Welcome Home, Emma - and A Week-end Away

It is Saturday afternoon and I am up in Copper Mountain. We came on Thursday morning, early, just missing a big storm which closed the interstate, and a huge water main break, causing a gigantic sink hole, causing a closure at the intersection of two major interstates. More than 2 million gallons of water gushed out, causing the highway roadbed to develop a sink hole estimated at 40 feet by 40 feet and as much as 16 feet deep.

Here they are trying to get the road fixed enough that people can get to work on Monday.

We were safely tucked away up here in our cozy little apartment before all of this happened. We are trusting we'll get back okay tomorrow morning. Kev has been sick with the stomach flu most of the time, able to ski yesterday only, poor kid! Sema has amazed me with her drive to perfect her skiing technique - the girl who was raised on the Indian Ocean in Mombasa, Kenya, Africa. This girl, who was raised in Northern Minnesota, has no desire to be cold all day long, but rather to sit by the fire and do gpa computations for approximately 100 applicants, read some good books, and fix some good meals. I discovered that the wireless access in our room was not free, but learned that I could go over to the building where the young employees live in dorm-like conditions to use their access, or their "computer lab."

There are young people here from all over the world, experiencing the world of skiing for a 3 month period. We met two young girls from Peru and Brazil as we ate terribly overpriced bratwursts the first afternoon (the reason we brought our own food!).

But - back to Miss Emma! Emma was released around 5:00 Wednesday afternoon. I did not get as many, nor as good, pictures as I did for Kate's release. By the time we got her home, both girls were asleep, and Kristen was most anxious to keep them that way! I've missed some great photo ops since I've been up here, but I know there will be many more. For instance, Kristen called me to tell me that both girls were sitting on the couch, holding her "own" baby, and feeding them their bottles. One even attempted the burping duty. Care Bear decided she was big enough to bring Kate up to her bed, while Kristen was getting Emma settled upstairs. Kristen had to hold her breath, then try to kindly explain to Care Bear that she wasn't QUITE big enough for that. They are going to be such tremendous little helpers.



Today they had a tremendous bout of Cabin Fever, so they were going to go to the park with both double strollers full of cute big and little girls. Wish I could have had a shot of that!

I love this picture of Kristen beginning the preparations to bring Emma home.

Kate slept through most of the process - I did end up feeding her just before we headed home.

Emma just chilled out as she was dressed in her going home outfit, waiting for all of the paper work to be completed.

This is one of the fabulous nurses in the NICU (whom we will miss!), who happens to be a good friend of Diane's - it is indeed small world!)

One of the nurses "encouraged" the big sisters to be out of the way by giving them the dinosaurs they had played with while they were visiting. They were trying to be a bit TOO helpful!

Almost ready to go!

I think she's going to be a conductor!

Daddy holds her and helps get her ready.

I don't really know how the nights have gone, since we left very early Thursday morning for our mountain get-away. This has been planned and reservations have been made for weeks. We are blessed that Emma made it home before we left.

This is our second annual ski trip to celebrate Kev's birthday. The snow was coming down in buckets the first afternoon, amounting to 11 inches before it ended. Kev wasn't feeling well that afternoon, but DC and Sema said they could hardly see where they were going as they made their way down the slopes. We settled in for chili and caramel rolls that first night, glad to have such a cozy place to stay.

The view from our 6th floor place - note the HUGE icicles.

We took a little jaunt to the shops, and to the market for a few overpriced items we needed - such as chicken noodle soup for poor Kev ($1.75!), and shot these.

I love this shot of the stream we cross to get into the village.

The sun came out today and here is DC ready to face the day and not get burned! He assures me that it melts into his skin soon and he doesn't look like a goth.

They had the slopes pretty much to themselves until today, which is why we came up on Thursday. The difference between week-day and week-end crowds is phenomenal! Sema wants to to stay another day, and for Kev's sake I wish we could, but we need to head back down the mountain to beat the crowds home tomorrow morning, and hope and pray all the trauma on the highway is taken care of so we can get home without lots of sitting in traffic!