

Expensive Baby

Hi everyone. We're doing well. Well, the big news is that this third baby on the way is already the most expensive one by far - because we're moving. Yep, we've decided to get a place with more bedrooms. Actually there are several reasons for us to move but this baby is certainly a prominent one. Kathryn is doing well. We go in for an ultrasound tomorrow.

We're going to be building so we won't be moving for about 15 months. We're just moving about 8 miles north. We're pretty excited. We have a lot of items to pick out and decide on in the next couple of months.

We're flying to Michigan on October 23rd. The whole family is excited about that, too.

Hope you like the new pictures.

Happy Birthday Hudson

Well, we have a four year-old in the house. We had a fun day of celebration. Hudson had really been looking forward to it. Showing remarkable confidence in her son's restraint, Kathryn stored the wrapped gifts sent via mail as well as the gifts from us at floor level in Hudson's room for several days leading up to the 16th.

We let him choose two gifts to open on his birthday morning (before the planned party at dinner time.) He played all day with those two gifts. Sometimes I think two gifts are enough for any child, but it didn't stop there.

We had a party at Peter Piper Pizza. D.D. and Ducky, Aunt Kerry and the three of us all got together for Pizza, Games, Cake, and presents. It was a blast. Hudson loved all of his gifts as you can see in the pictures. Although his parents bought him a musical instrument set: a drum, drumsticks, a tambourine, maroccas, and a harmonica, no one else is allowed to give him noisy gifts in the future! :)

We wish you all could have been here and so does Hudson.

Monsoons are here

Hi everyone. We're doing well. It's monsoon season here - for those that don't know about the Sonoran desert, summer is when we get some humidity and we get some rain. We've had a lot of good rains this summer so that's great for the AZ water supply.

We had a recent bout of brief sickness in our house (again). Landon developed a fever for a couple of days without much else for symptoms (except feeling punky). A few days later, it hit Hudson, but for him it was only about 36 hours and then it hit Rick and Kathryn, each also for about 36 hours. We are grateful to be done with it and that it was brief. Kathryn is otherwise doing pretty well with the pregnancy.

We wish you all could see how the boys are growing and changing. Hudson is still all boy - into cars and trucks and wants to be a garbageman when he grows up. Despite that, he still likes to play a game during which we all pretend to be other people. He almost invariable chooses to be one of his female cousins or a female character of some type. Understandably this practice over time began to concern Rick who finally asked Hudson, "Why do you usually want to be a girl?" To which Hudson replied, "Because I like girls." (Still not much help).

"Why do you like girls?"

"Because I'm a boy and boys like girls." [whew! We think:)]

Landon is our version of a "strong-willed child." Not in the usual sense: He is consistently obedient and compliant. But the child wants to do things himself and usually refuses help. Having trouble getting a bite of food on the fork? If we help him stab it with the fork, he will take the bite off the fork and start over - by himself, thank you very much!

Hudson continues to have a very sensitive spirit. When we picked him up at his Sunday School class a couple of weeks ago, they had a stack of what we thought were CD's. They were labeled with an ad for an upcoming animated movie about the donkey (colt) Christ rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Thinking it was an audio CD, we took one and told him we'd listen to the songs, but it turned out to be a DVD. With all the build-up, Rick decided to show him the DVD which at this point he believed to be a short trailer for the movie. But when he put it in, it turned out to be a 15 minute movie! And we started at bed-time. Hudson was fascinated and it seemed to be a cute story so Rick left him watching it while Rick went to change Landon into his pajamas. While changing Landon, Rick heard Hudson walk into the room and turned to see him with a face soaked with tears saying, "No one is helping him. They threw him down the well and no one is helping him."

Rick ran back with him to the movie. It turns out the story of the Colt loosely follows Joseph's life at first: mean brothers who tease him and eventually throw him into a water well to get rid of him. What a boo-boo to leave him alone watching his very first DVD movie - even if it was tacitly endorsed by the church! Rick sat and watched the rest: the rescue from the well, the disciples coming to choose him, and the triumphal entry. But boy was Hudson ripped up for a while while that little donkey was in the well singing his sad song! Lesson learned.

Funny Hudson Quote:

During the Saturday breakfast ritual of going through the car ads in the newspaper, Kathryn was asking Hudson what cars were shown. Upon turning one page, though, several Motorhomes were being advertised. Kathryn asked him if he knew what kind of Motorhomes they were.

"No, I don't know many kinds of motorhomes...except that Papa and Grandma's is a Residency."

Impressed that he could remember their Motorhome model, Kathryn tried to jog him memory for another by asking, "What kind of motorhome does Mr. Mike and Miss Sally [friends of Papa and Grandma] have?"

To which she was quickly corrected, "No, they don't have a motorhome; it's a park model."

Sniffles in the Summer?

Photo above was taken when Landon stole Kathryn's sports bra out of the laudry basket, put it around his neck and started running around the house giggling.

Hello all. We are doing well, but we had a spat of colds last week. Landon started it off with a cold and some diarrhea. Hudson got it next with a cold and a tiny amount of diarrhea. Then Rick got the cold and just a little upset stomach. Only Kathryn was strong enough to avoid it! Everyone is back to full health now.

Kathryn is doing well. She still is feeling tired and has a nagging nausea when she hasn't eaten but otherwise is doing fine. Rick brought home a doppler from work so we were able to hear the baby's heartbeat last week. It was pretty exciting.

Rick is also doing well. He has next week off work to hang out with the family. The boys are still a lot of fun. Last night during our home fellowship, they went into the playroom together, played nicely together, and stayed out of trouble for an hour without our help! Hudson was quite the big brother, coaxing Landon into staying in the playroom and making sure he played safely.

Funny Hudson Quote of the Week

"See that long one that looks like a snake? That one came out really fast!"

Said while he was sick after getting off the toilet.

What's New

Hi all. All is well with us here. We've had a good couple of weeks. Rick has a four day weekend this week so we're all hanging out together. We spent the morning with friends with a bunch of kids playing at a pool together.

Kathryn is doing well. She's understandably fatigued but overall doing well. The boys are doing great, except Landon has developed a little bit of sniffles. They're a laugh a minute.

Funny Hudson Quote of the week:

"No, it was Landon's."

After Hudson's nap, I took Landon into the bathroom to put him on the potty chair when I saw one of the nice towels with the boys name's embroidered on them on the floor with something purple on it. It looked like marker or something to me. I walked to Hudson and said, "I need you to come to your bathroom and explain something to me."

He knew to what I was referring immediately and said, "Well, after I went to the bathroom you forgot to wash my hands so I went in to wash them, but the soap dispensor was out of soap. So I went to get some baby wash from the tub but I couldn't reach it. So I got some bubble bath [which is purple] but I spilled some in the tub. So I got a towel to clean up my mess."

"So you used your good towel to clean it up?"

"No, it was Landon's."

And it was.

It's August!

Hi everyone. Well by now you know that our big news is that Kathryn is pregant with our number 3! She's about 10 weeks along, so the baby will be due in late February/early March. We're very thankful. Kathryn's been feeling pretty good - some nausea but not a lot. She's also feeling a little tired but all in all it could be worse.

You can all be praying for us as we try to decide what to do about our housing with a third on the way. Our house has two bedrooms for the children that share a bathroom. We're trying to decide if that will work well long-term. We're looking around at least and praying about it. There is one new community being built that offers a 4-bedroom home that we really like. But believe it or not, the demand for homes here is so strong that the developers start 3 new homes per month and you have to enter into a lottery to get the opportunity to buy one of them!! We put our name in for now but we're one of 45 in the drawing! What a crazy city we live in.

Hudson and Landon are doing great. Lately they've been wanting to play on the swingset a lot. Landon can climb the steps up to the 5-foot tall platform now and Hudson slides down before him and catches him. It's pretty cute to watch.

Funny Hudson Quote of the Week:

"C'mon Landon you've gotta work with me here!"
Overheard as Hudson was trying to help Landon get up into his chair.

Back from Vacation

Sorry it's been so long since our last post, but our vacation was also a vacation from the blog. We spent the last week in San Diego. We had planned this week to be in Michigan but since we have to go in October, we decided to make that the only trip so we headed out to San Diego for a break from the heat. We had a terrific time and had perfect weather; here's the run-down:

Saturday: Drove 6 hours to Solana Beach, a northern suburb of San Diego. We rented a condo on a bluff overlooking the Pacific. The boys did great on the long trip. We don't think Hudson stopped chatting for any of the 6 hours. Aunt Kerry met us there.

Sunday: Spent the morning on the beach at our condo. In the afternoon we had our friends who had moved to San Diego, Luke and Cindy Johnson, over to catch up. That night, Aunt Kerry babysat while Rick and Kathryn went out on a dinner date.

Monday: Spent the day at Balboa Park. We explored the science center, arboretum, carousel, automotive museum. It was fun for everyone and Aunt Kerry headed back to Arizona that night.

Tuesday: Went to Legoland. It's a great park for 3-10 year-olds and we had a blast. We rode rides like a jeep safari, a mini-train, a water park, an oval track car race (with no tracks for the cars, just free rein for 3-5 year olds!), a race of fire trucks to put out a fake fire, and a mini-USA of U.S. cities built out of Legos. Hudson also rode his first real rollercoaster: Coastersaurus and he loved it. It was pretty big, too - it made an 8-10 year old boy in front of us cry. Legoland was a big hit. Landon was too little to do much, but he enjoyed the water park.

Wednesday: We spent the day on Coronado Island on the beach near the Hotel Coronado. It was a beautiful beach and nice facilities available to us courtesy of the Johnsons. We had fun splashing in the ocean and digging in the sand.

Thursday: Our slow-down day. We slept in lazily, read and played in the condo, and walked along the beach and bluffs.

Friday: We had a lazy morning and then split up for the afternoon. Hudson and Rick went back to Legoland to take advantage of our second day of the two-day passes we had purchased while Landon and Kathryn went to the beach at our Condo. Kathryn and Landon had fun playing in (and occasional eating) the sand. At Legoland Hudson started out building racecars out of legos and racing them against other children's cars. Then he and Rick rode several other rides, but when we got back to the Coastersaurus, he said the same thing at the end of every ride: "Let's do it again!!!!" Only the park closing stopped us at seven rides on it in a row.

Saturday: Drove back home. Again, the boys did great.

We are feeling refreshed and very blessed and thankful for our time away. We were definitely ready to get home, though. We love you all!

What kind of parents take their 3 year-old to a movie?

Yup, we did it. After a bit of consternation, we decided to take Hudson to see the movie "Cars." We were originally planning to have him see it on video, but ended up deciding that taking him to a theater would make it seem more "set apart" so he'd be less likely to want to see more TV/movies at home. Can you tell he's our first child with all the thought we put into a rather simple decision?

He loved it. He jumped a few times at the loud revving of the engines, but never got scared at all. It was a pretty long movie - about 2 hours and he shifted positions a lot, so we couldn't tell if he was just a being a boy or if he was getting a little tired of it. But when the credits rolled (with some animation re-starting on the side) we asked if he wanted to leave. He said, "Let's wait until the pictures go off and don't come back on."

He's been (we've made him) a victim of the Disney marketing machine. He has a "Cars" coloring book, a "Cars" sticker book, and a few plastic "Cars" figures. So he knew the main characters names before the movie. By the way, it's a cute movie that's fun for any age (apparently down to three).

Landon is still having a lot of fun running around. He's starting to fight back when Hudson takes things with which he's playing - and he's got a pretty accurate slap! He's definitely a second-born: much more adventurous, much more stubborn, not as into precision and detail and more into fun. He is really creating his own identity more and more every day.

Kathryn and Rick are doing well. Rick sprained his ankle playing basketball this week but it doesn't seem all that bad, just pretty swollen.

Thanks for the comments and updates!

Funny Hudson quote:

"Oh no; it dropped the call!"
Said while talking to a pretend person on a pretend call on his pretend Spiderman cell phone.

Is it officially summer already?

Hi everyone. It's seemed like summer here longer than just this week. Everyone is healthy here and we're putting up with the heat well. Work has been reasonable for Rick; Kathryn is doing well and her Tuesday morning Bible studies have started back up. Hudson is still having fun with his cars. Kathryn went to pick him up at the gym childcare center and found all the workers gathered around him being entertained by him identifying all the cars. Landon is toddling around everywhere now and has become a climber. The gym staff told Kathryn that he was but she hadn't really seen evidence of it. That day, though, she took the boys to the library and after getting some books with Hudson found him standing on top of one of the tables.

Smart Hudson Quote:

"It's an amphibious truck."

Hudson explaining why it was OK when he was told that his story shouldn't have the trash truck drive into the water.

June is Here

Hello all. Things are going well here in the Valley of the Sun. Monsoon season officially has arrived. For those of you that don't know, we actually get a fair amount of rain in the heat of the summer. We get monsoons with a lot of wind in the evenings and get a little bit of rain sometimes and downpours others. We also get a lot of lightning and thunder. So far we've had just wind with a little bit of rain and lightning the past few nights. We all pray for more rain than lightning to limit the fire hazard.

The boys are doing well. Landon is now going from sitting to standing and walking by himself - and I might add is very proud of doing so. Hudson continues with his car and truck obsession. Today he guessed that the worker who came to patch a seam in our countertop had driven a white Ford pickup - a good guess based on sales figures - and he was correct.

Kathryn is back in Tuesday morning Bible study after a couple of months off. She's enjoying her group of Moms at her table and the teaching.

Rick had last week off of work and did his honey-do list around the house: fixing some irrigation lines, replanting some lost landscape, cleaning hard water spots off the pool water feature, and cleaning out the garage. He also got a chance to play with the boys a lot and went golfing twice.

Funny Hudson Quote of the Week:

"You can do the underwater parts with Landon."

Said to his daddy while they and Landon were in the pool and were about to do swim lessons. He regularly lobbies to leave out the parts of the swim lessons where he goes underwater.

Smart Hudson Quotes of the week:

"What did the pastor say about the car and it's gasoline?"

Hudson to his mommy on the way home from church. He's been coming to big church with us and seems to be doing his own thing (coloring, driving his cars on the pew) most of the time, but it's clear that he's taking it all in. Pastor Darryl had used an illustration of us following God's word as being like a car running on gasoline, and when we don't, like a car running on corn oil.

"No, that's just some adhesive from one of my old stickers."

Hudson to his mommy after she questioned whether the small, round, gray, sticky object on his finger represented a booger. She didn't even knew he knew what 'adhesive' was.

It's heating up in AZ

Hi all. Well we've reached triple digits in Arizona. We're ready for a few months of air conditioning. The evenings are still beautiful, with the temperatures in the 70's-80's (which feels pretty cool with a humidity of 15%). Our family is doing well.

Thank you all for posting comments on the blog - it's fun to get your comments and updates!!

We've dealt with two cases of "pink eye" over the past couple of weeks. Hudson was first and it cleared up pretty quickly but Landon got it a week or so later. He's a challenge to get eye drops into sometimes!

Hudson has been funny lately - he's taken to using a lot of figures of speech. So a lot of his sentences recently have begun with "Speaking of which,..."

Landon is still as smiley as ever. He's toddling longer distances but we still think he's too lazy to not crawl.

Funny Hudson Quote of the Week:
"No, tell Grandma's version of it!"
After requesting Rick to tell him the story of the three pigs and the wolf and the story being told, he requested Grandma's version which as it turns out has the three pigs escaping to a motorhome at the end that the wolf couldn't blow down.

Happy May

All is well with us. Here's the update:

Last night Kathryn hosted her Bunco group at our home. It's a group of women from our church who get together once a month to play Bunco as an excuse to talk and eat sweets. About 34 women converged on our house and a good time was had by all. The boys cleared out of the house and went to the library and dinner at Red Robin. They had fun.

Hudson continues to enjoy having two arms without casts. He's been doing really well with using the bathroom and we seem to have now conquered #2 as well as #1. Landon continues to prefer crawling to walking. He's really cute toddling but doesn't show it to us enough. While Hudson enjoys annoying him, he's also very protective of his brother. He hovers over him any time he's within 20 feet of the street or pool.

Funny Hudson quote of the week:

"Nothing...we just sat around and stared at the walls."His response to Rick asking upon arriving home from work, "What did you, Landon, and Mommy do today?" He said it with a mischievious smirk, knowing he was cracking a joke.

Smart Hudson quote of the week:
"Was Adolf Hitler a bad man who tried to take over other countries?"
Asked on Wednesday night at Red Robin. Last Saturday he had asked to hear stories and Rick had told him about the Revolutionary War, World War II, the Berlin wall, and a few others.

We've halved our diaper costs!

Hi all. Well, as you may have surmised from the title of this post, Hudson is now potty trained. If you don't care about a potty training story, skip to the next paragraph! Some of you know that we tried about 6 months ago and he got the "hold it" part but not the "let it go" part; he held his urine for 18 hours straight. It took us until now to be brave enough to give it another try (also delayed by the broken arm). On Saturday we had him sit on the potty chair with a diaper on to practice letting it go. By Sunday morning he started going without diapers and hasn't gone back. He had one accident in bed one night but that has been the only time in four days.

Hudson's arm is really working normally now. He was pretty stiff for a few days but is now back to normal. Landon continues to walk more and more also.

Work has been pretty busy for Rick. It's caused a few nights of not getting home by bedtime over the past couple of weeks. Things usually get more reasonable around this time of year, though so we hope that will get better.

Funny Hudson Quote:

"How you like them apples!"
Hudson to Daddy (unprompted) in the garage after he and Mommy beat Daddy home from the library.

No more cast!!

Well, the era of the cast is over. Hudson was able to get his cast off today and is doing fine. His arm (especially elbow) is pretty stiff and his muscles are fairly atrophied but all is well. The bone is healing great. He should be good as new in no time.

Also, Landon seems to be walking! He has been taking a few steps at a time today but it seems to be the real deal now.

It was a pretty big day around here. Daddy and Hudson slept in a tent in the backyard last night. Other than needing some extra clothes and blankets at 3AM (Daddy was the cold whimp, not the boy) it was a great, fun night. Rick awoke to loud birds and Hudson saying, "Those birds sound happy!" Then Mommy took the boys to the railroad park and fun was had by all. Then Hudson got his cast off - both boys cried while the cast saw was cutting it off. Finally, Mommy took the boys to the mall tonight. They got to play and have a fun dinner there.

We love you all.

Lots of Events

Hi everyone. Sorry about the long time between posts but hopefully this update will help you to understand why.

Two weeks ago, Kathryn and Rick were out of town while Papa and Grandma watched the boys. Rick had two meetings in a row. First we went to Tucson to the La Paloma Resort on Monday. Kathryn spent time by the pool while Rick was in meetings but both of us took some R&R time one morning with Rick on the golf course and Kathryn at a half-day spa package.

Wednesday night we drove home and saw the boys but Thursday morning we were off to fly to San Diego. Kathryn enjoyed the shopping and pool while Rick was in meetings and we saw a movie together and went out to dinner every night. We returned home Sunday afternoon.

The following week was a real adventure. On Tuesday, Landon got sick. He threw up most of the day but was a little better by Tuesday night and seemed to be over it by Wednesday. Wednesday, it was Hudson's turn. He threw up most of the day but seemed to settle down by bedtime. Unfortunately, by Thursday mid-day he was back to throwing up. It continued through the night and that same night Rick and Kathryn got sick. Hudson threw up all night and Rick was also throwing up while Kathryn was keeping it down by staying as still as possible. It was quite a night. By Friday morning, Hudson was really dehydrated. We took him to the pediatrician and they admitted him to the hospital for IV fluids. Rick was still sick and had to do seven operations. As soon as Hudson got some fluids into him, he stopped vomiting immediately. He spent a day at the hospital and was good as new. He really charmed the nurses. Several of them bought him cars and one spent nearly an hour reading books to him.

Finally, last week, Rick was traveling again to a meeting in Baltimore. Kathryn and the boys stayed home except Hudson went to stay with Papa and Grandma Friday and Saturday nights. Rick returned Saturday night and we got together Sunday. Papa and Grandma left for Michigan via Colorado on Monday morning. Hudson was really sad to see them go, as were the rest of us.

Funny Hudson quotes:

"Wait just a cotton-pickin' minute."
To Grandma (he picked up this phrase from her) as she moved a little too quickly past the hotwheels car display in a store.

"We had to pull over into the parking lot of the place where you and Mommy got married."
Explaining to Rick where Kathryn pulled over when Landon got sick. Kathryn had pointed out the Chapel where we got married to him more than six months prior.