Welcome to the world Hudson - your cousin is crazy!

Mr. Hudson Paul Row made his long-awaited appearance on Friday, July 13th around 2pm. My roommate Rae & I went up to visit my cousin/very good friend Elizabeth & her husband Brad and new baby Hudson on Saturday afternoon. I got to hold him & I just HAD to check out his reflexes - you know, I have a moral obligation to help thoes in need. He had a positive moro & rooting reflex & his startle reflex was well intact. At one point - his momma was telling us about his amazing tounge. . .so I simply tickled the bottom of his mouth (another trick I learned from pediatrics) - and Mr. Hudson on-cue showed off his amazing lizard tounge! Everyone was very impressed. (I thought they were impressed by me knowing how to do that - but I'm afraid that they were more impressed with baby Hudson.) Oh well. Here's a pic of Elizabeth, Hudson & his favorite 2nd cousin once removed:



Now, about that crazy part. . .why is it that we hold certain people to higher standards than others? It almost seems that we self-pick some people and set the bar so high that it is almost like we set them up to fail & disappoint us. I've done that - and am disappointed. . .but is that fair to me or to them? Does anyone even follow what I'm saying? Oh well - I'm just spouting off on my blog, hoping to return to some sort of "normal" soon. . .yeah, I'm not holding my breath either.

Nassau, Bahamas

My mom, aunt & I went on a quick 3-day cruise down to the Bahamas this past weekend. It was good - but WAY too short. We left out of Orlando Florida (where is a place I've got to visit again to go to Disney World!). We were in Nassau all day Friday. I wanted to go snorkeling - when I asked my mom if she wanted to go, she said, "as long as I don't have to get my hair wet or be out in the sun". . .needless to say, I went by myself.

Snorkeling was amazing! The beaches & water were just beautiful! I did get burned though. I am going to take up scuba diving as soon as I finish all these stupid Step exams so I can scuba dive with my cousin & uncle on our "Thank God Larissa is FINALLY finished with school" trip to Hawaii.

Here are a few pics - my mom & aunt have the majority of them:

Ellen & me - painting Plainview RED

I've been told that I'm a crazy spontaneous person - and I love it! One of my BFFs is Ms. Ellen - who currently resideds in Amarillo - and I were chatting on the phone on Saturday morning & we were both trying to convince the other one to come to Amarillo/Lubbock that evening for dinner. I threw out the idea ". . .or I could meet you half-way in Plainview." So - we did.

Let's lookover the fact that I actually didn't know where the resturant was that I was meeting her at - but Plainview is so small that I knew that it was either on the side of the interstate or on the one main road - the latter was correct. The clientel at the Cotton Patch consisted of Ellen & I, one young couple with their two kids, then TONS of older people - it was great! We hit up the Hastings after dinner in search of a CD for Ellen for her drive back. We decided that Ellen should just buy a blank CD, then put together her own CD from my vast collection of songs from my computer (which - btw - are 97.8% legal!)

Our next stop was the local Starbucks where I had to have a 10 minute conversation with the lady behind the counter for the two of us to figure out what kind of a drink I wanted. (I have complicated coffee ordering issues since I only like coffee if it is disguised & I'm not supposed to have any sugar.) I took out my computer & books (yes - I ALWAYS have books with me) & studied as Ellen put together her special order CD. We tried our hand at "man-hunting" (which, if you know Ellen & I - this is hilarious because we're really not like that) - but the closest "prospect" we could find in Plainview was a kid who was probably not a day older than 20 & had a girlfriend who we doubt had graduated high school yet. Oh well.

Thanks Ellen for being spontaneous with me!