Go Susan Boyle!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

If you haven't already seen this on YouTube you have to check it! It is totally cool on so many levels~~not judging by appearance, not being cynical, etc... It brought tears to my eyes the first time I heard/saw it. It's amazing!

Eosinophilic Esophagitis

What is Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EE)?
Eosinophilic esophagitis (EE) is a disease characterized by swelling of the esophagus (the part of the body connecting the throat and the stomach) caused by an allergic white blood cell, the eosinophil. Symptoms of EE can range from severe heartburn, difficulty swallowing, food impaction in the esophagus, nausea, vomiting and weight loss. There appears to be some age-related differences in symptoms, with younger children having more symptoms of weight loss, and older children and adults having food impaction and difficulty swallowing.
It is not exactly clear what causes EE, although this disease may be related to other allergic diseases, particularly asthma. People with EE frequently have a personal or family history of other allergic diseases such as hay fever, food allergy and asthma. Recently, there have been studies showing an association between food and environmental allergies and EE.
What Allergic Triggers Commonly Cause EE?
Various studies have shown that patients with EE have positive allergy tests to various foods, and that avoidance of these foods led to the resolution of EE symptoms. Foods reported to be the cause of EE have included milk, eggs, peanuts, shellfish, peas, beef, chicken, fish, rye, corn, soy, potatoes, oats, tomatoes and wheat. Of these, the most common food triggers are milk, egg, wheat, rye and beef.
How is EE Diagnosed?
The diagnosis of EE is generally made by performing a biopsy of the esophagus, with evidence of eosinophils infiltrating the esophageal tissue. A biopsy is performed via endoscopy (a camera inserted into the esophagus), usually by a gastroenterologist. There are many other diseases that can cause eosinophils in the tissue of the esophagus, including gastroesopheal reflux disease (GERD), parasitic infections, fungal infections, inflammatory bowel disease, certain cancers, recurrent vomiting, and others. These diseases need to be ruled out before EE can be diagnosed.
Once EE is diagnosed, an allergist will typically perform extensive allergy testing, including looking for food allergies and environmental allergies, such as those listed above.
Why Am I Posting This?
Well apparently this is what I probably have. I went in for an upper endoscopy yesterday (as opposed to the lower one that doesn't sound fun at all). I thought I would be getting my esophogus stretched so that I wouldn't choke on things so much. Well that didn't happen. Instead I find out I have this EE thing and will get some kind of treatment for it. Apparently this is something that you can have all your life and not know because you just think that choking on things is just something you have to live with (totally me). My esophogus is very "tight and swollen" which explains why I have trouble swallowing things and getting them down. I don't know exactly what the treatment is, I will find out on my next appointment on April 28th.

Easter Shoeboxes & Dotted Swiss

Easter Shoeboxes are what happens when mom cleans the basement during the summer and gives all the baskets, including Easter baskets to Deseret Industries. Something not realized until around 9pm the night before Easter because mom really isn't into helping out the Easter Bunny. Don't get me wrong, I do like Easter and have some rather fond childhood memories of Easter. Let's just say I'm less than enthusiastic about the Bunny part of it--particularly as the kids have gotten older.

Maybe if I would have had girls and made Easter dresses for them every year like my mom I might feel differently. The smell of dotted Swiss fabric always reminds me of Easter. It seems like our new Easter outfits were always made of dotted Swiss. At least the ones I remember. I'm not sure how my mom did it every year, but it seems like when we were younger we always got a new Easter dress. One year I am certain all five of us girls got them! Pretty incredible for a working mom if you ask me. I seem to recall getting purses, hats and gloves one year too, but you gotta love a cute Easter dress made of dotted Swiss.

I'm not sure how many dozens of eggs we colored growing up, but it was alot. It was a family tradition and in my memory pretty much everyone participated. I loved coloring eggs. Karen seemed particularly adept at it, but then that shouldn't be surprising given her artistic bent. Of course there was also the ritual hiding, and rehiding of the eggs on Easter Sunday and throughout the following week until we tired of it or the eggs got too "used" for lack of a better word. Every year there was at least one hiding that did not yeild all the hidden eggs. I have never been able to generate much enthusiasm from the boys for hiding eggs though.
They DO like to color eggs and every year we have done it despite Dennis wondering if we really need that many hard-boiled eggs and who is going to eat them (generally me but Cooper will help out some). This year we did 18 which was just enough for me, Cooper and Spencer to each do six. We managed to squeeze it in between the baseball & soccer games and a birthday party for a relative. We went for the straight vinegar dye for brighter colors. Dyeing eggs, always a fun time.

As a mom, I've never been that enthusiastic about Easter. For some reason to me, it seems like the Easter Bunny detracts more from the true meaning of Easter than Santa Claus does Christmas. So, I try to downplay that part of it. It seems like I am never really prepared for Easter despite the early appearance of it in the grocery stores. I keep putting it off. This year, I didn't shop for the Easter stuff until Friday. Maybe it is because the boys are getting older and even Cooper, despite not saying it, really can't beleive in the Easter Bunny. (He was there when all the Easter candy was purchased). And so, you get Easter shoeboxes because that is the only thing I know we have plenty of when it is discovered we have no baskets. We did add Easter stickers from the egg dye kit to make the shoeboxes a little more festive, but they were still shoeboxes. Oh well.

Spencer's Spring Break Trip

This post is called Spencer's Spring Break Trip because it was his idea (or desire) that we not spend Spring Break the same way we spent mid-Winter break, which was hanging out at home and pretty much not doing anything. We were up-in-the-air for quite awhile about where we were going to go. We thought about going to eastern Washington to visit family and friends there. That didn't pan out because some were going elsewhere and the pass between here and there apparently didn't get the memo that it is now officially Spring. In fact during the time that we would have been traveling over it, it snowed 2 feet and was closed for a time for avalanche. Good thing we opted not to head east of the mountains!

Where to go, where to go?? We talked about the Olympic Peninsula, Ocean Shores and other destinations. For some reason Spencer really settled on Portland, so that is where we decided to go. Dennis & Spencer made hotel reservations (in the ghetto of Portland--at least that's what it seemed like when we got there) for Wednesday and Thursday night. We left around 9am on Wednesday in a driving rain that was turning to snow as we headed south. (Apparently the mountain pass wasn't the only place that didn't get the Spring memo). It rained all the way to Portland, non-stop. We arrived at the ghetto around 1pm. (We had to turn around just before getting to the freeway to get the GPS--which thank goodness we did or we would have spent all the time lost in the ghetto.)

The first thing we did was visit Pittock Mansion. Which is the former home of the founder of the Portland Oregonian newspaper. It was very beautiful, with intrique hardwood floors throughout it's 12,000 square feet (4,000 each floor). The picture of Spencer at the grand piano is from our tour. There were about 10 people on a tour with us and when we came to the "sitting room" the tour guide asked if anyone played the piano and we all pointed at Spencer. He was a little reluctant but finally agreed to play something. He sat down and played a simple version of Beethoven's Fur Elise. I expected him just to do a scale or something. Everyone was very impressed. It was a very beautiful home.

We returned to ghetto, swam in the pool and settled in, I thought for the night. The boys however got restless so we made a visit to "Oregon's biggest mall" which is pretty much the same size as Bellevue Square with all the same stores. They were happy though.

On Thursday we had talked about taking a paddlewheel tour on the Columbia, but I let the boys decide and the opted to visit OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science & Industry) and the zoo. I think it was a good choice. OMSI is pretty much like the Pacific Science Center here in Seattle only bigger and better. The had a really cool (at least I thought) Leonardo da Vinci exhibit, where they had models of many of the "inventions" he concocted and one whole floor just about the Mona Lisa and these infrared photos this guy took of the painting. It was pretty cool. The boys of course zoomed through that and I came out about 20 minutes later. The rest of the time we spent exploring all the different things there were to do. The goggle picture is from the "Chemistry" room.

The other pictures (except the one of them in the "face" which is in front of a stadium downtown) are all from the zoo. It is a very nice zoo with lots of the same animals as ours. It is a nice walk and you can see where they are updating alot of their exhibits much like our zoo is doing. It is nice that alot of the zoos are changing to make the habitats more "real lifelike" and using the natural surroundings to enhance the whole setting. Their zoo is set against a hillside but all the "hiking" was very gradual. It was a nice hike and luckily for us it didn't start raining again until we were leaving.

We finished off the day in the pool again and got up early this morning to come home so Tucker could make his soccer practice. Everyone had a good time (even Tucker) and we were glad we got to get out of town a bit thanks to Spencer!