I'm Back!

After an extended blog break, I am back. Earlier this week I enjoyed three days of golf, great food and cool weather in the mountains of New Mexico with my dad, brother and brother-in-law. If you are a golfer, allow me to highly recommend for your pleasure (and occasional frustration) the Paa-ko Ridge, Black Mesa and Cochiti courses. I did manage to break 100 all three rounds and that was my goal, so I'm happy.

The reason, or more precisely excuse for this trip was to celebrate my dad's 70th birthday. In between rounds of golf and bites of steak we were able to glean a little wisdom from the old man. He shared some of his favorite stories, greatest joys and biggest regrets. It was a sweet time. A big thanks to my brother J. for organizing the trip and to my brother-in-law Tod for asking dad so many good questions and leading him to those rich answers.

The trip home on Wednesday was a little tough. For those of you who don't know, my wife and I have been trying to have another baby for a couple of years. At one point, we suffered through 3 miscarriages in 12 months. Well, we got a positive test a few weeks ago and have been keeping the news quiet for obvious reasons. On Wednesday afternoon Stephanie had her second sonogram. The baby is over 8 weeks along and has a strong heartbeat! The last three pregnancies have not made it past 10 weeks and we were never able to hear a heartbeat with any of them.

I was in the middle of nowhere, New Mexico making my way back home and I was getting no signal on my cell phone. For two and a half hours I agonized about the results of the sonogram. Sensing my anxiety, J. suggested we pray as we drove down the road. Tod said a very sweet prayer and the Lord answered with a positive report when I finally got to talk to Steph. Please keep us in your prayers in the coming months. We are cautiously optimistic, but each passing week brings us more hope.

Speaking of babies, a great big howdy to Samuel Scott Thomas who was born on Monday in Nashville. Word on the streets is that he already sings like an angel, but has better hair than his dad. We can only hope.