A reunited Family

A husband, a wife, three children and a dog - the family is complete again!!!
Actually we have been for a week now, but we haven't had any internet connection in our apartment and I haven't been able to tell you...  Now we have borrowed my Mom's wireless modem for a couple of days and are eagerly waiting for our internet to be hooked up.

On Thursday of last week I drove 6.5 hours to the airport in Stockholm to pick up my dear husband and two dogs.

5:30 am sunrise...

It was great seeing them again and the dogs had done really well with the flight over.

We hurried up and loaded the car and drove the 6.5 hours back.  I don't know who was more tired... Danny who had been flying all night or me who had slept 3 hours the night before and driven since 4:30 am!  We did make it home safe and sound to some kiddoes that were bursting with excitement to see their Daddy and dogs again.

... and a dog super-excited to see her "mommy" again after 7 months!!!

We are all doing well and enjoying and adjusting to life here in Sweden.  Skyler and Porter have had a great first week of school - which I will tell you all about later.

My Mom had another blood transfusion on Friday, which stabilized her blood count so she could receive her chemo on Monday.  All went well though she has her bouts of tiredness after her treatments.  Yesterday she went to see the eye doctor who determined that she has cataract (gråstarr) on both eyes - more than likely caused by all the cortisone that she has to take.  She has said that her eyesight has gotten much worse fast and the doctor showed that she only has 10% eyesight out of her right eye and 40% out of her left.  She is not allowed to drive her car anymore.  Other doctors have warned about the side effects of the cortisone and also said that as long as she's under treatment there's not much she can do to her eyes.  This eye doctor, however, feels like my Mom has enough to worry about and shouldn't have to be limited by her eyesight.  He said there is very little risk involved to significantly improve her sight and has agreed to do surgery on her eyes in about a month.  It makes me happy that he is thinking of her quality of life and I'm excited for my Mom to have something good to look forward to.  Until then - I'll be introducing myself as Private Chauffeur Erika!  Once again, this so enforces our choice to move to Sweden.  I don't even want to think about how things would be if we weren't here...

She works hard for the money...

I keep feeling like I haven't exercised the way I planned this summer.  But then again, when I look at our pictures I realize how much physical work we've been doing mostly every day!  I promise you - shoveling gravel and running a wheelbarrow up a hill a few times beats any casual jog around the neighborhood!

I am still looking forward to getting into a routine with my workouts again.  It's been a long time since I really pushed myself - I miss that.

I am glad to announce that we got an apartment on Frösön, the island where I spent most of my years growing up!  I am so excited that it all worked out and that we can get settled before the school starts for the kids.  So today, the kids and I have spent our day painting and fixing up furniture that we've had stored or found at auctions, while my Mom continued working on her house...

Skyler painted her own mirror that she bought at an auction for 30kr ($5).  It took a lot of restraint not to comment on her dripping paint, but she was so happy about doing it herself I had to take a deep breath and bite my tongue... ;)

Olympic Games of Näcksta

What do you do when the kids are bored and fighting every chance they get?  Make them compete against each other!  Well actually, trying to tire them out as much as possible was more the reason behind our Olympic Games of Näcksta that were held yesterday...

We started off the games with a flag-ceremony and the Swedish national anthem.

First out was a thrilling long jump competition...

Maud was my measuring supervisor... 

Followed by a nail-biting 20 meter hurdling race...

 Where Ollie fell, but got right up again!  No child or animal was hurt during this competition... ;)

Javeling was fun, but a bit tricky...

And during the long distance running we lost the youngest competitor to bug watching...

Luckily he returned for the final stage of the Olympics... apple bobbing!

The competitors were then awarded with a golden-Digestive-cracker-medal and a pin...

Made for a pretty awesome day - and a lot more compliant kids...

Need to reflect...

After spending two whole hours trying to get 3 little kids to sleep - or at least just be QUIET - while trying to make important phone calls to possible apartment and house renters, I am finally sitting down on the couch looking over some amazing pictures of them to remind myself why I love them... ;)  The following pictures are from two weeks ago, when our friends Maud and Anders took the kids for the day and visited a Sami village.  They also brought them on the gondola to the top of Åre ski mountain to play in some snow!

I am so grateful to have people around us that give so much of their time and love to us.  It takes a village to raise a child.  And even though I kind of wish there was a whole village here putting my kids to sleep tonight instead of me, I have to take more time out of my day to reflect and appreciate how truly lucky I am!!!

I will be a miracle!

This is how we end every night right now...

All of us piled up on my Mom's bed watching the Olympics.  The kids are really enjoying it, but we're a little bit torn when Swedes and Americans are competing against each other...

We are still in the process of finding a house for us to live in.  The school is starting on August 27th and yesterday we decided to sign the kids up at a specific school and then focus on looking for a house in that area, instead of leaving our search area too large.  Feels good to at least have made one small decision about our future...

My dear husband has done an amazing job packing up a whole 3300 square foot house and is still a few weeks away from joining us here for real.  We miss him, love him and can't wait!!!

The days are passing by with outdoors activities no matter what weather we have.  I love the fact that the kids can be outside for hours without me even worrying about where they are or what they do.  They get to be so much more independent here than I allow them to be in the U.S.  They can bike over to the neighboring childrens' house or just run across the fields to play with them.  By the end of the day they are so tired they can fall asleep almost anywhere...  (Porter on a foot stool and Ollie on the floor)

My Mom is doing well.  Her blood tests this week came back much better and she is scheduled for another chemo treatment on Monday.  She was signed into a specific service, Storsjögläntan, that is offered to people with long-term sickness.  It is an incredible safety-net of people with 3 doctors, nurses and collaborating local nurses that serve my Mom directly in her house.  They can do her blood tests, bring her medicine and supplies and even give her a blood transfusion if she will need it again - all in the comfort of her house.  AND of course covered by our socialized medicine... hint, hint...

My Mother was a bit hesitant to this at first, since her view of the service is that of a last comfort for people at the end of their life.  I understood her concern, but tried to convince her of the benefits of not having to go to a hospital where the risk of infections are greater and also for her to spend her time doing better things than driving back and forth to the hospital.  The doctor that came to the house last week also explained that this service is just there to make it easier on people that qualify.  And that they actually sign some people out of the service every year because they get too well to qualify.  My Mother assured him that that is what she expect will happen to her - "I will be a miracle"!