Home Stretch

We have had an amazing trip to Vancouver, and we'll be headed home in just another 36 hours. It's gone by SO fast!!! The city is absolutely gorgeous and has so much to offer. I'd be willing to bet we'll find ourselves back here for a vacation at some point in the future, and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who's been thinking about a trip out to the West Coast :)

Emily's finals last night were so exciting! I know the coverage was on late last night for you East Coasters, so I'm assuming some of you may not have seen it. We were a little worried when we got up to Cypress Mountain, as it was raining and very foggy, neither of which is very good for an aerials competition. Luckily, the rain let up and the fog lifted enough for the girls to compete, though the competition was delayed for about a half hour or so. The venue was absolutely packed, despite the fact that there was a big Canadian hockey game going on when we arrived :) (Canada won, by the way!) Last night's competition was some of the most incredible women's aerials jumping I have ever seen! The field was near perfect and there was some stiff competition. Most of the women looked beautiful in the air AND stuck their landings. The winner of the gold medal was Lydia Lassila of Australia, and silver and bronze went to the Chinese women. (We actually saw Lydia blow out her knee in Torino - something I will never forget... It was a very nice change this time around to see her up on that podium!!)

Mark and I were SO proud to cheer Emily on!!! She is such an incredible athlete and an amazing person. She has overcome many obstacles to be here, and it was overwhelming and awesome to watch her compete in the medal round at her 2nd Olympic games. I can't even begin to imagine what the last few weeks have been like for Emily and her dad - definitely full of emotion and anticipation, I'm sure. We saw Emily briefly today for lunch, and she is just so thankful for all of the love and support she has received from everyone around the world supporting her career and this journey in particular.

Everyone is on their way to the men's finals as we speak, and it should be an exciting competition tonight! The Canadian home crowd has 3 athletes in the field, including Emily's boyfriend, Steve Omischl. The American guys are also placed very well for this competition, with Speedy (and his trick "The Hurricane") sitting in 5th, and Ryan St. Onge in 2nd from the qualifiers. The men's competition starts at 6pm tonight, so 9pm for you all on the East Coast. Make sure you watch and cheer on the guys!!!

Women's Qualifiers

We had an awesome day yesterday, despite the fact that it started at 4am ;) We had to catch an early bus to the venue at Cypress Mountain (where the Freestyle skiing events are being held) for Emily's 10am qualifying round. After a bus ride up the mountain at what seemed like a maximum speed of about 5 miles per hour (those busses were not made to climb mountain roads!), we waited in a long line for the venue to open. Thankfully we had lots of warm clothes since the sun wasn't even up yet! Once the venue opened, we got settled into our viewing spots and connected with friends and family of some of the other athletes and waited for the event to start.

Hopefully most of you watched the coverage on TV yesterday, but Emily had an amazing competition!!! Many of the athletes yesterday had trouble with their landings, but Emily was not among them. She executed beautifully and landed both of her jumps, placing her in 5th for the qualifying round, which means she will compete 5th from last in the final on Wednesday. (Typically, it is better to perform as late as possible in the finals, as judges tend to reserve higher scoring for the end of the competition.) Of the 23 women who competed yesterday, 12 will move onto the finals, including 3 American women - Emily and her teammates Lacey Schnoor and Ashley Caldwell (who is only 16!!). This is the first time since the 1998 Olympics that any American woman has made it past the qualifying round, so the ladies had a pretty good day overall yesterday.

Here is a link to the video on the NBC Olympics website, but I've also attached the live version of Emily's second jump that I took from the stands. The shaking in the video is from Emily's dad's leg bouncing up and down next to me :)

http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/assetid=df9d63ed-bc6e-4f5d-af64-8bcd08613927.html

Vancouver 2010

We're finally here! It feels like we've been planning this trip forever, but it came up so much faster than we thought. After a VERY LONG day of travel, we made it here on Wednesday and have been getting settled in. The house we're staying in is beautiful and close to transit to downtown Vancouver. Only a 15 minute bus ride, and we're in the center of everything. Lily has been a champ with the travel and the time change, and we couldn't be more excited to be here.

Emily's first event is tomorrow morning - the women's aerials qualifiers, so keep an eye on your Olympic coverage TV at home! The competition is at 10am tomorrow (Pacific time), and the top 12 women will advance on to the finals, which are scheduled for the 24th.

New Year's Resolutions!

Happy New Year to all of you! It's hard to believe that I started this blog over two years ago to let you all know that I was pregnant with Lily!! Even though I've been terrible about updates for the last 6 months, it is my New Year's resolution to start posting on the blog more regularly again, especially since Baby Campbell #2 is well on his way!!!

As many of you already know (or may not since we've been terrible about telling people!), Lily is going to be a big sister somewhere around May 1st :) We found out at the beginning of December that she's getting a little brother, and we couldn't be happier. We are so lucky and looking forward to meeting this little man! I am a little over 24 weeks pregnant, and the baby has been SO active for the last couple of weeks. It's been fun to watch my belly get big again (much faster this time!), and to see a little person poking, rolling and jabbing away in there. Lily doesn't really know what's going on just yet, but she got a "baby" to practice with at Christmas. I think she's going to be a great (and bossy!) big sister :)

kissing cousins at Thanksgiving

with Nana at Christmas

Lily started a new daycare about 2 weeks ago and really seems to be enjoying it. We have so much fun watching her grow into a little person every day. Despite its challenges, toddlerhood with Lily has been incredible. She's talking and communicating more with us every day, and she has the sweetest, happiest little personality. Since the beginning, we've loved every minute with her and it's hard to believe that it only gets more fun with each day!





We've been busy with lots of visitors over Christmas and tons going on here. Other than that, we are staying busy with work and planning our trip to the Vancouver Olympics!! We've been working on this trip for a long time and it's hard to believe that it's right around the corner. We leave on February 17th, and I know it's going to be a blast! Stay tuned for updates from the trip!

Joey Jog

I know it's been a long time since our last post! No, the blog did not end with Lily's birthday :) We have been busy traveling, celebrating new babies for several of our friends, as well as Mark's 30th birthday! I do have new pictures of Lily to post, but I haven't quite made it to transfer them from the camera to the computer just yet... Soon, I promise!

In the meantime, I wanted to let you all know about something very special that we participated in yesterday as a family. Mark, Lily and I were all part of the Joey Jog 2009 to support the American Liver Foundation. A close friend of Mark's lost his two year old daughter, Josephine (a.k.a. Joey), three years ago to acute liver failure, and this is a 5K event that they hold to honor her memory each year. Joey was an otherwise incredibly healthy little girl, and was struck by this illness with no warning. The Heppner's hold this event in the hope that their fundraising efforts with help prevent this tragedy from happening to another family. You can learn more about Joey and her story (and see some adorable pictures!), at www.joeyjog.org.

The day was amazing!! The event had an incredible turnout, great weather and over 250 participants. The final totals aren't out just yet, but they raised more than $30,000!!! Mark did the 5K run, and I pushed Lily in the stroller. We had a blast, and the rain held out until about 5 minutes after everyone finished the walk! It was a great atmosphere, and a great way for Joey's family and friends to remember her. They had funny, wonderful stories to share about a little girl who sounds a lot like she would have gotten along well with Lily (girly, fearless and independent!). Today would have been Joey's 5th birthday.

Thanks for still reading even though I've been terrible about posting, and come back soon for some new pictures of Lily!