Olsons in Europe

At the end of August, Eric and I were able to travel to Europe.  We had such a great time.  We went to London, Paris, Amsterdam and Bruges, Belgium.  They were all so amazing and we had a blast.  Here are a few pics from the trip. 

Big Ben in London.

 Eiffel Tower in Paris

 Versailles

 Notre Dame in Paris

Arc de Triomphe in Paris

 Amsterdam

 More Amserdam

Windmill in Bruges

More Bruges

 A little more Bruges.

We had a great time and were able to see some amazing things.  Well that is all.

Very special addition to the family

I know, I know, you probably thought I had abandoned this blog long ago but alas I am back with a very important post.  More important than the post on what Karl should be for Halloween 2011, how could that be?  I know it is hard to believe that anything could take precedence over that but this does.

We have a new member of the family.  My sister Ashley and her husband Ryan welcomed their second daughter into the world yesterday.  Baby Penelope was born early in the morning on September 20th.  This little fighter did not have an easy go coming into this world.  A few months into Ashley's pregnancy she found out that baby Penny was diagnosed with spina bifida.  To explain what that is I'll go to the always trusty Wikipedia; 

Spina bifida is a developmental congenital disorder caused by the incomplete closing of the embryonic neural tube. Some vertebrae overlying the spinal cord are not fully formed and remain unfused and open. If the opening is large enough, this allows a portion of the spinal cord to protrude through the opening in the bones. There may or may not be a fluid-filled sac surrounding the spinal cord.       

As you can imagine that is a completely frightening thing to hear about your unborn child.  After getting the diagnosis Ashley and Ryan were set to go out to Philadelphia for a surgery on the baby while she was still in the womb.  That was the plan but as everyone knows sometimes plans don't work out like we expect.  While in Philadelphia they were told the baby was too sick and not strong enough for them to preform the surgery.  They told them that the baby was so sick that she may not live long after birth and they may want to consider terminating the pregnancy.

Ashley and Ryan decided to go to term with the pregnancy and see what happens.  It was a very long pregnancy with so many questions and so many conflicting answers.  After one doctor's visit they would say the baby was actually looking relatively healthy and then the next visit they were told the baby did not look healthy at all.

After months of flip flopping diagnosis the due date was finally here.  Penny was born via c-section and has been doing well since coming into the world.  Because of the spina bifia she had to go into surgery today so they could operate on her spine.  The surgery went well and she is off oxygen and breathing on her own.  She is at the hospital and hopefully can come home in a week or so.

It has been such a hard few months for the family and I am so impressed with the strength Ashley has shown through out this entire process.  She has stayed so positive and strong and Penny is lucky to have her as a mom.

Here is a picture of her right after being born looking just like her sister Sofia.

So you can thank Penny for bringing me back to blogging because this post is welcoming the latest Olson girl into the world (well technically Olson/Pedersen but you get my point).

This blog is going to have mommy issues with all the neglect it's recieved

Sorry for the long hiatus. It has been a bit crazy in the AZ yet I felt like I have had nothing to blog about. Here are a few bullet points of life lately.


· The summer is coming. Dun dun dun. This is a scary time in Az, like winter in Game of Thrones but with more perspiration.
· We have about a million birds in our back yard. Now this is a rough estimate but I don't think it’s far off. There was a dead bird was found in our pool this weekend and a couple days ago there was a dead bird in our hot tub. Now I don't want to point any fingers but I am pretty sure the pigeons are to blame. Now I am freaked out to go into the pool (and its 105 degrees!) because I am afraid I am going to contract the bird flu from the pool and create a pandemic a la Contagion. I am Gweneth Paltrow (that feels so good to say). My plan is to fill the pool with Purell.
· Please check out this tumblr account. Don't ask any questions just do it. http://andrewslittleinstructions.tumblr.com/
That’s all for now,  hopefully I will do better with the blogging now that it is over a hundred degrees and my will to go outside has seriously dwindled.

Our house is a very very very fine house.

So we have officially moved in to our new home!

It has been going really well but living in a new place does take some adjusting. For instance I now have gone from a 5 minute commute to work to a 25 minute commute. Now I now 25 minutes is not that bad but when you are used to 5 minutes it is quite a change. And now I have to deal with traffic. Before now I never really dealt with traffic on a daily basis. Now I do and I must say, traffic is the worst. I cannot imagine dealing with hours of traffic like some people do. I go through 20 minutes of it and I am pulling my hair out.

Okay, that's enough about commuting. Lets talk about Karl!

Karl is loving the new house but the doggie door we have that is the perfect size has left Karl completely baffled. We have tried to get him to use it but he refuses. We first tried just pushing him through it, thinking that after he saw that it was an entrance to the wouside world he would start using it. That did not work. Then we tried putting a treat outside the doggie door thinking he would go through to get the treat. That did not work either and we just ended up pushing him through again. I guess I thought the whole doggie door thing came naturally to dogs but I am finding that is not so, or at least Karl is an exception to that. He will get it eventually but at this point we have just put the doggie door training on pause.

Over all everything is going great, we still need to work on getting everything organized and put in its place but we will get there. Sorry for the lack of pictures, but i promise I will get some up.

I'm Back. Did you miss me?

Wow, its been a while since I have blogged. I could say it's because I have been busy, which is somewhat true, but really its just because I was not in the mood and I have not felt like much in my life has been blog worthy.

I now have something blog worthy. Ez, Karl and I have bought a house! We will be moving in at the end of the month and we are beyond excited. The fact we have a place where we can do whatever we want and a place that has a yard (and a pool and a hot tub) has left me giddy with excitement.

This whole experience is making me feel very adult. I have signed more papers then I ever have before, plus now I have to think about adult things like home owners insurance and getting my air conditioning unit serviced (Got to take care of that ac in AZ, if you didn't know it gets crazy hot down here).

We move in at the end of the month and I promise to post some pictures of the new house.

P.S. I have a new favorite show and I need to share it with the world. The name of the show is Portlandia and as you guessed, it is about Portland. It is very funny and I would highly recommend checking it out.

Happy New Year

So it is a new year and even more weird, I have been living in AZ for a year. In some ways I feel like we have been here much longer than that but in other ways I still feel like it is a very new place. It is starting to feel a little more like home and once we have a house to call our own I think it will start feeling a lot more like home.

Ez, Karl and I were lucky enough to have Dev and Beck come down for a visit. The weather here was amazing and so Dev was able to get in a lot of golfing which makes him happy and Karl was able to go on a lot of walks with Beck with made Karl happy. Beck is quickly becoming Karl's favorite person.

We were able to go out to restaurants and go shopping and have an all around awesome time. When they left I was defiantly feeling a bit home sick. The good news is now that up north is feeling a little cold and down here is feeling really nice we are getting a lot more people calling to get some warm weather and some MEK (Mal, Eric, Karl) time.