We're doing what?!

Our week started out the same as most other weeks have since we've been up here.  And then on Tuesday morning, Josh woke up complaining of a stomach ache.  Several times before breakfast, he'd have to stop what he was doing for a moment to catch his breath because he'd get sudden pains.  We tried all we could think of...drinking a Coke, eating a little breakfast, etc. but it kept on.  He went to chapel and the pain got worse.  He wound up leaving in the middle of the service.  Southeastern has a campus health center where students can be seen for free.  They are only open Tuesdays and Thursdays and Josh was able to walk in and be seen by the doctor.  After checking him out, the dr. referred him to a surgeon down in Raleigh.  

I'm so thankful for good friends up here that we can trust with our children!!  We called Stephanie Lyon immediately to see if she could pick Kate up from school since she'd be over there picking up her daughter Anna Kate.  Even though she's up to her eyeballs in boxes having just moved into their new townhome two days before, she graciously agreed without hesitation.  We called Catherine next to see if she could keep Carter until we got back.  Thankfully, we just caught her before she went out to run her errands for the day and she also very graciously agreed to help us.  What a blessing to know that we have dear friends we can call on and trust implicitly with our children!!

So we headed down to Raleigh and after examining Josh, Dr. Maddox sent us next door to the hospital for bloodwork and a CT scan because he felt pretty confident that it was appendicitis!  What?!?!  Fast forward a few hours and the results were in...Josh was having surgery at 8pm that night to remove his appendix.  Can't say we saw that one coming!  And we still don't even know what the appendix does!

It was a whirlwind of phone calls and a quick drive for me back up to Wake Forest to get the kids squared away with the Robinsons and to drop off Hudson so I could go back down to the hospital to wait for Josh to come out of surgery.  Our friends got emails out immediately and we were humbled by how many people were praying for us!!  The surgery went well and we had a great experience at Rex Medical Center.  Everyone we encountered seemed to genuinely enjoy their job!  The hardest part for me was not being able to stay with Josh overnight at the hospital.  We both felt that it would be best for me to come back to get the kids and sleep at home with them since Carter is still in his crib and Hudson is so young.  But it was so hard to leave Josh there!  Thankfully, the nurses were great and took wonderful care of him.  He was discharged the next day after lunch.  Here he comes with his new friend Readie.  Josh makes friends wherever he goes (Sheila tells me he's been that way since he could talk!) and it was no different in the hospital.  

Praise the LORD for how He worked this entire situation out, even down to the tiniest details!  It's times like this that I am so thankful that God is sovereign over all things and that we can rest in the fact that He is in control.  When we exercise faith, He truly does bring a 'peace that transcends all understanding'.  Just another example of how we can apply Romans 8:28 :)

Hudson turned 3 months old on Wednesday...can hardly believe how fast that happened!  He's growing so fast and changing almost daily.  He's full of smiles and is trying so hard to talk to us! He has also discovered his tongue...loves to move it all around in his mouth...

He is so strong and can hold himself up really well now.  He likes to be propped up so he can enjoy a different perspective on things.  It's like his head is on a swivel!

In the past several weeks, Carter has become much more interested in holding Hudson.  Carter is getting new words every day...his language skills have really exploded here recently and he'll say, "Mommy, I hold Hudson here" and point to the chair and then hold his arms out.  Not too bad for a 22 month old!  And he does great...no tossing the baby...he's actually very gentle with him!  Sweet brothers.

Here's Kate taking a little break to read.  Guess Hudson's carseat must be pretty comfortable :)  It's the only 'chair' we have that rocks (her glider and my grandmother's chair that rocks are in storage right now).