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."