A little update

Its been a while since I wrote anything on here, so heres an update.
With work things are as always crazy busy, the cases are now going to be manufactured at two different companies and thats a split that makes a lot of sense, and we also see a huge drop in time wasted sitting around waiting for the manufacturer to get their asses in gear. The main issue now is just how to adjust the case to that the band can fit snuggly and precisely and I have found a plan that is being implemented now.  The first cases will go to our wonderful supporters on Kickstarter and to sellers in Europe that hopefully will kick off more sales over there.

The trip to Norway was very nice, it was lengthy compared to my previous trips but it had been two years since my last trip and I think it is important to stay a little when traveling so far, it took us 2 weeks to wake up from the jet-lag.. Norway is rainy, cold, and not much daylight to speak of so there was not much to do besides sleep anyway. We did have some awesome days though and lots of good food.
One of the big events this time was celebrating my grandmothers 90th birthday, which happens to fall on the same day as Christmas. With a new internet connection I hope to see her on Skype and stay updated email, who knows, maybe even Facebook?

One of our best days was visiting my family in Voss. (see images below) We took the train and had a nice journey through winter Norway. Most of my mom's family lives in Voss because my great grand father moved there due to the war in 1940s and this is where he started Sølvsmidja, a silversmith company. We got a tour the new factory and see how they make the jewelry, it was pretty awesome. This was also the first time Heather got to meet my mom's extended family and I think she really enjoyed her time with them. It was pretty clear Heather now is in love with Voss and its safe to say we will be back for more.

Another noteworthy occasion was when the clouds cleared one morning and we decided to go to Ulriken, the 2100ft mountain in Bergen.

We also got to see some of my friends, one of my best friends, Frode, managed to invite 30 people to his house for a big party, just like in the old days, except everyone seemed a bit older/more tired than last time we were all gathered.

Heather flew home one week before Lucia and I so for one full week while Heather slept in her own bed at home Lucia heard nothing but Norwegian. Obviously it was during this week she started picking up a lot of norwegian words, and she still use them randomly. Now she may say a full sentence in english but then one word will be substituted with a norwegian.

On the way home we stopped in London due to a flight mismatch and we got a chance to spend time with our good friend Kelly who now lives in London. We all took a little tour of London and saw the London Eye, closed for maintenance :( and walked down along The Thames. Lucia was super excited to see the London Bridge which she keeps singing about from a TV show called Barney. We had dinner at a pub and it was awesome.

The flight home next morning was OK, but the sleep I planned to have was torpedoed by the ridiculous short childrens shows on the inflight TV, being woken up every 20 minutes makes no one any less tired.

 Overall a great trip, and it is great to be back too!

I will post pictures as they are ready

Lucias is 3!

We celebrated her birthday yesterday, in the rain. Yes. We were completely surprised and unprepared for such an extreme anomaly. We are so thankful for all our friends who showed up anyway despite the weather and hard to find location. 

Flower Girl

Without further ado:

What happened in Vegas ...

It was my first trip to Las Vegas and it started with great food and drinks at the Hard Rock Cafe Friday night. From there we went through several casino-hotels and saw a lot of weird and wonderful things, even spent some chilly minutes in an ice bar called Minus5 Ice Bar where everything is made out of ice, even the glasses!Our hotel was awesome and amazing (The Aria) and the food was great too however the smell of vanilla was kind of obnoxious. I guess they are trying to mask the smell of cigarettes.
Saturday we walked for miles down The Strip, mostly indoors because it was about 109F/42C outside.
Unfortunately we spent too much money at the pool the first day so the next day we decided to walk across the street to SevenEleven, stash up there and head back to the pool where we melted into the water with great success. The clerk at the front desk never managed to give us a room higher up as we requested, but with a bit of luck, his life is ruined forever. Always thinking that just behind some narrow door in all of his favorite bars, men in red woolen shirts are getting incredible kicks from things he'll never know.
But it was a great trip, thank you Chris and Mandy!! we are looking forward to next time!

4th of July weekend

We had a pretty sweet fourth of July weekend with lots of activities. Things started off well with dinner with friends in Oakland, then on Saturday we explored a new beach in Santa Cruz with Mattias, Cindy and Maya. Sunday was parade day in Redwood City and we met my former instructor at the academy who had his classic car on display. Later that day we went to see our friends up in the city, but it turned into an enormous a struggle to drive around and park the car because there was way too much traffic, many streets were closed off and we had to park far away and walk. The party was on a house boat at Fisherman's Wharf and there must have been 40 people there, just crammed on the boat. I think both Baylee and Lucia enjoyed themselves more than Heather once they got fed. We left just after the fireworks started to get a head start on the traffic out of town. Monday we had a BBQ in San Jose at some friends house and it was a birthday party too. We really enjoyed the super tasty steak and chicken!
Overall I think it was a great weekend, and we are now looking forward to see my parents arriving soon!

Trick or Treat!

TrickOrTreat

Liz's Birthday

We went to celebrate Liz's birthday last weekend and had a really good time. First stop was at this interesting teahouse in Noe Valley where they serve old style foods and lots of tea, the place may also looks like your great great grandmothers apartment. Second stop was a special home brewery bar; The Elizabeth Street Brewery. I liked this part the most. This guy Richard had his garage fixed by the show While You Were Out on TLC (the TV channel) and they turned it into a bar where he brew his own beer and have guests. Pretty awesome night. There was cake too.

More birthday pictures

Lucia was running low on fuel by the time we brought out her cup cake. She didn't like it. She quickly ate the raspberry off the top and didn't really know what to do next.

Dannys 1st Birthday Party

The Big Day finally arrived! We went over to The Pants Department early to help out and have a great time. We picked up birth day cake, parked a car, filled up the kids bath ring with water, made salad, hosed the concrete down and quality controlled the snack food. At least I did.

Too soon the shadows grew long and the night was again signaling sleepy time for some of us. Lucia kept it going until she just stopped moving on the carpet.
Heathers step cousin Janice also came by for a visit coming all the way from Oceanside near San Diego:
with gifts! She had the cutest clothes for Lucia and a gift card to Babies-R-Us. We were sad to leave, the weekend went too fast, we hope to see them again soon!

Engagement Party

We went to a wonderful and beautiful engagement party last Saturday. Our friends from the scandinavian club Jonas and Alegra are getting married and we celebrated at a beautiful winery in the Santa Cruz mountains. You can see more pictures here.