Hello...

I am glad that everyone had a GREAT time in New Jersey this weekend. Here's a story about my plans on attending...and why I ultimately didn't.

Since the first time I heard about this earlier this summer, I had planned on making the trip. But, as I started to look into making my plans, I realized that the weekend fell only about 2 weeks before my wife's due-date (for the record, at this point, I hadn't spoken to her about this...I was planning on a weekend alone going "lighthousing" in NJ). I know...that wasn't very nice.

So, sometime around the beginning of October, I finally mentioned this "little trip" to NJ to go look at lighthouses. I told her that it lasts all weekend and it's a pretty special, once-a-year event and I REALLY wanted to go. After discussing it with her, we both agreed that it wouldn't be a good idea to be 3-4 hours away (if I was in Southern NJ) with a baby only 2 weeks away...her arguement was "what if something happened...". So, I quickly realized that it wasn't a good idea for me to go and started to set my sights on the 2003 challenge.

Well, as fate would have it...on Friday morning, my wife told me that "something was funny" and that she wanted to call the doctor before I left for work. The doctor told her to come on in to the hospital to be checked out.

We made it to the hospital about 8:15, the doctor told us that she was in labor around 8:30 (prior to that, my wife swears that she didn't feel any contractions/labor pains), and, by 1:50pm, our son was born (Alexander Henry...weighed in at 7lb. 8oz., 20" long and 16 days early).

Mom and son (and father) are doing well... Of course, I started to look at the calendar and realized that the 2003 NJ Lighthouse Challenge will fall on my son's first birthday...oh well...maybe I'll make the 2004 version.