Kim Mee Zimmer - Day 2

Hello my friends! It's getting late...and our nights are short!

First things first, Kimmee is doing great! She's a very healthy, alert, and curious little girl. She's very strong for her age, crawls everywhere and can pull herself up to a standing position. Very impressive! Her fine baby hair is falling out with the new thicker hair hidden underneath (Jade had the same thing!)

It was such a blessing to get her in time for Christmas! It completely changed our holiday plans, but in a good way! We feel special and complete now that she is here with us...

Last night was a bit rough on her. She cried a sad cry -- you could tell that she missed the familiar. Today was a new day, though! She has completely latched onto both Kathy and Jade. It's a beautiful sight! Jade is EATING it UP! When she is in their arms, she is quiet as can be. Kaleb and I....well, we're just a couple of goofballs to her! Kaleb, surprisingly is very resilient. If Kimmie doesn't come to him, he just waits for the next time, or the next, or the next. You can see in the pics that when she does sit with him, he's just glowing!!

She's hot and cold with me right now. I think her strong attachment to her foster mom makes her more content with being held by a female. This is just pure conjecture. It could be the strange way that my hair grows out of my chin! I'm patient though, and am just wanting her to be happy for the now. She'll warm up to me, just like Kathy eventually did! :-)





Today was a low-key day. We hung around the house, ate, played, and slept. Kim did great last night, sleeping from 9pm until 5am, waking up once for a mid-night feeding. We moved our mattress to the floor and are letting her sleep with us since this is the Korean way. No sense in forcing her into a crib just yet. The kids insist on camping out on our floor too! It's family style here at the Zimmer house! Come on over, bring your sleeping bag!




Kaleb is so happy about finally being a big brother! This smile is so genuine in this pic!














Our tired world traveler.










Sisters for life!

You can't see it here, but she has a beautiful smile and coo....her whole face lights up and lets you know when she's happy! I'll work on capturing a better pic with her smile!








The Zimmer kids!











We only have 2 more days left at home before we head up to Breck! Then we'll be skiing and hitting the slopes hard. But we'll probably only stay out for 3-4 hours a day. The rest of the time we'll be swimming and hanging out at the lodge. We haven't "tested the waters" yet with Miss Kim, but we hear that she loves to play in the water....she's going to fit RIGHT in with this crew!




From the words of Kaleb's favorite rock star: Hannah Montana
Good night everybody!!

SHE'S HERE! :-)

Friends and family, let me introduce you to miss Kim Mee Zimmer!!!
















Two years of anticipation and our "gotcha" day has arrived! In the adoption circle, the day that you receive your baby is known as your "gotcha" day. Our family will always celebrate the anniversary of December 18th as the day we became a party of FIVE!

Okay, first things first. I felt like at any moment today I was going to throw up! I could not contain my excitement. I called several friends and family members and talked my co-workers ears off because I just could not bottle up my excitement anymore!

Kimmee traveled from Inchon, Korea (near Seoul) to Hong Kong, then to Tokyo, then to Los Angeles, then to DIA. What a trooper! We think she traveled for about 24 hours.

When we got to DIA, my number one task was to get past the security screening so that I could meet my daughter at the gate! A very lovely and understanding ticket agent for Frontier made this happen for us! She found Kimmee on the flight and generated boarding passes for us so that we could make it into the terminal.


Of course I TOTALLY forgot that I was carrying my Spiderco pocket knife that I ALWAYS carry and had to make a mad DASH to our friends back at the fountains then sprint back to the screening gates. "Everyone outta the way!! My daughter arrives in TEN MINUTES -- let me thru!" as I'm sprinting thru the crowded concourse. They all did....with applause I might add! :-)



(One last shot with Jade and I before heading to meet Kim at the gate!)

We did make it the gate with time to spare. Relax. Calm down. And wait.









Then she arrived. She was so beautiful! And alert. And happy! And curious. It was a perfect introduction.










Kaleb could not WAIT to hold Kim! He was beaming!!!












Although this picture doesn't reflect it, Kimmie has taken an immediate liking to Jade. She'll quit fussing just by being held by Jade. It's very sweet!










One of my favorite shots taken at DIA today! Jade took it without my knowledge. Pretty much captured the moment!


Perfect.







After we met up with our friends at DIA, we brought the party home. We really discovered how active Kim is already! She scoots around just fine and can pull herself up and even enjoys eating Cheerios!


No, the camera's not out of focus. Even the equipment was experiencing teariness from the moment!

The Zimmer Kids! December 18th, 2007.










She has got such a great personality! I know all parents say this, but truth is she's very alert and constantly exploring her new environment.

The opposite side of this coin is that she does experience moments of sadness. You can tell that she misses her familiar environment and the only family that she has ever known. It's tough, but we expected this. Then she'll break through the sadness with a smile and a coo. She's lovely!




No fear of the dog! She jumped right into the Gwenie action. Gwen licked her face a few times in a very lovingly way. :-) They're going to be GREAT friends!








Today was a long day, but it was fun to share it with everyone that could make it! I'm going to work on a "Gotcha!" video that I'll post sometime after this weekend. I'll have video clips and more pictures and a GREAT CHRISTmas song to carry the clip.

Wish us luck and send out a prayer. Kim extremely confused on time, and very tired but sleeping lightly. The next few days are going to require a whole-family effort to make it through. I'll upload more pics and updates tomorrow!

Good night!

All I Want for Christmas in my NEW LITTLE GIRL!

Hello friends and family!

If you haven't heard by now, tomorrow is the day we bring our daughter home! The family is sooooooo excited to have this day upon us. It's the ENTIRE reason why we added onto our home. We have been waiting 22 months (Feb. '06) for this day to happen, and it is almost here!

The cameras have been charged. The car seat has been strapped into the Durango. Grandmas and Grandpas, aunts and uncles, friends and by-passers on the street have been notified. We are driving out to DIA tomorrow afternoon (Tuesday, Dec. 18th), 2pm, and picking up Kim Mee Zimmer from the airport and bringing her home in time for CHRISTMAS!

We are very, very excited. All of us. The paperwork has been shuffled and the red tape has been cut. Right now Kim Zimmer is legally ours...and she's flying high above the Pacific while we're all flying high above the Rockies (the last one was a metaphor!)

Because of a glitch on the Korean paperwork side, Kim is being escorted her stateside rather than us traveling to Korea. We're a bit bummed about not being able to travel, but it's all going to work out for the better. She'll get here much faster than if we would have traveled, and we get to avoid all of the uspleasentries of traveling: jet lag, airport food, hotels, language barrier, escorting a baby via airplane for 24 hours.

Our friends have spontaneously invited themselves to join us at the DIA fountains where Kim will be hand-delivered to us. We welcome their presence and hope that the fanfare isn't too overwhelming for our weary traveler.

I don't have any pictures to share right now, and I'm so excited I can barely type. Plus I'm kinda tired. The next few weeks are going to be exhausting, but fortunately we are not flying solo. Jade and Kaleb are thrilled to pieces at the arrival of their new little sister. Jade can barely stand the wait. Kaleb has been praying non-stop for her since the phone call on Thursday. Kathy's mom is going to join us up in Breck to help take care of Kim, which will offer some sense of familiarity for her. It also means that we are all going to be able to enjoy the mountains this year...what a trip for Kimmie!

Keep watching the blog as I will MOST DEFINITELY wear myself out taking pictures and uploading them for you all to share in our experience!

With much love and anticipation....

Aaron, Kathy, Jade, Kaleb, and ............


p.s. For those of you who have been wondering...

Kim Mee Zimmer was born April 7th, 2007. Her birth name is So Mee Bae. "Mee" in Korean means "beautiful". She is going to be a third generation Korean orphan in our family, as both Kathy and her mom were orphans. When Kathy's folks adopted her, they originally had selected two children for adoption, one named "Okja" (which translated means "Jade"), and the other was named "Kim" (which translated means "Seaweed" ....just kidding!) They gave Okja her American name: Katherine Young Elizabeth Kahler. But Kim's biological father had a change of heart and came back for her, leaving Kathy to be raised without a sibling. We've always had a heart for naming our second daughter "Kim" for the memory that never became. As a cute nick-name, we began referring to her as "Kimmie", even before we had a face for the name. When we were matched with So Mee Bae, it was perfect for us to keep her Korean middle name for her new name, hence Kim Mee Zimmer. I prefer to spell it "Kimmie", while Kat prefers "Kimmee". Since it's a nick-name, you can spell it as you wish!

Good night my friends! Wish us luck!

UPDATE: Tuesday morning. Last night I had the worst sleep EVAR! Geez, wonder why? Anywhoo, we checked on her flight this morning and all is well -- she's still scheduled to arrive at DIA shortly after 2pm! AHhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!! Stay tuned!!!

It's Finished!

Merry Christmas!!

Just a little phrase we like to say around here! And how Merry it is right now. Friday, November 30th, we officially finished our home addition. YEA! We called for our final building inspection and passed with a grade of: WOW! We got great appraise from Aurora's building inspectors. They were a good team to work with and very kind to us.

Quick note: If you are viewing this blog with Internet Explorer, click on the 75% or 50% viewing option on the bottom righthand corner to view the larger thumbnail images.


Now for our story!

If you have been following our home addition, you will undoubtedly recognize the fireplace. Here it is, as it was meant to look. Decorated with garland and stockings, we are ready for CHRISTmas. Since we use the fireplace to heat our bedroom, I had to warn Kaleb against loading up the stockings with chocolate! Didn't want that gooey surprise on CHRISTmas!


Funny thing is that I sketched this fireplace numerous times: on drywall, on scrap board, on the back of prints. Those around me never really could envision the final product, but this is exactly how I saw it from the beginning. I love watching my designs come to life!





Here's a shot of our bedroom. The pair of Pella windows above the bed are on the East side of the home, which provides great sunlight to way to wake up to. We do not have air-conditioning in the home, but the ceiling fans do a great job of circulating the outside air for us in the summer. The pair of lights above the bed provide independently controlled lighting for reading, something Kathy and I enjoy doing in the evenings. The window above the fireplace is a German window, which swings inwards (not outwards like most American windows). It's very, very cool and completes the fireplace composition!


My lens on the camera only opens up to 24mm, so I created a collage for you to better understand the view from our bed. When we look up, we can see the fireplace on the right, the entrance on the left, the french doors on the otherside of the room (west wall, which will eventually lead out to a future deck). The main ridge beam that the fans hang from is 12' above the floor. It's such an impressive vaulted space!








As the project wrapped up, the $$ ran out! Eventually we would like to add a couch and tv to our "Sitting Area". But for now it's not important.

You can better see the wood wainscot in this shot. I still have to put a wood cap on it....just trying to find the right wood and grain to complete the finish!







I just love the way the ceiling turned out.

Funny story: the mechanical inspector didn't even notice that we had a fireplace in the bedroom because he told us he was too busy looking at the beautiful beams!

The lights inside the triangular space are direction spot beams that illuminate the fireplace. Accent lights!











I found a pair of antique pocket doors stored in my boss's garage. He sold the pair to me for $200. I designed the opening around them, installed a high-strength aluminum track with steel ball-bearings for the doors to float across. They are simply beautiful! The great thing about the doors is that we only use them for privacy. When not in use, they are not in the way like french doors would have been. The view below is from our bedroom side.





































































You can see the landing at the top of our stairs there behind Kaleb. There is a door on the left that leads to our closet, and a door on the right that leads to our bathroom.








Here's the view from the hallway side. You can see just a sliver of the doors resting in their pockets on either edge of this picture.















Our bathroom turned out beautiful! Lots and lots of hard work to make it happen! His/her vanities. His/her medicine cabinets. A toilet room (with an exhaust fan and operable window!!) The steam shower. Jetted claw-footed tub. Travertine (marble) tile. Lots of daylight, but very private. We are very, very happy with the final product. If you ever come and visit, you've got to try the steam shower. It's a hit!











































You'd never believe it, but we inserted the tub unit through those windows. I kept the window unit nailed in with only 6 nails so that we could remove the window when the time was right. We removed the fixtures and legs from the tub and slipped the unit through the opening. It fit: barely!

A lot of people keep asking about the tub. We got it from a supplier in Florida: http://www.sansirousa.com/index.html

And yes, the tub is just as beautiful as the picture implies. I really wanted an old-fashioned tub for the space but with the amenities of modern-day comfort. This tub is absolutely amazing and exceeded our expectations! This picture is misleading. It looks so small, but it's a 73" long unit. Plenty of space! Worth every penny!!



Now that we're done with construction, Kaleb is able to have a bedroom ALL TO HIMSELF, an amenity he is grateful to have!
















And Jade gets to share her bedroom with Kim, a burden she welcomes and is anxious to share! A "NO BOY'S ALLOWED!" space.

Her room was a bit messy for this shot. She's not nearly the neat freak that Kaleb is. For those of you who have visited our house, this space used to be our master bedroom. The wall with the polka-dots was added, eating into the space. But the stairs to our new bedroom are behind this wall. Jade and Kim will share a room for the time-being. Eventually we figure that Kaleb will want to move to the basement bedroom which will allow Kim to move into his current bedroom. When we started this project, we committed to living in this house for the next 12 years. This gets our children thru grade school. YIKES!

















Well, as always, I tend to ramble. Sorry about that. There's just so much to tell! Come on out and visit us and see the space firsthand! Bring your swim trunks and you can try out the steam shower!



Happy Holidays from the Zimmer Clan!




WOOF!