pictures from this past week

New playground!

We've had a great week so far. We've finally been able to hang out with Philip and Anna again after their trip to NJ and stomach flu. Tuesday, we went over to Naples at the spur of the moment. Also, there's a new playground very close to our house. This is very good news. The playground is huge and awesome, but unfortunately it lacks shade which will become a problem in a few months unless they plant some big trees or put up a canopy.

Happy 2009

Ann-Sofie and Edny by the buffet-style potluck dinner

The whole gang (except me of course)
Ann-Sofie was in charge of the fireworks
The crowd admired the display
oh boy, another year to keep track of. I was already confused if it was 07 or 08. Time flies by so quickly now-a-days!
We celebrated new years out in our backyard. Viveka, Marcel, Ann-Sofie and Edny came by for dinner, and afterwards Jen, Al and their friends Lauren and Chris came over. We had a good time and we managed to stay awake past midnight.

flowers

The plants are also used to support Liam as he goes up and down on the deck




Here are some of the plants that I planted together with my mom when they were here (she was doing most of the planting). She wanted to see them so here's picture proof that they are still alive ;-)

Appendicitis

A few days ago, Jason started to complain that he had pains in his stomach. At first, I thought he was just being a typical male blowing physical ailments out of proportion. I figured he'd just had to much of the good Christmas food. However, yesterday morning he could barely walk when we took the dog out. At that point, we figured that he better go see a doctor. Said and done, the doctor suspected appendicitis but still sent him home saying that there was a 50/50 chance Jason would have to go to the emergency room within 48 hours. Unfortunately, that's exactly what he had to do last night when the pains got worse and he also developed fever and chills.

Jason went alone to the emergency room as he didn't want Liam to get scared in the event that he would wake up during the night without me being there . To me, that's Jason in a nutshell, thinking about others before himself.
Anyway, as he got to the emergency room, he had to wait for 12 hours to before he was examined by a doctor. Finally, this morning his appendix was removed by laproscopic surgery. The surgery went really well and he is now recovering at the hospital.

Thanks god everything went well! Still, there are some things that bother me about this story. The first thing is that the doctor sent him home without properly examining him, risking a rupture of the appendix. The second thing is that Jason had to sit at the emergency room for 12 hours in pain without being examined. To me, that's ridiculous. After the surgery, I talked to Jason's surgeon whom informed me that the appendix hadn't ruptured but looked very bad and was on the verge of rupturing.

Hopefully, Jason gets to come home tomorrow. Both Liam and I miss him lots!

Christmas Day

ok Elmo, time to chill
The unveiling of Jason's gift
The boys playing
The christmas dinner guests

We had a nice, laid back christmas day. In the morning, Liam opened some more gifts and in the afternoon we went over to Jen, Al and Luc's house to have dinner. Jen had made a delicious Ecuadorian stew which all of us enjoyed!

Christmas Eve

Swedish Christmas smörgåsbord
Viveka, Johnny and Marcel
Good company
Johanna and Ann Sofi toasting with julmust
Tomten
Elmo
Liam and I
We had a very nice Christmas Eve together with our friends! The food and company was excellent and Santa came to visit us. Liam was scared at first but got over it after a couple of minutes. His favorite toy was an Elmo doll.