I'm Outta Here!

Well, at least 24 hours from now I'll be leaving for the airport. Lots and lots to do today! Thank goodness I'm not obsessed with having a company-clean house to come home to. Well, let's be honest here - I don't even obsess about a company-clean house when I'm having company! This is the first fall trip we've ever taken that I can recall - we've either had someone in school or I was working for a school. I hope we can get to the East Coast soon, maybe next autumn --

Please stop over and visit Kristen to commiserate with her a bit. She needs your encouragement!

The timing of this trip could have been better - but who knew that 6 months ago?? Kristen's school schedule is so horrific - I don't want to worry about her while I'm gone, but I fear that I will. Because of that same schedule, I've had the kiddoes much more than normal, giving me very little time to concentrate on this speaking engagement I have two days from now. But I stayed up late last night and got it written out - now I have to time it to be sure I'm not keeping the ladies too long! Thank you for your prayers and support. As one friend said, I wish you could all be there!


PRAYER REQUEST! Again. If you go over and read Kristen's post, you'll find that once again poor little Feisty is suffering from the recurring nightmare of UTI - she has an appointment with a pediatric urologist - but it's a month away yet. It's unbelievable to me that 4-5 different doctors in the same clinic can see her over the past year, but only one have any good advice - and he hasn't seen her since the first occurrence. I really don't like not being able to see the same doctor every time you go in. It doesn't work well for continuity of treatment! Please pray that she doesn't have kidney damage, which is a possibility. Please pray for her little mind - she will also be seeing a psychologist to see if she's experienced something unthinkable which is causing this mental block against bowel movements. Just please pray for Feisty!


It turned out to be long for a post, but perhaps I can share my devotional with you as time goes by. It took the direction of the impact music has had on my journey through crisis - both the Psalms and songs written more recently that we sing in church and/or choir.


I need to get busy now - so I'll sign off and leave you with one adorable picture -







We'll be back late Saturday, the 18th. I'll catch you then!

Home Again

Thanks for all the nice comments on our trip, the sink hole, and the little girlies. We got home before noon on Sunday, and I didn't even get to see the hole. DC went around it on 270. I really wanted to see it. I have to say, the ride that day had the least traffic I have ever seen on those two highways in years. It was wonderful. I saw on the news this morning that they are making great progress on getting it fixed.

Kev came back to life at 3:00 that afternoon - just in time to miss most of the fun. I felt so bad for him. We'll try again next year!

I shot these last scenes from our deck before we left, because it was the only sunny early morning we had.

This was on the way down the mountain.

The teeny tiny twins came over to spend an hour or so that afternoon so their parents could get their taxes filed. When I was changing their diapers, Feisty informed me that diaper duty was her job . Care Bear let me know that her job was to "calm them down." So cute!

One awake, one asleep. It doesn't always work like that, though! Last night I went over to their house (3 doors down, just like Barb is from her grandkids) so Kristen didn't have to lug half the house over to mine - she finally got to go back to Praise Band practice. It's been at least 7 weeks since she has been able to do her part, or even be in church. (I will be coming home early from Sunday School for a few weeks so that she can get there in time for second service, until she can take the babies out). Anyway - here is what it was like after they left - (in case you wonder how I got these pictures - Kristen made one of her many mommy calls to see how things were going, and I asked her to call her dad to come down and bring my camera).

When they got home, Kristen asked me if it had been stressful. Are you kidding? I got to spend some time when them on my shoulder (one at a time) and just totally relaxed!

Today I stopped by for a minute and found them napping in the big chair. Oh, my heart! (I hope you don't get tired of seeing their pictures!)

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!