We're home

We got home Monday afternoon. They finally discharged Sophie from the hospital. However we basically went straight from the hospital to her new pediatrician as we made an appointment thinking we would be out Sunday. They said she looked good and as long as we keep feeding her and she gains weight she will be ok. We take her in for a weight check on Thursday so we will see if she has gained anything. For now we are just trying to keep up with her and keep her feedings on schedule. Wendy was up her for a day and I sent her out shopping for premie clothes and they found a few things. Everything else is drowning this little girl so she will be wearing the same blue and pink premie shirts for the next little while.

Sunday

Well we are still here at the hospital. They discharged me but Miss Sophie has to stay at least 1 more day. They want to see if she will increase the amount of food she is taking in today. She has lost weight which is normal but now she's down to 4 lbs 14 oz. The Dr. said maybe tomorrow she can go home but said normally they keep pre term babies her age for 2 weeks in the NICU but she has been improving each day so hopefully tomorrow. The hospital is letting us do a "hotel stay" so for $30 a night we can rent the room and stay with her, so we will do that tonight and see what the outcome is tomorrow. Here are some more cute pictures of her.

Update on Sophie

Well it's saturday and we are still here at the hospital. They are monitoring Sophie's eating because she was so early and each day trying to get a littl more in her. Also today she is getting the blue light therapy because of the Jaundice she has. I think we are ready to go home but they want to be sure she is well enough to come with us. Hopefully by tomorrow they will let us take her home. Here are some more photos of her suntanning under the blue lights.

Sophie has arrived

Sophie has arrived, I started having contractions late last night then my water broke about 11pm. We got to the hospital around midnight and found out she was breach so the Dr. had to do a c-section and she arrived at 2:01am. Pretty fast! She weighed 5 pounds 4 ounces and is 18.5 inches long. We all survived and are doing well!

New Blog

So we decided to move over to this blog site, not sure how much I'll keep this up to date, usually we just blog about our trips so the family can see where we are. Nothing else interesting happens the rest of the year, just work and honey do's around the house. Maybe with the arrival of little Miss Sophie we will have more to post about. Here are some pictures of the nursery we are putting together. Chris built the crib and recently finished it, my mom made the quilt and bumper pad. The rest is stuff we have acquired from family and friends or bought. Gotta love having IKEA down the hill from us. This is going to be one spoiled girl.

Copenhagen and the cute little mermaid

Well, here we are. It's the end of something we've waited all year for. In fact since last year in Spain. Now we look forward to another trip another time.

Today we finished in Copenhagen. An amazing city. We got up as early as we could stand to considering our beds were among the most comfortale we've had the entire trip to go into the city. Anneka'd had some McDonalds pancakes nearly two weeks ago in Sweden and had it in her mind that it would be nice to have them this morning since breakfast was not covered in our room cost. We didn't make it to the McDonalds in time so she settled for something else. McDonalds actually has awesome bacon, egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches.

We started the day at the Danish National Museum. For its amount of antiquities I'd say it ranks among the very finest in the world. Anneka and I have always thought medeival junk is really groovy and this place is full of it. From there we wandered the streets of Copenhagen. They have the first and oldest major pedestrian zone in Europe and traversed it up and down. We did have a bout of heavy rain during the day that put a damper on things. Later in the afternoon we split up so I could go see the hippie haven of Christiania.

It just dawned on me as I write this that Little Dave is married.

Crazy...

So, where was I?



I got seriously rained on. I was wet through and through. Anneka and I met up about an hour later for dinner at this little Italian place on a quiet square away from crowds and traffic. If there was one fault in the day it was that it was a bit chilly. We've said over and over on this trip that it has been sunny when it needed to be and today was no exception. Still, in spite of the off again on again sun it was a bit chilly for the better part of the day. We seem to bring out the extremes in weather when we travel. Last year was crazy hot in Spain and this year for the most part it was crazy cold. I mean, not really cold, but we'd hoped for temps in the 80's and we got temps mostly in the mid 60's. I only had sandals the whole trip and rarely wore socks (they bunch up in the toes in these sandals) so I walked around with perpetually cold feet for the last two weeks. After dinner we split up again after I put Anneka on the three stops to the airport train and I went out wandering for another 2 hours. They rent these little tourist bikes here that you can put a coin into and unlock from a bike rack and use for as long as you need. Just find another bike rack that takes the bikes and lock it up again and your coin will pop out. I spent like an hour and half looking for one of those darned bikes to make my wandering easier. finally found one and by then it was almost too late to bother. I rode it around for a little while. Went out to see one of the most touristed sites in Copenhagen. The "Little mermaid" statue of HC Anderson fame.


What a bust.

I almost can't beleive I went out to see it. It's in a totally ho hum section of town and it's just this piddley little naked lady with a fish tail statue. Sad to think my sightseeing ended on that. But that may ensure I travel again.



Tomorrow will be the easiest departure we've ever undertaken on a trip. We're staying at an airport hotel and our flight leaves at a comfortable 11am. The terminal is but a solid 5 iron away from the hotel (unless your Andy or Matt for sure, then it's like a chilli-dipped driver off the tee, a shanked fairway wood, a worm-burned 8 iron and probably two skulled wedges followed finally by a woefully short putt) Anyways it will be nice to roll out of bed at a comfortable time and glide over to the terminal in a matter of minutes. Should make the commencement of the journey home fairly stress free.

So, we're at the end. Our last blog. We hope you've enjoyed reading them. If so, please tell us since if no one likes these then we'll stop since at times they're a pain in the butt. Usually it's late and we just want to go to bed. For those of you that got post cards, or will get them, we hope you enjoy them. For everyone else we're sorry we couldn't get a card off to you. Again, we hope you enjoyed the blog.

So, following lots of walking, lots of wind, lots of staring in amazement, lots of pondering, lots of chilly days, LOTS of McDonalds, lots of digital pictures, lots of artifacts and paintings and finally, lots of wonderful memories of Stockholm, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Tallinn, Legoland and Copenhagen, it's time to go home.

See you again some time, Europe.

And we'll see all of you soon!

Chris and Anneka

Aero Island

Today we spent the day in Aero Island, an hour ferry ride from Jutland Denmark. It's a tiny island 18 miles long by 4 miles wide and was filled with lots of leaning 17th century houses and small cobbled lanes. We covered the town in about 3 hours and had lunch there, then it was back on the ferry and we drove into Copenhagen tonight so we could have a full day in the city tomorrow. Our trip is winding down, tomorrow is our last day, it's been a great trip even though the weather hasn't been too great. I think we wore our jackets every day. Anyway again it's very late about 11:30pm so time for bed.