6-6 Hail Storm

When it rains, it pours....and hails, and flash floods, and produces tornadoes.... what a week.  So, apparently we had our 'once every 10 years' storm on Wednesday.  It hailed for 3 hours- hail 2-4" in size.  There was a 4-hour tornado warning.  We're very thankful for our comfy basement with only one non-window well window (the window well windows caused a lot of basement damage in our neighborhood), a day bed, a tv, phone and bathroom.  We spent the entire evening and night (cat, rabbit and all) in the basement.  It was quite an experience.  We were thankful to wake up in the morning to a house that was still standing with a roof over our heads.  We weren't as pleased when we started taking a closer look to see that the hail ruined the new paint job on our house and really made a mess of our trailer.  We're keeping our fingers crossed that we'll get a new roof from this storm with the insurance money.  It's not fun paying the premium for a cedar shake roof.  We'll know how bad the damage is when the adjustors get out here in the next few weeks.  I've tried several times to posts videos here, but it's not working.  Hopefully the pictures are enough to give you an idea how bad this storm was.  (Bear in mind this was early in the evening and the storm lasted well beyond dark.)

Look beyond the scrub oak in the yard and you can see the 'river'
washing its way down the hill bringing with it all of our uphill
neighbors' decorative rocks.  What a mess!

6-8, Sweet Emalie

What a surprise we got yesterday! New pictures of Emalie!!  We were shocked by how much she has grown and changed!!  We can't wait to see that smile and hear her laugh.  We think she is completely adorable!  You can only imagine how eager we are to travel to China and bring her home!  We will schedule our 2-week trip once we receive travel approval from China.  We're still assuming it will be in  mid-July.  And, yes, we think we can safely say that we've decided on her name:  Emalie Ji.  She looks like an Emalie to me- what do you think?  In case you're wondering, her name is a combination of our favorite choices:  Emma, Natalie, Emily and Amelia (yes, really-- change the a's for e's and the e's for a's and it really does come out Emalie!).  Her middle name of Ji is part of her Chinese name.  Yes, this is our sweet Emalie!

PS-- PLEASE do not repost photos of Emalie anywhere (Facebook included).  It's a no-no, but I couldn't resist sharing them with you on our blog.  Thank you for understanding!!

6-2, Mt. Princeton Camping

"On the road again....."- weekend #2 of our marathon camping spree ([camping for 4 days, home 4 days]  x 3 times = camping marathon).  We know our July will be busy with China preparations and travel, so we are trying to get a summer's worth of camping in during the first 3 weeks of June.  Whew!  This time, we went to Mt. Princeton campground in the San Isabel National Forest.  This is not a new area for us to hike around, but we'd never stayed at one of the campgrounds in the area.  It was ok, but it still doesn't rank up there with our (at least my) top-rated Hecla Junction.  You definitely can't complain about the scenery though, it is really beautiful up there.  This trip, the boys disproved my "There Are No Fish In Colorado" theory.  Good for them!  (Sad for the little fishies!)  But, you'll see it's worth it when you see the smiles to follow......

Hail?  Wind? Snow? This isn't the weather we were hoping for on our way up into the mountains!
Thankfully the storm only lasted during our drive across Colorado Springs.

I don't know why I didn't take more photos of the campground!
This is the "river than runs through it"....no, not in MT either!

"And, WHY can't I come outside?!"

Boy, is he happy or what?!  He even caught 2 ALL by himself!

Ducks in a row.  Fish in a row.  Whatever.
I'm afraid Nikolas may have picked up a few traits from me.....

Important lessons to be taught and learned.....

It was a little disturbing how Nikolas pretended to make the fish talk-
even after they were separated from their bodies.  Boys!

So, the day before had been all about fishing.  When I was dangerously close to finishing my book and on the verge of being bored (Ha! With a baby on the way I have to get in those quiet moments while I can!!), the boys agreed to a hike.  Sven was excited to go.  Nikolas, however, not so much-- he would have stayed at the lake ALL DAY LONG!  We went up near the ghost town of Hancock (previously photographed last summer and posted on the blog.....) and started up the Alpine Tunnel trail.  It had been the railroad passage supplying the town of Hancock in the late 1800s.  It was a beautiful, gently-sloped 7-mile hike up to the 12,000' summit.  We were so proud of Nikolas-- only one meltdown...which soon ended when he learned that he'd earn more fishing time by successfully completing the hike.  So, up, up, up we went.  It was awesome!

Boy is this camping thing quite a powerful bond-maker!

This sign tells about the accidents that occurred coming down the mountain if the curve
wasn't maneuvered correctly.  After hiking to the top and walking back down it was easy to
see how easy that could happen.

The old railroad ties.

Not to the top yet, but getting close....but not close
enough....factor in meltdown just about now....

Mountains and valleys in every direction.

Steep on both sides of the track.

The trail was quite wet along the way- run off from the melting snow.

Good thing Sven had prepared me for the fact that the
tunnel entrance was probably collapsed.  It was!
Still neat to use your imagination and envision the train
coming through the tunnel!  (Not to mention all the treacherous
manual labor necessary to build it!)

A closer look at the collapsed tunnel entrance.

Well, it seems my blog posts are becoming more random and not quite portraying the full picture of events for our outings.  For as much as we have going on though, it's a miracle I'm able to find the time to take any pictures muchless edit and upload them!  Despite all that's lacking, at least you were able to enjoy the views from the top of the pass without having to do the 7-mile hike (which, by the way, we got rained on most of the way back down the mountain)!

Stay tuned.....one more camping trip planned!  And this time to our favorite destination:  HECLA!  

Happy weekend, everyone!