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"!