Monday, April 30, 2007

Summer vacation

I have a final in one week and have been home all day. Did I study? No. I spent the entire day (plus several hours last night) searching for good hotels/good deals for our summer vacation. I might fail my final - but at least we have some places to stay while we're on vacation.

We fly into Seattle on June 14th, and that night we're staying close to the airport at the Days Inn. The next morning we will check out the Space Needle before driving to Spokane, where we will be staying at the Quality Inn. From there, we will be driving to West Yellowstone the next day. I've reserved a room at the Comfort Inn there for 3 nights. After checking out Yellowstone, we're driving to Ketchum, where we have rented a condo at the Krystal Villa for 3 nights. And from there we're driving to Foresthill. So, what do you thnk?

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Sunday

Not much to say today, but it's been a while since I've written anything, and I don't want my readers to feel slighted...

It's a four day weekend here. May 1st is Labor Day in Norway, and since it is on a Tuesday this year, then Monday is a holiday, too. It's nice with a long weekend, but I have a final on May 7th, so I have to force myself to do some studying.

Last night the boys slept over at Kari and Grim's house, so Gaute and I decided to go out. We went downtown and had a couple of beers - nothing special - but it was really nice. It's been a long time since we have gone out by ourselves.

Lyn game tomorrow - I'll keep you posted...

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Checkup

Just got back from the hospital with Espen. He had a checkup after his operation - and they confirmed what we were afraid of. His eyes are the same/slightly worse than they were before the operation. He is seeing double to the same degree as before, and his left eye is wandering a bit more than before. They still don't know what is causing this and it seems like his brain is pulling the muscles out of whack no matter what they do. I mentioned today that we were going to the states this summer, and the orthoptist thought we should get a second opinion there, something we were thinking about doing regardless. The opthamology department at the hospital here is the biggest and best in Norway, but they admit that they don't understand what's going on. Espen is nervous now, though, because he - understandably - doesn't want to spend his summer vacation at the hospital.

We have a new appointment at the hospital on May 8th, and several doctors will be examining Espen. Hopefully they can give a referral to UC Davis Medical so we don't have to pay for any appointments there. We'll see what happens, though.

Poor Espen - what is going on with him??

Baby Johan



I found this picture of Johan when he was a baby - wasn't he the sweetest little baby?

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Football...and a bit more...



On Sunday, Lyn (aka the best football team) played Odd-Grenland. The boys are members of the Lyn's supporter club for kids, and on Sunday all of the Lynus-klubben members got free tickets to the game and got to go out on the field as the players were introduced. We had 3 pretty excited boys...AND - Lyn won 3-1!

It seems like Espen's surgery didn't go so well after all. He says that his vision is back to the way it was before they operated last week. And Gaute and I can see that his left eye is really wandering - it seems like even more than before his surgery...He has an appointment at the hospital tomorrow - we'll see what they have to say.

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Thursday, April 19, 2007

The ipod


For Christmas in 2005 (or was it 2004??), I bought Gaute an ipod. He had never expressed an interest in having one, but I thought they were so cool and thought he should have one. He uploaded lots of music to it - and then never used it. After about a year of no one using it, I thought it was about time that I started using it. I put some more music on it - and never used it. By that time, Espen had figured out what music was, and I decided that he should be allowed to use it. He deleted all of the music that was on it, uploaded his own music - and used it all of the time.

But - this was an ipod mini, and in the years since I bought it, the ipod nano came it. The nano is half the size, but 10 times the cool - especially if you are 11 years old. So, Espen used his Christmas money to buy himself a red ipod nano WITH HIS NAME ENGRAVED ON THE BACK. How cool is that?

And now the original ipod was available again. Now it was Anders' turn to take it over. He kept the same music that Espen had - but he never used it. I have known what music is for a long time, but by this time I had figured out what podcasts were, too (thanks, Erin). Now it was time for me to take back control of the ipod.

So now I have cool music and lots of cool podcasts on the (my) ipod. And I use it all of the time. Podcasts are so great. I listen to them while I'm doing chores around the house, while I'm making dinner, while I'm walking. Time goes fast - and they're so interesting. My life has changed ;).

p.s. My favorite podcasts, for those who are interested, are This American Life, The Splendid Table, Talk of the Nation, and (my favorite) Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing.

Day 4 (Day 3 kind of disappeared)

Espen is doing much, much better. He's at the point now where it is fun to be home from school. The fact that I bought him a new Play Station game yesterday helped a lot, I think :). The kids from his class stopped by this afternoon with a big Get Well card they had made at school, and that lifted his spirits, too. They were all jealous of him - it was so boring at school!

Johan had a dentist appointment today. No cavities!! He thought everything was so exciting - he couldn't stop grinning from ear to ear. And then he got a prize when it was time to go. A little green plastic toy - he loves little crap like that. He was very happy.

Anders is on his way home from school now. Last summer, a family moved in next door who has two boys the same ages as Anders and Johan. Johan and the youngest boy, Sander, go in the same class, but they're not best friends. Anders and Sebastian don't go in the same class, but they are best friends. They have so much fun together. They both like being outside and building forts out of crap they find laying around. And riding their bikes around the neighborhood. I'm really happy for Anders to have such a good friend next door. Most of the boys in his class would rather be inside playing video games, and that's not really Anders' thing.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Day 2

Poor Pepperoni...His eyes are really hurting him. We just got back from a checkup at the hospital. They took off the bandage and checked his eyes. Everything looks okay, considering. Before this operation, he was seeing double of everything - two images which were above each other AND next to each other. This operation was to make it so that he doesn't see the images above each other, and it seems like it did the trick. They couldn't check all that much today, because it hurt so much. They still need to do another surgery, though, to make it so that he doesn't see the images next to each other. Espen started crying when they told him that. The first operation he had barely hurt at all, and none of us were expecting this one to be much either. It was much worse, though. I asked the doctor about it, and she said that they don't tell people that it is going to be much worse, because it often isn't. Plus, this was worse than they thought it would be, because one of the muscles they were operating on was much further back than it should have been, which meant that they had to move his eye around a bit to get to it (eeewww...). He is not in an abnormal amount of pain, though, and it will be getting better all the time. He has another appointment next week, and they'll do a more thorough check of his vision then.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Surgery's over

Espen's operation is over, and according to the surgeon, everything went really well. It hurt more this time, which is apparently quite normal. The first time is easy, but it gets worse each time. Espen is sleeping now on our bed, and tomorrow morning he has an appointment at the hospital again when they will take off the bandage. Seems like everything is okay, though.

Surgery today


Espen is having another operation on his eyes today. We're all pretty laid back about it since we know what to expect this time. Espen is looking forward to being home from school for a week :). I'll keep you posted about how the surgery goes. If you click on this picture and enlarge it, then you can see that Espen's left eye is looking off to the left instead of at the camera.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

On their way to the ski hill

Not much time to write, but here's a picture of the boys in the car on the way to go downhill skiing last Friday. Anders and Johan tried it for the first time, and Espen renewed his love of it. Unfortunately, I forgot the camera in the car, so these are the only ones I have...



Monday, April 02, 2007

Just when you thought I'd never post another entry to this blog...

I just turned in a paper - the last one for a while. Thing's have been pretty crazy around here, and I feel like I haven't had time to do much in front of the computer except for research and write. Hopefully, thinks will calm down now, though. I have finals coming up in about a month, but studying and writing are two different things...

It's Easter break here - no school!! We're leaving tomorrow morning for our cabin, and we're all pretty excited. The weather has been gorgeous lately - really warm and sunny here in Oslo. There's still quite a bit of snow up at our cabin, but the weather is nice up there, too, and it will be fun to do a last bit of skiing. We're taking our downhill stuff up, too, so we can do that at least one day.

Below is a picture of Anders and Johan when they were having a "clown show" for us a few weeks ago.