I'd better at least get started on this post, or it might get lost in all the busyness. I don't have time to finish now, but maybe I can piecemeal it here and there and get it posted before I head back to UT in a few days. (That, btw, will be trip #3 so far this year.) I will try to keep the commentary to a minimum.
Lunch with one of my besties, Marci.
Dream Pastries in Castle Rock. Yum.
I was just leaving for lunch when Lex called and said she was in the hospital and had her epidural. The baby was coming today!! I had told her for several weeks that I had hoped he'd come on my birthday... and he did! The best 50th Birthday gift a Gigi could get!
Bill and Nae worked all afternoon on dinner, and I was showered with beautiful flowers, thoughtful gifts, and kind birthday wishes from my amazing family and friends.
Scarlett performed a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday, which couldn't have been sweeter.
That evening Bill, Mar and I attended Legend's musical Into the Woods.
I was completely unfamiliar with this play. I think I had started watching it on DVD a while back (the star-studded one that came out a few years ago), and never made it through the first few scenes, so I didn't quite know what to expect. Can I just say it wasn't quite Les Miserables. And I may have slept through a scene or two (I was really, really tired). But the set was awesome. I'm not a huge fan of dissonance, which seemed to be the tone of most of the songs (no wonder I haven't heard them before), and we decided that the orchestra could have been louder to fill in for some of those off notes sung by some (or were they off? haha, with all the dissonance, I couldn't really tell). But Mar enjoyed seeing some of her old friends, and I learned I don't ever need to see Into the Woods again, so I'll call it a win.
Later that night we video chatted with the new baby and the rest of the fam while I opened my gift from the kids,
Nae made the cake(s). It was a bit of a humorous experience as Bill had asked her to make two, just in case one didn't turn out. She had tried to put one in our {little} top oven, and soon we could smell burning cake (which smelled a lot like burnt marshmallows, so it could have been worse). The cake had risen so high it had bumped into the top burner. She pulled that cake out (not quite half-baked), and patiently waited for the cake in the bottom oven to be done. It overflowed it's pan a bit, but Lynnea had {smartly} put a cookie sheet underneath. That cake, however, was in a bundt pan, so I told her I didn't think it would come out very easily, since I usually have to cut an angel food cake off the pan with a knife. She then popped the less-than-half-baked cake into the bottom oven to see if it could be salvaged. Both cakes turned out perfectly. The cake in the bundt pan "pooped" itself right on out of the pan (Mar's words, not mine haha), and the half-baked cake turned out perfectly good, too. Thank you, my loves.
That night Bill and I decided to make a superfast trip to Utah (we couldn't stand not holding that new baby), leaving early Saturday, returning Sunday. We got to bed pretty late on Friday, so our planned 5am leave time got pushed back to 6 (6:30 in Syddall standard time), which meant we rode low and slow due to the crazy ski traffic. Luckily we had not turned off our trusty Google maps, which told us to bypass I-70 via highway 6 for a while, saving us an hour delay. We were still delayed by about 30 minutes overall, since other people use Google maps, too (dang), but it definitely could have been worse. The drive was through a beautiful canyon, which made it even more pleasant.
We drove straight to the hospital, and were shortly joined by the Greats.
I loved meeting this precious babe for the first time.
Welcome to the fam, Emmett James {kiss kiss}!
Congratualtions, Lex and Jase... he's perfect!
We stopped by to see our other precious UT grandchildren for a bit that evening. Ellis is still wary of Bill and me, and he was ready for bed, so we only saw him momentarily (don't let this pleasant expression fool you... it was only a brief moment of distraction),
Here's what most of the shots look like:
And don't worry, Bill, Ellis isn't a fan of Gigi right now, either.
We'll win him over eventually. {wink}
Britt and Austin were headed out for the evening, so we hung out with the babysitters (LoKo) and Scarlett. Scarlett was the big winner of Candyland both times we played, then we read a story and snuggled before Bill and I made the trek to Bountiful where we stayed for the night.
The next day a big snow storm was forecasted, and it came as predicted, at least in the northern parts of the valley. I think my parents had a good 14+ inches...? Bill got up that morning and helped my dad shovel out, with heavy snow falling the entire time. We were worried about traveling home in such snowy weather, but after texting Britt, who said it wasn't bad at all at her end of the valley, we decided to make the long drive home, traveling south.
But not before one more stop by the hospital to see our new little guy.
We found him in a tanning bed, getting his bilirubin levels up.
Since I couldn't hold him, I had to snap a few feet pics... they are my favorite.
The trip back was better than I expected. We only ran into a couple bouts of low visibility and snow, and we were driving late enough to have missed the massive traffic back-up that happens every Sunday night on I-70.
It was definitely a birthday to remember. And it's pretty cool that it will always be easy to remember Emmett's birthday AND how old he is (just subtract 50). I'll have to share my thoughts on actually TURNING 50 some other time.
