December 1998

To our family and friends:

We hope this letter finds you and your family happy, healthy and enjoying the holiday season! This year, we’ve seen Cameron transform from a crawling baby to a little man running around the house. This summer, he was up to about 50 different words that he could say, before we stopped counting, and now it seems that he picks up new words every day. He really likes us to read him books and isn’t interested much in television… well, until the TeleTubbies show started airing on Public TV — he just LOVES that show! One thing that has not changed is how he continues to melt our hearts. He is such an angel and we are truly blessed to have him in our lives.

Cameron is now 21 months old and very happy and healthy. Last year, we reported that he was 16.5 pounds. Since then, he has not grown much since then, and currently only weighs about 18 pounds. He has seen two different doctors and has been put through a battery of tests to determine if the lack of weight gain is attributable to anything serious. The doctors were unable to determine the cause for the slow growth and, at this point, have suggested a ‘wait and see’ attitude.

We were able to do quite a bit of camping in our pop-up camper this summer… at least every other weekend. Cameron sure has a blast, although we have to admit it was a lot easier camping when he wasn’t so mobile!

This October, we turned in some frequent-flyer miles and flew to Tampa, Florida for a 1.5 week vacation. We stayed with Jim and Michelle Neader and family in St. Petersburg for most of the vacation, with two nights spent in the Disney area. Staying at Jim and Michelle’s worked out really nice. Since they have a two year old son (Trever), the house was baby proofed, had lots of toys and other essentials, and Cameron had two cousins (Blair and Alison) that played with him a lot (he still misses them!) Since Laurie had not been to Florida before, we took in as many of the attractions as possible, spending full days at Sea World, Disney Magic Kingdom (the picture to the left was taken in front of the castle), MGM Studios and Epcot Center.

You may recall that last year, Scott began fulfilling his dream of having his own ham radio station at the house by installing a 72 foot tower in the backyard. This spring, antennas were placed at the top of the tower, and a basement room was remodeled to become the radio room. Scott is very happy with the room and how the station works — it is truly a dream come true for him. He is also staying very busy with his web page design and web site hosting business “Internet Solutions” plus his full-time job at CenturyTel, where he continues his role as their Senior Internet Sales Engineer.

Laurie is still working part-time at Tri-State Adjustments, where she handles sales and customer support. While the extra money and benefits from a full-time job would certainly be nice, we feel the sacrifice is worth it to spend more time with Cameron.

Rusty the dog and Dudley the cat are both doing fine. Rusty got into something bad while camping this summer and was quite ill for a week, but came through OK. They still play a lot and this year managed to tip over the Christmas tree! Luckily, no ornaments had been placed on the tree yet (‘only’ 1,000 lights) and no major damage occurred.

Well, that’s it for this year! We hope you have a wonderful holiday season and a happy and healthy 1999!

Love,

Scott, Laurie and Cameron Neader
(and Rusty and Dudley, too!)