Puulihuna

Rincon de la Vieja

2011-10-09T05:07:00.001+02:00

We went on a hike in the rain forest in Rincon de la Vieja volcano. The trail to the crater was closed since ol' Rincon has been too active lately, huffing and puffing and apparently killing fish in the streams. And besides a 16 km round trip is a bit too long for our boys. Instead we enjoyed the 3 km round trip and took almost 4 hours walking it, stopping to admire the nature and me taking photographs.

First we had to cross Rio Colorado.

I wanted to take a photo of the boys and asked them to stand still for two secods. Not happening.

Jungle view. We saw several morpho butterflies, blue, big fluttering mittens, but they were hard to catch with the camera lens.

Mushrooms are great subjects for photography, they don't move. During our trip we heard thunder quite often, but not a drop of rain.

Even though we couldn't visit the crater we saw a lot of other volcanic activity. Bubbling hot water,

bubbling hot mud,

steam coming from underground,

and more bubbling mud, frosting on the cake being the repulsive rotten egg sulphuric stench.

There was a beautiful waterfall,

beautiful vegetation,

and happy kids running back and forth telling us what they saw. Tuomas had his magnifying glass and binoculars, but in addition to the morphos we saw only one frog, leaf cutting ants and a dead spider. We heard birds singing and probably some insects, too, but they were hiding.

I realized from this picture that Risto has grown a lot! He'll be 10 in a couple of months.

When we headed home from Rincon the sky was overcast, but we could see the whole volcano. Huge storm clouds were forming above the adjacent Volcan Miravalles. Gradually they moved over Rincon and then headed towards the shore. We stopped on our way home to admire the setting sun color these clouds different shades of pink and blue.

I set up my tripod for one last picture and was lucky to press the shutter at the right time. Got it!!

Life in August and September

2011-10-08T06:56:00.004+02:00

The hills are certainly green now, greener than in this picture which was taken back in May. We've apparently had slightly less rain than normal. Mornings are usually dry, with rain and quite often thunder in the late afternoon, evening and night.

We needed a desk in our house and asked a local carpenter to make us one (no IKEA here). This is the result of our dictionary-aided conversations, a beautiful desk made of Guanacaste wood.

Last week I went back to his workshop and this time without a dictionary. Hopefully next week we'll get another desk for the boys and a bookshelf.

The boys at the independence day parade sipping pipa frias with their friend Truman.

Tuomas and Jenher have been best friends since day one.

In August we were invited to our neighbour's daughter's 15th birthday boat cruise. This is Stefanie jumping from the boat. Risto and Tuomas were happy to take turns with the nine bikini-clad girls.

Stefany's adoptive mother Heather and I pretending to be mermaids.

John, Stefany's adoptive father enjoying the ocean. Their family of three are wonderful neighbours who have helped us a lot and are also dear friends.

After jumping and swimming around the boat we went to the beach for a bbq and games. One of the games was trying to hit the orange ball with a plantain tied around your waist.

Another fun game was to try to move a cookie from your eye to your mouth without hands.

We also found a dead sea snake. Oh, btw, I am not holding it.

We enjoyed some water sports, too.

Jaakko was very happy to be in the water and not go on a banana boat ride.

I was the designated photographer and DH the handyman.

In addition to fun-fun stuff we have also pulled a couple of teeth, two from Jaakko (his first ones) and one from Tuomas. Don't worry, new ones are growing.

DH working on his computer. Or actually he was listening to music full blast. I don't remember which was louder, the music or the snoring. So, if you happen to fall asleep with your hands on the keyboard you get q-tips in your mouth and a photograph.

Another beautiful sunset.

I went on a photo shoot with a local photographer. We left at 6 am, drove to the top of a hill and worked there until the sun had risen completely.

Then we headed to the nearby village of Guardia to take pictures of local people. She was one of a group of students.

She really loved her parakeet.

Swimming in the rain, but it's not really cold

Our traditional wedding anniversary picture was taken at the sunset lookout point.

We asked the boys to set the table for our anniversary dinner. They wanted us to stay in the bedroom while they worked. Candles and a bottle of wine opened. And it was not a screw top bottle! I'm not sure if I should be proud of my 9-year-old for being able to do that. I don't know who was responsible for the plates, but he did not set one for DH.

Animals

2011-10-05T20:14:00.007+02:00

These pictures are in no specific order. I know I should up-date more often, but life in paradise is still normal life with three boys.

This post is about animals that we've encountered lately, dead, alive or fictional.
Gray hawk greeted me up in the tree behind our house one morning. I took quickly a couple of pictures with my zoom lens and then got my tripod to get an even better picture. Once I had it set up, the hawk had flown away.
We have also seen a squirrel cuckoo. The rainy season makes bird watching a challenge because of the foliage.
One more Izzy-Lizzy.
This poisonous cascavel, rattle snake, was not a welcome guest on our deck. I tried to shoo it away with a broom and it just curled and hissed at me. Then I tried my luck with the pool net, but no success. It just didn't understand that I wanted it to leave and I did not want to kill it. Well, then some workers came to our deck, saw it "muy malo!" and chopped it into pieces.
We had tons of bugs at the beginning of the rainy season. In the evenings we saw them flying against our screen door and most mornings I could sweep half a liter of dead bugs from the deck.
And some of them were quite big! But one gets gradually used to them, though I did scream when I opened a kitchen cabinet door and out crawled a bug almost 10 cm long.

We called these the mac-mac frogs. When the rainy season started they were everywhere. Literally thousands of them squished on the roads and singing their never-ending mac-mac-mac-mac-mac mating song in the night. For the first couple of nights we could hardly sleep. When one started with a short innocent mac-mac he was soon joined in song by thousands. We had one in our bathtub, too. DH tried to get him out with a broom, but it just hopped 1 m up on the wall.

I had to look twice at this insect before I was sure that it wasn't a leaf. A beautiful creature.

Huge moths are regular night guests.

Red snapper with garlic and butter, que rico! I just don't like their eyes.
Anorectic fish on the beach.
This cute puff fish was getting quite crispy on the beach. No wonder it was attracted by the fly.
Opossum in 2D.
There floppy-eared cows are everywhere. They have a gentle gaze, but I keep a distance or preferably a fence between the bulls and myself.
Our bat family has one more member. See the baby underneath the mother!
I spotted this huge wasp nest high up in a tree. Apparently they are a very nasty type of wasp, over an inch long and venomous. The nest itself was well over 1.5m long!

I've been riding quite a few times at a nearby finca. One Saturday we rode on the back roads, over the hills in the forest surrounded by all the mysterious sounds, dozens of butterflies and even a few mono congos, howler monkies. We ended up on Playa Panama, galloping on the beach! The boys are too inexperienced to join on these rides, but Risto and Tuomas took one lesson which was unfortunately interrupted by thunder and rain. I took Tuomas another time. He gets frustrated very quickly, but is willing to learn more.Tuomas riding Tuto.
Risto riding Palo.
Me on Milennium. Note: no saddle!

Results of art class. The penguin on the left is Tuomas', the one on the right is Jaakko's. Risto's elephant is top left, Tuomas' on the right and Jaakko's at the bottom. Art classes for Tuomas are very frustrating. The blank white paper just scares him and nothing is accomplished without tears. I'm trying to help him to get over this, but it is not easy. For either of us.

Finland, Finland, Finland

2011-08-17T17:38:00.010+02:00

Midsummer was spent at my parents' summer cottage in south eastern Finland.
Sunset at my parents' summer place around midsummer.
Good old Finnish sauna. Gentle warmth.
I made some roses out of egg cartons. These just need to be dipped in melted parafin and then can be used to light a fire.
New potatoes with dill, yummy. This was what we had longed for in Costa Rica. And liver casserole.
Gravad salmon. Just makes my mouth water. These with new potatoes and dill, dill, dill.
A Finnish butterfly.
The mouse game the boys loved to play.

My mother-in-law turned 70.

We spent one week in central Finland visiting DH's aunt.
Tuomas riding Gloi so fast that it made his Great Aunt almost scream with fear. He was a natural on the horse!
DH's birthday was celebrated in advance. Aunty made a cake with strawberries and I candied pansies.
An old door with an old key.
A small forest lake in central Finland around 10 PM. Only the bears watched us swimming naked.
Another scene from the lake.
There were a few ripe cloudberries near the forest lake. This one is still a bit raw. The ripe ones are golden orange.
We picked some wild strawberries and bilberries.

Yay, one of the fish Jaakko caught. It was big enough for the neighbor's cat.
Tuomas caught some, too.
Risto played golf while we were fishing.

DH turned 40.
For his 40th birthday DH got to go flying above Helsinki and Espoo. He was joined by Tuomas and Risto. Jaakko and I were very happy to stay on solid ground.
Helsinki City seen from the air.

One of the few pictures of me taken at DH's birthday party.
Art above the streets in Helsinki.

Finnish summers have never been so warm and gentle as this summer. But after five weeks it was time to say good-bye and head back home to Costa Rica.

This time we flew back to Costa Rica via Newark and slept one night there. It was a good choice, getting over the jet-lag a bit.
My trio in Newark, waiting for the ride to New York.
New York seen from New Jersey.
New York looked spooky.
Risto said he didn't sleep while we went for a quick spin on Manhattan. I tried to shake them awake, they opened their eyes, but registered nothing.

The First Six Months in Costa Rica

2011-06-16T06:11:00.003+02:00

Edit: it's a shame that the resolution is so low. Don't know how to get it higher.

Pictures

2011-05-16T06:52:00.002+02:00

World Champions!!!! DH and the boys had fun watching the finals over the internet.
I was lucky to get close enough to a turquoise browed mot-mot to get a decent picture. We see them on a daily basis in our neighborhood.
The hills are so ready for the rainy season. We've had a couple of showers and there is more green in the scenery, but most of the plants are on the crispy side.

Yes, I'm here, too. To get my picture taken I have to take a tripod and shoot it myself.

Art

2011-05-16T06:42:00.005+02:00

I took the boys to an art class Saturday morning a week ago. They weren't too excited, especially Tuomas who is hyper-critical about his work and usually refuses to do anything since he knows that it will never look perfect or at least the way he wants it to look. But they don't do much art at school nor at home, and I want them to try to do something artsy and creative.

A wonderful couple take turns in teaching the kids and this time the theme was to make musical instruments of colored paper. Once Tuomas got the hang of it he said he enjoyed it.

This week's Saturday I took the very reluctant two younger boys to class again to paint a picture of penguins. Again a very difficult start for Tuomas, but again he said that he quite enjoyed it. Go figure!! We left the penguins there to dry, so I'll post a picture later.

Jaakko's guitar and drums.
Tuomas' electric guitar.

Cats

2011-05-16T06:22:00.005+02:00

One afternoon after basketball practice we took one of the students back to his home. The boys got out of the car and immediately found two kittens in the yard. They were tiny little creatures, with crusty eyes due to infection and the other one had been thoroughly licked by the family's dog. Apparently it wasn't the first time somebody had thrown unwanted kittens over their fence and they didn't really care for them; the coatis would take care of them unless they'd die of dehydration during the night.

But I wanted to rescue them! I called a couple of friends trying to get a hold of the people who take rescue cats, but was unsuccessful. It was getting late and we had to go home, but I didn't want to leave the kittens. DH wasn't too happy about having the kittens in the car with no plans about their future. Luckily our neighbor finally said that I could bring them over for the night and she'd take them to a friend of hers the next morning.

We washed them, put some medicine in their eyes and gave them milk and food. The other one ate a lot, but the other one was exhausted after a few bites. The future didn't look too bright for that one.

To my relief they both survived the night and after first being named Laurel and Hardy they have now been re-named Ben and Jerry by the woman to whom our neighbor took the kittens. She already has nine cats and can't keep Ben and Jerry, but has a hard time giving them to anyone else!

Maquenque

2011-05-09T03:35:00.016+02:00

The boys had a week vacation around Easter and we wanted to make a small trip. And besides the beaches get really crowded around Semana Santa, so it was either staying at home or leaving town.

A friend of ours recommended a small, family-owned lodge close to the Nicaraguan border. This time we made sure to take two batteries for the camera!

All things packed in the car (with the excitement of finding a leaking pipe in our storage room the night before) we hit the road leaving iPods and PSPs home. We did take our computer, but ended up not using it at all, since the lodge had no internet connection. Mobile phones didn't work there either. Risto packed a couple of board games and books.

We had driven the road to Arenal, our half-way point, the year before. Then the sky had been overcast and it had rained. This time the weather gods were friendly. We saw the volcano in all its glory.
Before Arenal we made a stop to have a snack and because Jaakko was feeling nauseous. A year ago he had recycled his toffee-filled doughnut in the car. This time he got out of the car to recycle some nachos. The road around Arenal lake is really winding, and I guess DH can't help his Finnish rally-driving genes hitting in. Maybe the third time driving to Arenal we remember to drive slowly and not to feed Jaakko anything!

From Arenal we continued past La Fortuna to Pital where we took the gravel road towards the Nicaraguan border and Maquenque lodge. The road was lined with hibiscus and dracaena hedges.
And behind the hedges were vast fields of pineapples.
I had to take a closer look to see if there were tin cans of pineapple hidden inside the plants.

After five hours of driving, the last 45 km taking the last hour, we arrived at the parking place of the lodge. We were picked up from there and taken on a boat across the river to the lush and tranquil premises. The rainforest was full of different sounds, birds flying in the garden. A paradise.
The water here is not the river, but a lagoon. The main building with the restaurant is on the left and you can see a few of the cabins on the right.
The cabins did not have a wall all the way up to the roof, but a meshed section of about 1 m tall. You could hear the sounds of the jungle all through the night. And the other guests could hear Jaakko wake up 5:15 the first morning full of rage because nobody wanted to play Monopoly with him. We had played it for the first time the night before and he was all into real estate and demanded a replay immediately!

This was the view from our balcony. We did go on a canoeing trip there with the boys. Just the thing Indiana Jones would do!

The full moon over the lagoon. With a flashlight you could get the eyes of the caimans shine like two diamonds. The first morning we went on a three hour guided walk in the rain forest and learned a lot about the plants and animals.
Izzy-Lizzy was kind enough to stay still so I could come closer and take a picture. Most of the birds were not as polite and it was frustrating to fiddle with my camera and try to take a picture in decent focus.
Tuomas spotted this lizard hiding next to a bush.
Emerald Basilisk basking in the sun.
This one is called the Jesus Christ Lizard since it can walk on water.

We started in the medicinal plant garden seeing in addition to numerous interesting medicinal plants
vanilla,
Ylang-ylang,
filipita banana which according to our guide grows faster and taller than bananas.
The colours, shapes and smells of the plants were amazing. And quite a few of them I remembered seeing in flower shops in Finland! This one, as far as I understand, is the Heliconia mathiasiae.

Our family on the rain forest walk. The tree behind us had a beautiful monkey ladder vine growing on it.

A closer look of the escalera de mono.
I was told that this one is a brown vine snake. First of all it's green and it doesn't look like the brown vine snake I googled. More importanly, it stayed put for a long time for me to take a picture!! And it wasn't poisonous nor aggressive.
Risto and Tuomas looking at a walking palm.
Fruit of Apeia membranacea that monkeys use to scratch themselves with.
A Green and Black Poisonous Dart Frog. It was difficult to take pictures in the quite dark forest with three, small, blond heads in front of the camera lens and usually making enough of movement and noise to scare all the critters away. I hate photos that are not in focus.
Tuomas trying to do as the native indians did, i.e. burn the fluffy stuff containing the seed of the balsa tree. The natives used the burning balsa fluff to transfer fire from place to place.

After relaxing in the pool after lunch we decided to go on a night walk after dinner. Due to the full moon most of the predators, i.e. poisonous snakes, were hiding. It would have been interesting to see the deadliest snake, Fer de Lance, but maybe it was a good thing that we didn't. We saw the eyes of the caymans shine in the lagoon, interesting fire flies,
a Central American Smooth Gecko,
another frog,
a cicada molting.

The next morning we went canoeing in the lagoon, and afternoon was spent on a boat cruise on the Rio San Carlos. A lot of birds,
a huge iguana,
a turtle,
bambu.

We stopped at Boca San Carlos, a stone's throw away from Nicaragua. The boys had a chat with the local policia
We walked through the village
spotting a cacao tree on our way to
the high-school. But what really made the whole trip worth wile in the boys' opinion was this
A crocodile!

The highlight in my opinion was my 1.5 hour bird watching tour the last morning. I spotted (with the help of my guide, and only due to the help of my guide) 24 different species. Again, not having good binoculars nor decent lens for photographing birds was slightly annoying, but I did see scarlet macaws fly right above me!

We learned a lot about the nature during our short stay!

Panama, Panama

2011-03-28T23:23:00.009+02:00

After reading this post you might want to think twice about vacationing with our family.

We did our visa-run to Panama. We had to leave Costa Rica for 72 hours (remember this number, 72 hours is 3 days.... ok?) to get our passports stamped for the next 90 days. DH booked the flight tickets from San Jose which meant that we left early Tuesday morning a couple of weeks ago and started driving to the capital city. Tickets were a lot cheaper from San Jose and besides we needed to get a new license plate for our car and to have the car serviced because it didn't pass the inspection. And the car dealership we bought the car from was in San Jose.

Our flight left Tuesday evening and we started driving south around 9 am since you never know how long the trip will take. After 10 minutes of driving DH asks me if I had packed the camera battery charger. I hadn't since we didn't need a charger since the battery was fully loaded. I had placed the battery charger + battery next to the printer, and DH had unplugged the charger in order to use the same chord for the printer to print our tickets. And he said that he had packed the camera. We didn't need the charger. Even though he asked me to check the bag, I didn't do it since we simply didn't need the charger.

The drive to San Jose went smoothly, left the car at the shop and had Walter, our taxi driver take us to the airport across town. We agreed with Walter that he'd pick up the car on Friday and drive it to the airport for us to pick on Saturday.

We arrived in Panama safely, smooth flight. Another taxi driver took us to Casco Viejo, old part of Panama City. We stayed at an apartment which was just perfect for us. The building had been renovated and the view from the roof terrace was spectacular. It was an amazing mixture of old and new, rundown and renovated. The first picture and the two below are from the roof terrace.

This is one of the restored buildings in Casco Viejo, but some buildings had only the facade left with scaffoldings holding it erect. Due to our short stay and the concentration span of the boys, we decided not to do any heavy touristing. A friend of ours recommended to visit the metropolitan park and of course we couldn't miss the canal.

Trying to get a decent picture is sometimes a challenge. Well.... Wednesday morning we took a stroll around Casco Viejo, making sure we didn't cross the red line drawn on our map. The neighborhood just north of Casco Viejo was.... mildly rough. With 100% probability you'd be volunteering into making a donation to the guy holding a gun. After about half an hour of enjoying the architecture I decided to grab my camera. It felt quite light. This can't be true.... yes, no battery. (Omitting the exchange of words between spouses). And then we decided to go shopping... at least for a battery. Taxi rides are amazingly cheap in Panama City, and the traffic is crazy (they honk their horns even more than in Costa Rica) and most of the times we just hoped that the car doors wouldn't suddenly open and we wouldn't be needing the seat belts that were missing. Air-conditioned malls were quite nice, but we really didn't do much shopping. Bought a new battery and of course we needed to buy a charger, too. Chi-ching, money well spent.

By the time we got back to our apartment, it was dinner time. Just went for pizza around the corner, though Tuomas just wanted two plates of fruit salad. When we got back from our dinner we enjoyed the sunset from the roof terrace. The next morning we'd head out early to the metropolitan park and the canal with a camera that would work.

Jaakko is sometimes over-sensitive with tastes and smells. So that night his inner system decided that the pink, princess toothpaste (I didn't buy it...) was yucky, so he recycled his pizza, the whole pizza. Luckily we were in the bathroom and he hit the sink. The toilet bowl would've been better, but I have learned not to complain about minor issues.
The next morning, Thursday, just as we were leaving and hiding all our valuables in the apartment, we couldn't find Tuomas' PSP-portable (believe me, those things just cause trouble, don't buy them). We looked everywhere, asked Tuomas where he had used it last, turned beds and sofas inside out. No where! Everything else was there, but this one was gone. We had only been away for the dinner the previous night and half an hour on the roof top and now it was gone. Could someone have stolen it during that time? Almost an hour later we gave up, packed all our valuables into a backpack and took the taxi to the park. We were all grumpy. Tuomas had a runny stomach, Jaakko was angry, and DH didn't feel too well, either. We didn't bring enough to drink so Jaakko was extremely grumpy (more like screaming) during our trail in the park which itself was worth the visit. We saw birds and leaf cutter ants, and it smelled like in a flower shop.

Jaakko holding a flower of some tree.
The contrast in the view was again strong, a combination of lush tropical forest and skyscrapers.

Even though my friend had suggested that the best time to visit the park would be early in the morning it still was worth the visit.

The Miraflores locks just a taxi ride away were spectacular. We all enjoyed watching the huge ships and teeny-tiny-little catamarans go through the locks.
Here you can see two tug-engines helping the huge ship pass the locks.
Aren't we engineers smart to have come up with this magnificent system of locks that huge ships can pass through! I found the little tug-engines fascinating.

The obligatory touristy picture.

After lunch we visited the exhibition and honestly I thought it would be only one room, but it was actually 4 floors! The canal simulator kept the boys occupied for half an hour.

After the canal visit we headed for the mall again, this time to buy DH some sneakers and a pair of swimming shorts for Risto. His old ones were falling apart. The keep it short, DH got his sneakers and Risto got his swimming shorts. He was looking at a pair of $50 Billabong ones (my trendy little 9-year-old), but I talked him into wanting a slightly cheaper pair (not by much, but still a bit cheaper). After I paid for them he wanted me to carry the bag for him. I was already carrying a very heavy backpack with all the valuables we had not wanted to leave at the apartment, so I told him that he's fully capable of carrying the bag straight to the taxi. Which he did. Took a taxi to the apartment and when we opened the door Risto realized that he had left the bag in the taxi. Timo ran around Casco Viejo trying to find our yellow cab among all the other yellow cabs driving around, but gave up after ten minutes. Chi-ching, money well spent.

After all that hassle I continued looking for the PSP, because I never give up. Finally I looked inside the kitchen cabinet DH had already checked and there behind the single item in the cabinet was the lost PSP. "Oh, now I remember. That's where I put it!!!", said my dear, sweet squirrel husband.

Friday morning took us via the ice-cream shop for a bicycle ride on the Causeway. The boys really enjoyed their freedom riding bikes after more or less 4 months. Our choice of the granny-bike was not a good one, it was heavy and cumbersome.

After spending a couple of hours in the sun and heat, we headed, surprise-surprise, for the mall again. We had decided to buy a digital piano and they were (we think....) cheaper here in Panama. Went to the mall, got a piano (and $6 swimming shorts for Risto) and then headed back to our apartment with a taxi driver we had met before! How likely is it to see the same one in this huge city!

The evening was relaxing, DH picked take-away from a nearby restaurant and we enjoyed the roof terrace with its views the last time.

Just as the boys were ready for bed I was writing our contact details on the piano's cardboard box. I wanted to write the flight number, too, so I needed to check our tickets. The ticket said that the flight was on March 11th, 8:35 AM. It was March 11th about 8:35 PM!!!! Our tickets were supposed to be for March 12th in the morning since we needed to be out of the country for 72 hours. Our travel agent, a.k.a DH, had somehow forgotten how to change 72 hours into days and booked the tickets for the wrong day. After half an hour of frantic phone calls looking for the cheapest way of getting out of the country (there was always an option of having somebody drive us to the border and ask Walter, our taxi driver in San Jose, to pick us up..... ), DH finally got tickets for the morning flight. It wasn't cheap. Chi-ching, money well spent.

View from the roof terrace to the Causeway.
Saturday morning we had the last glimpses of the colorful Panamanian buses. Taxi to the airport with all three children healthy, hand luggage, one suitcase and one piano. Yeah, the piano. It was over-sized. And even though we had only one piece of luggage they still wanted us to pay for the piano. We even threw in a white lie that we had missed our flight because the kids had been sick, but that didn't help. $100 fee + $7 taxes. Boy, it was a cheap piano. Chi-ching, money well spent.

The flight was uneventful. We had a wonderful view of the whole canal, the Caribbean and Pacific sides in full view. Walter was at the airport to meet us, we drove him home and then waited 45 minutes for a wholesale store to open. DH stayed in the car with Tuomas to keep an eye on the luggage and I went on a shopping spree with Risto and Jaakko. You can get groceries and other stuff cheaper there; Guanacaste is very expensive. Then Jaakko got lost. I was running up and down the aisles and getting more worried by the minute. Finally I asked help from a salesperson (in Spanish, I might add) with tears running down my cheeks. I had already asked Risto to go back to our car and tell DH. But shortly after Risto walked back with Jaakko crying. When he had realized that he was lost he had walked out back to our car. I was so relieved!!! The I just quickly finished the shopping, took the boys to the bathroom (Tuomas' stomach wasn't back to normal) and then we packed the car with all our shoppings and boys and...... the motor didn't start!!!!! DH had been listening to the radio and the battery had died. At this point we just shrugged our shoulders, laughed and said "Pura Vida" before calling Walter to help us. Luckily he lived less than a kilometer away and was happy to help. We tried to start our car with his car battery, but ended up taking the battery off our car and Walter took it home to recharge it. And that worked!! Our quick trip to the store had taken almost three hours.

We drove a different route home through San Ramon. The drive was ok with spectacular scenery, not too much traffic and only one piece of lumber on the road that hit the bottom of our car caused some concern.

The earthquake and the tsunami hit Japan while we were in Panama. So when you put things into perspective we had a great trip!

The next trip might take us to Nicaragua. Anybody want to join? DH will book the tickets for you.

Pictures

2011-03-07T02:44:00.004+02:00

I signed up for a 10 km race. The race was held on Saturday at 4 PM. The day before the race I heard a rumor that it had been re-scheduled to start at 9 AM. I went to the shop where I registered and the guy there didn't know anything about the race, but referred me to "Bish Bash" bar to a woman called Evie. I hadn't heard of "Bish Bash" Bar, but he told me where to find it. Well, I found "Beach Bum" bar and Evie, who told me that the race is indeed at 9 AM. Well, our whole family went to the starting place of the race at 8:30 the next morning. Nobody was there. We came back 10 minutes later to find two guys wearing the organizers t-shirts. They were happy to tell me that the race had been re-re-scheduled to start at 4 PM. About 30 people showed up at 4 PM. Just before the start of the race one of the organizers announced that women are only running to the top of the hill and back "since 10 km is a bit too much for the ladies". If I hadn't been sick on Thursday I'd have run the whole 10 km, but weighing then a couple of kg's less than on Thursday morning and with the afternoon heat I was happy with the up-the-hill-and-back, 6 km total.
Our neighbor is a mosaic artist. She set up a small workshop for some of her friends and I was invited to join them. I made this turtle.

Jaakko and I made oatmeal cookies, my mother's recipe.
Because of the butter content the cookies don't stay nice and crispy in this heat. But it didn't really matter, since we ate them pretty quickly.

Our car didn't pass the motor vehicle inspection because according to the inspector our license plate is illegible. Ummm, ok.
Our pet, Osmo's brother having lunch in our tree.
Hibiscus next to our pool.
Newly painted Coco Skate Park. The design is by a local artist, Carlos Hiller.
The pictures were sketched on the walls and everybody could paint. My masterpiece is the black sword Tuomas is holding.

"Lead us not into temptation" is not made easy.
We found this newborn snake on our patio. It was only about 15 cm long. Apparently poisonous, but not deadly. And besides it was so small that it would've been impossible for it to bite.

20-pointed origami paper star

2011-02-24T04:24:00.008+02:00

I was asked to make a tutorial on how to make a 20-pointed origami paper star. Our au-pair taught me how to make one 3-4 years ago. I can't recall the last stages of making it, there must be an easier way than I do it. I have done it by making two identical halves and then joining these halves which is really a hassle. Last Christmas I made one again using a different technique, a simpler one. And for the life of me I can not remember what I did!!! A couple of nights ago I was putting the modules together and taking them apart trying to figure out what I did last time and what I was doing wrong now. I almost ended up scrunching the papers until I finally got the 30 pieces of paper look like a star. So here is my tutorial:
First, you need 30 square shaped papers. Copypaper thickness is fine. And they need to be exact squares and you need to be meticulous with your folding. Otherwise your star will end up wonky.
Fold it in half. Simple
Fold it in half again in the other direction. Simple
Fold one corner to the center. Are you following me on this?
Do it for the opposite corner, too.
Now flip the paper over. Look at my right hand in the upper left corner: the middle finger is on the folded line and the index finger is on the fold you just did on the previous step. Now you need to fold that fold underneath the index finger onto the line that the middle finger is pointing at. Yeah, a bit tricky to explain.
Hopefully your paper looks like this now. (Edit: Here folded edge of the paper is folded on the horizontal fold line. You can do it either on the horizontal or vertical fold line, but make them all the same. Otherwise you'll end up with mirror image modules that can not be joined!)
Repeat the fold on the opposite side of the paper.
Flip the paper around again. Now my middle and index fingers of my right hand in the upper left corner of the photo are pointing at two corners of two different folds. Your next fold line will be between these two corners.
Ta-dah! Like this. Hopefully your paper looks the same.
And once again repeat the fold on the opposite side.
Flip the paper over one more time. Now you fold the small piece sticking from underneath over the paper.
Do it on the opposite side again.
Then fold the whole thing in half. This is your building block.
Now repeat it 29 times. This is tedious, but you'll learn the folds pretty quickly. Using different colours helps especially the first time in the final stages.
Each point of the star is made up of three modules. Open the folds on one half of the module and slip it into the "pocket" of another module. (Edit: here the folds open to the left. If you have modules where the folds open to the right, it doesn't matter, just as long as they all open in the same direction. If you have mirror image modules, see above the previous edit.)
Like this.
You can see the joining of the blue and green modules more clearly in this pictures. You need a third module (red in this picture) for the point of the star. Join it the same way.
And then turn the remaining part of the red module around the blue module to form a star point.
And then slip the red module into the "pocket" of the blue one. This is a bit tricky, but it can be done without tearing the paper. The first point is ready!
Now make two rosettes of five points, joining the modules in a similar fashion. You will need 10 modules for each rosette. Next to each point there is a "loose" end of a module (red, orange, blue, green and fuchsia).
Now take one of the five-point-rosettes (you're making this into a 10-point rosette) and add one module to each of the loose ends (you'll need 5 modules to do this). Compare the pictures of the rosettes and this pictures. I've added (going clockwise) a purple module to the red loose end, orange to the blue, red to the green, light blue to the fuchsia and yellow to the orange loose end. So now you have the original five-pointed rosette and next to these points are points that are 2/3 ready and then the loose ends (purple, orange, red, blue and yellow). At this point you have used 25 modules and you should have 5 left. Unfortunately I don't have pictures between this stage and the complete star. I was getting frustrated late in the evening when things weren't working out and I just wanted to get the star done.
Now you use one module to join the 2/3 ready point and the loose end one resulting in a point and 2/3 ready point. In the above picture, lower left corner, you would join the purple (loose end) and orange-yellow 2/3-ready to form a point of orange-yellow-and-whichever-colour-module-you-used-to-join-them. Now you should have four modules left to join the rest four 2/3 ready point and loose end. It's a bit difficult to explain this, I hope you're not completely lost.

When you have used all 20 modules, you should have a 5-point rosette with 5 loose ends (using 10 modules) and a 5-point rosette surrounded by another 5 points and 5 points that are 2/3 ready (10-points, built with 20 modules). Put these two parts facing each other and joint the loose ends in the 5-point rosette with the 2/3 ready points in the 10-point rosette).
I hope you have something like this in your hand and that your bloodpressure is down! Let me know if you need further instructions!

Everyday life

2011-02-16T18:28:00.006+02:00

We had visitors from Finland for two weeks. So while the boys have been at school we've took short day trips in the vicinity, mostly to places we've visited before. This mural was on the Monkey Trail on the way to Potrero. I am not sure what, if anything, was behind the wall.

A lonely tree on the Monkey Trail.

The Monkey Trail took us to Playa Conchal. I was feeling slightly guilty that we were here and the boys were at school, but that feeling passed in about a nano-second.
Swimming at this waterfall again. Nice.
Dear Husband with his mother.
Our relatives named this lizard that lives next to our pool Osmo. He's a shy guy.
Sunset at the lookout point in Playa Hermosa.
Playa Panama north of Playa Hermosa at sunset.
Look what I received in the mail. My name was on the package, but for some reason my family thought I should share all these goodies. Hmm.... mine and mine only. Not happy about sharing....
DH's aunt and I took a boat trip in Palo Verde. We saw a lot of birds. Unfortunately my camera lens is not good enough for decent ornithology pictures.
White-faced monkeys. Cute faces hide the sharp teeth.
This one had teeth to brag about! Beautiful creature.
These bats sleep in a line on the treetrunk so that predators think it's a snake.
These were insect-eating bats.
Nocturnal boat-billed heron in Palo Verde.
Our guide said that this tree is a couple of hundred years old.

Las Hornillas

2011-02-16T17:13:00.007+02:00

We spent a day at Las Hornillas at Volcan Miravalles.
So peaceful when you don't hear our boys fighting in the back seat.
We started by taking a walk in the cloudforest. The first waterfall seen from the hanging bridge.
The same waterfall downstream.
Happy family by the waterfall.
It was constantly raining in the forest. Or actually we were just inside a cloud.
This was one scary bridge. The wind was so strong that the bridge was swaying, no railing to hold on to except for a narrow wire. Tuomas and Jaakko were close to tears, and I was scared, too. And Risto could've stayed there for hours just filming everything. Children are so different.
After the cool (temperature and otherwise) walk in the cloudforest we headed for the hot springs and mud pools. The smokey surroundings at Las Hornillas.
Sulphur reeking from underground.
Bubbling pot of mud. Hearing and seeing it makes you not want to touch it; it was boiling hot!

This guy didn't mind the smell of the boiling sulphur pots.
Mud treatment for my dear husband. Oh, he looked years younger after it!
I did it, too. So much fun and it really made your skin smoother.

School

2011-02-16T16:02:00.002+02:00

School started two weeks ago. Risto is like a fish in the water, Tuomas and Jaakko are struggling more, but not once have we had to leave crying children at school!The first morning.
Tuomas was close to tears when I left him in his classroom, but when we picked them up he was laughing and had found a new friend.
Tuomas has had a hard time expressing himself, so the teacher suggested I make him some helper cards. They are in Finnish on the other side (and he can read) and he drew the faces and the one with the teasing kid. Hopefully these will prevent him from having another total melt down at school.

Tuomas 7 years!!!

2011-01-30T04:31:00.004+02:00

The birthday boy was patient enough to wait in bed until I got his cake ready. He was sooo happy and the cut in his finger didn't hurt anymore.
Presents were hidden underneath a blanket on the dinner table: a skate board, magnifying glass for studying all the small critters, a wooden sign with his name on it and a can of sweet corn he had wished for.
Chocolate-banana- strawberry cake smothered with whipped cream for breakfast. Tuomas said that it tasted better than store-bought ones. I believe him (since I baked the cake...). It was a lot of work since we don't have an electric mixer and I had to do it manually!
There is a shop close to the boys' school that does wooden signs. The guy there speaks hardly any English, but this is what I managed to order from him using my dictionary.
The boys were fascinated when I showed them what can be done with a magnifying glass. We just have to be careful not to set the whole neighborhood on fire later on in the dry season!
Tuomas wanted sushi for birthday lunch.
The waiter surprised him with some cake!
After lunch we went to the skate park. We had drinks, chips and cookies for the boys' friends there and had a small birthday fiesta. Dylan and Tuomas are good friends.
Los chicas: Jimena, Ariadna and Dana.
Most of the gang: Juan, Martin, Diego, Johann, Ariadna, Alexander, Dylan, Jimena and Dana.

Snake in paradise

2011-01-29T23:53:00.003+02:00

Tuomas and I spotted this cute little snake in the citrus tree next to the pool. I hadn't really noticed that we have a citrus tree there and was surprised to see a fruit there, too. A fruit, just behind the snake.
He was a quick one, apparently non-venomous, but still we kept our distance.
Maybe the snake was a bad omen. Tuomas cut his finger on the shower door and was taken to the doctor, since it looked so deep it might have needed stitches. Luckily none were needed, but he wasn't too happy on the last night being six years old.

Pulla!

2011-01-26T04:51:00.004+02:00

I wanted pulla. And I knew I had the ingredients. I had bought levadura (dry yeast) from the local grocery store during our first week here. And we had leche in the fridge, huevos, too. And the blanco stuff, harina y azucar. Mantequilla to add to the dough and also spread inside the cinnamon rolls with canela y azucar. And a bottle of wine to use as a rolling pin (I used Chilean Santa Carolina, 2006, but I doubt it makes a huge difference in the end). I was a bit hesitant about using dry yeast and the directions being a bit vague, but I wanted pulla so bad that I gave it a try even after realizing that the core ingredient of Finnish pulla, cardamomo, was missing! Working up the dough with my bare hands was fun albeit a lot of work. I've usually been lazy and let the machine take care of it.
Ta-dah! Raw korvapuustis are considered a delicacy in our family. My father loves them as do my boys, except for Tuomas. I had one.... or maybe two. The combination of butter (and not margarine!!!), sugar and cinnamon is mouthwatering.
I let them rest for about 15 minutes before baking. Cold milk is best with fresh pulla, the bottle was just used as a rolling pin and left un-opened.
Some people brush the cinnamon rolls with eggs before heat treatment at +225C, but I often skip that. We ate more than ten, but there are some left for breakfast.

Random pictures, random thoughts

2011-01-22T18:11:00.006+02:00

Hacienda Pinilla, 15 th green again. Golf is very demanding in this heat, demanding for a beginner (i.e. me) and even more demanding with 3 boys. Our family golf rounds have been miles from fun: somebody is always grumpy, not wanting to play, fighting who gets to drive the golf cart. Maybe one day...
Tuomas on Risto's patineta. Risto enjoys skateboarding with the teenagers. Once I was there with him and talked for a couple of hours to children more of his age who were watching the skateboarders. There was Juan, Dylan, Mariano, Adriana, Alexander and me with my dictionary! But I learned a lot during those couple of hours and not just Spanish.
Yeah, a palm tree. Looks wonderful, doesn't it. I should post pictures about not so nice sceneries, too.
Jaakko made me a card on my nameday. I wrote first what he wanted to say and then he copied it. One spelling mistake and one word written half-way right to left.
A mango tree at the skate park. The children threw rocks to get their hands on the raw fruit and then gnawed on the hard fruit. I managed to ask it they didn't get a stomach ache for eating that, but apparently the taste (which could be recognized as a mango, but .... raw, extremely raw) was so good in their opinion that a minor ache didn't bother them.
Lizard hiding behind the cacti at the golf course. They are beautiful creatures.
I cropped the awful looking trash cage on a pole from the left and just wanted to show you this colourful house. Vibrant colours!
Coco Beach Skate Park in all its glory.

2011-01-17T04:23:00.003+02:00

A waterfall less than an hours drive from home. The water was a bit chilly.
But Tuomas said that the water trickling down next to the main waterfall was very warm.

Sabanero at Santa Cruz fiesta. Unfortunately the caballo was too fast and his nose was cut off.
There were marimba players almost at every corner. Wonderful music!

What a rhythm he got out of his "cheese grater"!
We had lunch at the local tortilla factory. Best casado we've had in Costa Rica!

La cocina.
Ok, so where's the induction stove?
Carne.
Looked like it was more normal for kids to ride a horse than a bike.
Hacienda Pinilla golf course, 11th green. Risto's first birdie!!!!
15th green. The sun was setting and we couldn't play further.

Animals

2011-01-17T04:17:00.003+02:00

Risto is not afraid of holding these creatures.
A huge grasshopper on our window sill. It was over 20 cm long.
Howler monkey mother and baby at the waterfall.
Dead snake in San José.
Tarantula (?) just outside the house. We had one in our bedroom, too, but kindly escorted it out helped with a coating of raid and a looooong stick.

Pictures around Christmas 2010

2010-12-29T01:35:00.006+02:00

Luckily they have a football field in Playa Hermosa! Tuomas loves football, but he ended up with a nose bleed the first time we were there. Playing too hard!
Our friends above our entrance door. Lovely bats.

The skeletons of the construction business. And these are not the only unfinished houses in the neighborhood.
Tuomas at Borinquen Resort enjoying a hot water pool.
Risto doing the mudtreatment the proper way, i.e. letting the mud dry before washing it away.
Happy boys with DH's Christmas present!

Christmas pictures

2010-12-28T06:11:00.003+02:00

Christmas was understandably very different from what we are used to. But it wasn't too bad. The only decoration we had was a paper star I made.We had red snapper for dinner and Piña Coladas, of course. Before sun set we hurried to the roof terrace (the sun goes down pretty quickly!) and had our picture taken. The Pacific Ocean is right behind those trees, less than 1 km away. Later on in the dry season the leaves are gone and we can honestly say that we have an ocean view!

View to the neighbor's yard.

Playa Hermosa at sunset. During the day the sand gets so hot that it burns your feet.

At home!!!

2010-12-22T19:33:00.003+02:00

We have been at home, Playa Hermosa, for a week now!

The flight over was a long one, but went surprisingly well. No major set backs, except for Jaakko spraining his thumb at Frankfurt airport. It was swollen for a couple of days, but hasn't really slowed him down from fighting with his brothers. He's a real terrier, fighting bigger ones and not giving up. All three have been arguing a lot, which is understandable (but extremely annoying). It has been a huge change for the whole family.

The house is nice, the pool excellent. Jaakko can now swim unaided. We've had some reparations done in the house, but nothing major.

Pura Vida!

Six days

2010-12-07T23:54:00.002+02:00

The boys' bunk bed was sold today. Even though Jaakko helped carrying the pieces out of the house he was surprised that the bed was gone from his room. Poor boy, he has an ear infection. He described the pain as "I can feel my heartbeat in my ear". Painkillers before going to the doctor, antibiotics, still in pain, more painkillers, throwing up.... Finally fell asleep in our bed.
Oops, almost midnight, we're still moving stuff around in the house, vacuum cleaning spiders and dust.
Six days and about this time we're hopefully landing in Houston, Texas.
Almost exactly a year ago I came home late at night from a week long business trip in Switzerland. I was "attacked" by my husband immediately after walking into the house "I have this great idea for our next trip!!!!". And I wasn't excited. I wanted to stay at home, use the money for re-decorating the house, what about Risto's school, and I'd need to take extra vacation and I've travelled so much, I'd rather stay at home and besides I'm afraid of flying over the Atlantic. He kept whining about going to Costa Rica and actually ended up threatening to go with just Risto and I could stay at home and use my share of the money for re-decorating! Finally I gave in (and DH bought the tickets immediately!). And here we are now, moving to Costa Rica!

Saying goodbye

2010-12-04T22:19:00.002+02:00

We have 9 full days left. That's not much. We've been packing, selling stuff, organizing, making phone calls. Saying goodbye.
We've caught up with friends we haven't seen for years, made new friends in the last minute, we have really felt the love and support of our friends! Thank you so much!
We've said goodbye to the teachers at day-care. Cried. Tuomas was heartbroken the last time we picked him up from there. But the day after we had invited all the day-care teachers who had taught our boys over for a small celebration party. We had a wonderful evening.
Risto has 4 days of school and then it's over. He has his birthday party with a friend next Saturday, saying goodbye that way makes it probably easier.
The boys are anxious, arguing a lot. We are tired. I feel a panic bubbling underneath, but I try to suppress that feeling. Luckily I'm so busy that I don't think about the flight; I'm scared of flying over the Atlantic.
I'm surprised that I have absolutely no feelings towards this house. Maybe I'm suppressing that feeling too.
It's 10:30 PM, we've promised to work for one more hour and then call it a day.

Moving

2010-11-24T12:17:00.002+02:00

Sorry for the long radio silence, but life has been quite hectic.

We are moving in 20 days and need to empty the house before that. On December 14 we start a new life by stepping on the plane. The winter scene of Finland changes into Playa Hermosa, Costa Rica!

If you happen to be in the neighborhood next Saturday, November 27, you're most welcome to our garage sale from noon to 4 PM. We're selling most of our stuff since we'll travel light, with just our suitcases and not shipping anything over.

Hasta luego!

Dinner

2010-10-12T16:39:00.003+02:00

I bought chicken breast on Monday, eight juicy bits. This morning I put them in a pot with some chopped garlic, fresh basil and sundried tomatoes. I put the pot into the fridge, and showed Risto how to put the oven on at 175C and asked him to put the pot into the oven when he comes home from school. He called when school finished and asked if he could go to a friend. I let him go, but told him to be home early to put the chicken into the oven so we could have a nice, home-cooked dinner.
At 4:30PM he calls and says he's home. I ask him to put the chicken into the oven. "Oh, Mom, it's already in there!". Darn, the chicken's been at room temperature for 8 hours..... I guess we can eat it anyway. "Ok, dear, just turn the oven on." Risto:"It's on already. I put it on when I left for school!"
If you ever wondered what chicken breast cooked for EIGHT hours looks like, then have a peek. It was hours beyond crispy-on-the-outside-juicy-inside, believe me. I couldn't even poke a fork through it! When I finally got a piece cut off , by stretching my imagination I could find a tender part.

We're having frozen pizza tonight.

Wedding day!

2010-09-30T17:04:00.002+03:00

Our annual wedding day picture. Looks like we have twins and a younger child, but no. The boys are all 2 years apart.

We have enrolled the boys to the new school in Costa Rica, but that's about it. The house hasn't been sold yet and we have no idea so far where we're going to live in December. But something will turn up!

DH is off tomorrow to see his host family in Australia. 2 weeks alone with the boys will be a challenge.

Pediculus humanus var. capitis

2010-09-04T13:35:00.004+02:00

We came back home from Scotland at 1AM. Tuomas, as usual, had a total fit (happens often when he's tired), started screaming. This resulted in a massive nose bleed. He was jumping up and down in the bathroom, blood all over the place. And as usual, I didn't have the patience to deal with this when I'm tired. DH took over, and calmed the bleeding boy down. I started cleaning the floor, walls etc. And finally my maternal instinct came back and I was able to concentrate on the way too tired child. And that's when I saw it: something moving in his hair!

Before we left for Scotland I had seen some small black specks on his neck hair. I had pulled one out, studied it: not moving, no legs, must be a seed or something. The boys had been in the forest, crawling in bushes and hay, so seeds would be a logical explanation. Logical, but apparently not the correct answer.

Lice! Not the thing you want to meet for the first time in your life in the middle of the night. Risto and Jaakko were already in bed half asleep, so there was really no point in dragging them up again just to check the parasites. So, to avoid Tuomas from spreading them into his bed I shaved his head. Boy, was he unhappy!!

The two older boys were leaving for a basket ball camp early next morning with DH. In order to avoid them from spreading the zoo further I shaved Risto after I found that he had them, too. DH said straight away that his head could be shaved, too, lice or no lice. I know it's not necessary to cut your hair if you have lice, but there was no time to treat it with the special shampoo. Risto and Tuomas were raging mad at me:"You have to cut your hair, too!!!!"

I waited until Jaakko woke up, checked his hair, shaved it. Checked my hair, yuck. Could I trust a four year old to comb my hair thoroughly after the shampoo treatment to get rid of the whole zoo? How would I look without hair? Hmm... the older boys were pretty upset.... Jaakko, do you want to shave my head?

He had fun looking for my "side eyes" as I call them, the hidden eyes that mothers have underneath their hair.

I have got compliments on my new look, raised eyebrows from strangers. In the end, it's just hair (or the lack of it). I'm still the same person, it will grow back eventually. And how easy it is to wash!!!!

The toughest job

2010-06-23T18:00:00.003+03:00

What's the toughest job you can think of?

For the past five months we have been thinking about it. And now we're doing it! DH gave in his notice a week ago and I told my boss a couple of days later that we're packing our bags at the end of the year and moving to Costa Rica. To do the most demanding, yet fulfilling job: being a parent. The boys are old enough to enjoy the experience, yet still young enough to want to spend time with us.

It is our last summer in this house. We're selling the whole lot, except for what you can fit into 5 suitcases á 20 kg. So we have a couple of things to do, e.g. learn Spanish!

Hopefully, by Christmas 2010, we have returned to Guanacaste, Costa Rica!

Suffocating

2010-06-13T17:58:00.003+03:00

We have way too much stuff. "We" meaning us as a family, but also "we" as in general. I need to get rid of it, before I suffocate. But it is really, really hard for me. It took me two months to throw away boys' corduroy trousers that had been patched from the knees and torn from the buttocks. Two months they sat in the utility room waiting for their destiny. It wasn't for sentimental reasons. I just didn't want to throw them away just in case I found some use for them. But they were beyond thrift store quality. I just couldn't throw the fabric away. Finally one night I took my scissors, ripped the zipper (I might need it one day), saved a couple of buttons and elastic and cut the rest into rags. They're now in a plastic bag in the storage room to be used for cleaning... something... some day.
I found a black bin bag full of drawings from my school days. Also a project on husbandry in Finland. The first two newspaper clippings (from 1988) made me smile:"Warehouses full of wool" and "Beekeeping and research limping" (I know, pathetic translations, but you'll have to live with it). I have boxes and boxes of yarn and I'm dreaming of having an apiary.
How 80's the guy with the huge shoulder pads! Beginning of every school year we mad a big paper bag into which the drawings of the following school year were put. I remember being very proud of the one I did starting grade 8 (I was 14 I guess), the one on the top left.
And the dung beetle was one of my favourites, too.
And I was so ashamed of the portrait of my dad in the middle. He didn't look like that!
This is actually fabric glued on paper.

For over two decades I have moved the black bin bag from house to house. It's time to say good-bye to them.

The next project is the book shelf. What should I keep?

Cars

2010-05-30T11:31:00.006+03:00

Yesterday we went to a sports car show. The boys were in heaven, all four! I have to admit that it wasn't boring for me either. I tried to take some photos, but had just one lens, no tripod and I don't have a decent flash. I didn't like the fluorescent lights reflecting from the cars. And of course the boys wanted to use the camera, too.

I like keeping the pictures simple.
The red paint was chipped.
I don't know the make nor model, but it's an old green car that makes my heart throb.
This one's orange, the only thing I like about it. I prefer the older ones.

Yeah, this is what I like.So where does the airbag pop out from?

My list of "I want" includes a house in the country, a loom, apiary and llamas (alpacas will do, too). I'll just add to it a nice red sports car. I don't ask for much, do I?
I try to find the time to do some girly stuff, too. I knit these socks this spring. Took me about a month, but had to have a break between the two socks since I got RSI. My hands really hurt for almost a week.

Perfect weekend

2010-05-29T23:23:00.012+03:00

Ascencion Day weekend took us to Saviaho, DH's aunt. Four days in heaven for me and the boys, too. Total relaxation in excellent company in the country side. The boys took the dogs for walks. On a field about 300 m from the house was a huge boulder. The first night we headed there.Jaakko with Aino-Inkeri.Tuomas with Hex.Risto with Alli Manninen.And how do I know that the distance was about 300m? Because DH has a range-finder, and Risto measured it. 274m as the crow flies, so approximately 300 for the boys. We had a lovely evening sitting on the patio sipping bubbly watching the boys run around with Alli. Tuomas decided to run to the boulder and back three times. A nice 1800 m run to end the day.The itsy-bitsy spider also thought that it was a perfect time for an evening walk and took a stroll on the birch. The black speck about half way up is the spider.
There is plenty of space for the boys to run around. They're old enough that I can trust them not to fall face down into the pond or get run over by the occasional car. They love going to the ghost forest for walks on their own.
Then there was fire! Aunty P's husband burned the dry grass on the surrounding fields and the boys could join in. Well, it was fun for me, too.It wasn't easy to drag the boys to bed from the burning field.
It is only in Saviaho that I go riding. 2 hours in the forest on a horse, that's what I call therapy. The boys want to ride, too, but they're too inexperienced to go riding in the forest. And these horses hadn't been ridden for quite a while, so they were full of energy.After the ride in the forest the boys could have their turn on the field.
It's a lot of excercise for me: "Mom, run faster!!!"
Tuomas' turn. I let him go by himself. I was too tired to run in the +23C weather. And Risto. By this time Gloui was so tired (i.e. fed up) that every time Risto turned him towards the stables he started to tölt (Icelandic pony trot) faster and it was difficult for Risto to stop him. I was getting anxious.
DH doesn't want to try. He says because he's allergic, but I think he's just a big sissy. He was surprised to see me ride, tölt and gallop and to have the horse in control. What did he think I had been doing in the forest with the horse?

Piano

2010-05-29T23:16:00.004+03:00

Risto had his first piano concert about a month ago. There were about 20 children (+ a couple of adults) performing, an audience of over 50. I think I was more nervous than him. A couple of hours before the concert he was struggling a bit, but ended up playing the Norwegian folksong perfectly (took about 24 seconds). I was so proud to notice that he was the only one to bow after playing.
Il Maestro.Tuomas sat quietly and listened throughout the whole concert which lasted over an hour. It is amazing how he is able to fully concentrate on something he enjoys.
For Jaakko it was too much.

Art

2010-05-29T23:10:00.004+03:00

To balance all the sports we took the boys to an art museum. I knew there was a workshop for children, so we headed there first. The boys were so into making their own art that they didn't care too much for the actual exhibition.
Tuomas loves concentrating on stuff like this. We took his piece home, but it broke and he had a fit and it ended up in pieces. I could see it happen.
Even Jaakko sat down for a looong time poking toothpicks into foam cubes.Risto concentrating.

Same old, same old, but with a twist

2010-05-06T21:18:00.003+03:00

I went to the hairdresser yesterday. When I came back home, Risto looked at me:"Who are you?" Picking up Jaakko from daycare:"I recognized you from your handbag." Tuomas told me I looked like my sister. DH.... he remembers the time I used to have short hair. Most of my mother-time I've had long hair, so the change was bigger for he boys.I actually feel more comfortable with short hair (or that's what I have to tell myself if I start regretting). I never had long hair as a child. I was often mistaken for a boy!

To make the post less about me I've included a recent photo of DH, with a twist. If you look closely at the corner of his right eye you can see a red mark. He bumped into a door.

Talents

2010-04-28T19:57:00.003+02:00

Yes, I am a very talented person. Especially when it comes to finding stuff. I get very anxious if something is lost and can act very irrationally. Like when I lost Risto's extra passport photos and the receipt for the passport on my way home from the police station. Neither of them were needed. The photos were extras and the new passport could be given by showing the old one. But I needed to find them. So we drove to the police station and looked around at the parking lot. I called the police station the next day. I looked through the stacks of paper at home. Turned my handbag inside out, also the handbag I hadn't used. Under the stairs, above the fridge. The usual places. No where!!! I was quite annoyed for several days. This was a week before we left for Costa Rica. A couple of days after we came back, I found the photos and the receipt underneath the front passanger seat in our car. I had missed that place when I had frantically gone through the whole vehicle. I felt a tense muscle on my back relax when I picked up the lost items.

I found Risto's cap 10 minutes ago. It was in Tuomas' and Jaakko's room. On the table, underneath a mask. Risto's happy to have his Bucket back (I got a kiss.... after I asked for it) and now I can relax.

Even though our house is in a total chaos at the moment, nothing is LOST!

"I am the eyes and ears of this institution, my friends"

Is there anyone who know from which movie the above quote is without googling?

Lost

2010-04-26T20:27:00.006+02:00

DH lost his iTouch. The one he had had for about three months. He was convinced that he had put it "somewhere high" in the house, so that the boys a) couldn't see that he was playing with it and b) the boys couldn't reach it. He turned the house upside down. We looked everywhere, high and low. Garbage, stacks of paper, clean and dirty laundry. We had an annoyed Dad and DH in the house for a week and a half. Until one evening DH got a call. Yeah, it had been found. Really high. Like 1 km from our house. The snow had started to melt and a man waiting for his wife to do the grocery shopping had spotted its corner underneath a pile of snow in the parking lot. He had dried it, turned it on and found DH's contact information. DH was happy.

Yesterday I found his sunglasses in the bushes. They had been there all winter. I don't even remember where he said he had put them.

Today I found Risto's keys. They'd been lost for almost a week. And we had looked for them everywhere. Outdoors, indoors, laundry, garbage, the usual places. Tonight I sat down for a minute, thought about all the places where the keys could be and.... TA-DAH!!! Risto likes to go to the balcony and he needs his keys to go there. Could they still be on the balcony door IN HIS ROOM? He promised to give me a kiss if I found them. I got a hug.

Still lost is Risto's cap he bought from Costa Rica. I call it "The Bucket". It's a ridiculously big straight brimmed black cap, but in his opinion he looks "cool" in it. I have a very motherly opinion. Well, anyway, it's lost. He had it on Tuomas' birthday and hasn't been seen since. And (you know the drill) outdoors, indoors, garbage etc. I'm not too sorry if it's lost for good, but he did pay a ridiculous amount of his own money for it and it's important to him. Remains to be seen.

The boys are bound to take after their father (is it genetic or is it behavioural "mom will find it, why bother yourself"), so I'm stuck with 4 boys "temporarily misplacing" their stuff. Though I have to admit that I have a sarcastic answer to questions "where is my X?": "Fridge, top shelf!".

Any photos?!?!? Oh, they're lost....

Edit: I found a picture! It's from Jaakko's first ever soccer game. Some players are totally lost.

And by the end of the game Jaakko had also lost the concept of the game. I know the photo is not in focus, but that'll have to do.

Life style

2010-04-23T18:30:00.002+02:00

Tokyo as seen from our hotel room. The streets were surprisingly empty at 6 am, so I guess the city does sleep for a couple of hours.
We saw very little of Tokyo during our visit. But even the diagonal zebra crossing reflected the number of people around.
These hay poles leaning against the barn wall resemble a slower life style. I prefer that.

Birthday party

2010-04-18T11:12:00.003+02:00

Tuomas celebrated his 6th birthday with his friends on Thursday, only 3 months late. I have to admit that after having Jaakko's birthday in November, Risto's in December, plus Christmas and then Tuomas' at the end of January, I'm so tired of baking and organizing that poor Tuomas ends up having his birthday party for friends quite late. We did have a party with grand- and godparents + relatives on time, though.
I never plan ahead about any themes, but usually by the night before the party get some ideas. It was pirates this time. All three boys have beautiful wooden pirate ships and I used one as a decoration on the table.
It took some time for the kids to realize that the round black things were edible!Seems like the ship's mice found the stack of cookies on the mast and had a nibble.
A true treasure island filled with candy.

I try to avoid using paper plates and cups. I even put champagne glasses and it turned out ok. Only one glass spilled and another one broke. But maybe next time I'll use just regular glasses!
With 12 kids running around the house (only two girls) the party ended up quite wild. Tuomas and Jaakko bumped into eachother 10 minutes into the party. Jaakko had a cut on his lip, but was 100% after 5 minutes after DH got blood cleaned. Risto enjoyed his role as the oldest child, made the kids do push-ups (!) and was the drummer in the band. It was a fun party, Tuomas enjoyed it, but I'm glad it lasted only two hours.

Silence

2010-04-16T17:54:00.007+02:00

I'm not able to close my eyes from reality like this cat in Osaka, but now I'm able to put on noise cancelling headphones and listen to my mysic and not listen quarreling boys. It's just me and Andrea Bocelli echoing inside my head (yeah, lots of space there!). Seems like there is actually a void inside my head: this week I was asked how long I've been working at my current job. And I promptly answered: "For a year and a half.... since '98." She can count, too!

Osaka and Japan seem so far away, it's been actually a year and a half since we were there. I remember this dinner we had next to Osaka castle. I'm not afraid of trying new dishes, but I have to admit that I was a bit surprised when what I thought was fried onions was staring back at me! It was tasty and the little fishies were dead, but still it's disturbing to have your dinner stare at you.
This dude was hiding on the wooden gate at Tokyo Imperial Palace. He had a friend, too.

Inspiration

2010-04-11T16:22:00.004+02:00

"But, Mom! I still don't understand what 'inspiration' means!" I guess my explanations haven't been good enough. Maybe it's because I haven't been inspired in a looong time. I would need some inspiration to wash the windows, clean the kitchen, dust, vacuum clean or anything, but I'm not inspired.I wish I had more time (and inspiration) for photography. This picture was from the church service on the last day of school in 2009.Uninspired Jaakko last spring.

Forgiving look

2010-04-09T20:40:00.003+02:00

Ehkä lapsi katsoessaan minuun
näkee sen lapsen joka
joskus olin.

Ja on kuin olisin jotakin
saanut anteeksi.

- Risto Rasa -

Maybe the child sees the child
I once was
when he looks at me.

And it feels that
I was forgiven something.

- Risto Rasa -

Travelling tips

2010-04-08T20:41:00.002+02:00

We have been asked how we survived the long trip across the Atlantic. First of all, we've done that several times. I think the most challenging trip was to Curacao three years ago when the boys were 1, 3 and 5. Within an hour after take-off from Frankfurt I had changed the clothing of two boys and my jeans were soaking wet from a cup of tea that was poured on my lap. And I didn't have any extra clothes.

Basically, it's just a matter of attitude. It's just a couple of hours of your life (and hopefully not the last ones). It's going to be uncomfortable, the boys are going to argue and we might end up sitting next to people who would prefer to sleep the entire flight. In the end, we've been positively surprised.

On this trip we used bribery! The boys were promised 20 dollars each if they didn't fight, my dad promised another 20. It was a challenging for them, poor kids. Once we could almost see steam coming from their heads, but all DH had to say was "20" and they walked away in different directions. We also had help from a PSP2 and iPod Touch, books and crayons. And patience, patience, patience!

Jet-lag takes a couple of days. This raging bull was with us in Florida last year, picture taken on the first day after arriving. As with the trip to Florida, also in Costa Rica we ended up carrying sleeping boys from dinner to the hotel. Oh, I remember Valentine's Day in 2005 on Marco Island, Florida. We had a dinner reservation in the evening. Risto didn't want to eat anything and just nibbled his food, and by the time we had the bottle of bubbly and sword fish brought to the table, Tuomas had a fit so we took turns eating and trying to calm down a raging 1-year-old outside the restaurant. An elderly couple looked at us smiling; the scene had brought back sweet memories from several decades back "You'll smile at this later".

PS: the number of visitors to my blog has increased significantly despite the fact that I don't update that often. I recognize a few locations of friends and family, but there are several regulars that I don't. It would be nice to know who you are! Drop me a comment!

Pura Vida Part III, miscellaneous pictures

2010-04-07T20:15:00.008+02:00

"Ok, boys, you can go down to the beach, but stay out of the water so you don't have to drive back to the hotel in wet clothes." The picture is self-explanatory.
The pool at Una Ola was nice and compact. Perfect for three boys who can barely swim.
Sea shell, need I say more.
"Yeah, definately bigger than dad's!" Ricardo was the best surf instructor, he was absolutely great with the boys and took the not-so-nimble parents into consideration, too. "Ok, Mama, hop on the board!"
Jaakko with his Pina Colada without the rummmmm.
Butterfly, duh!
Jaakko left his mark on the beach. It was washed away by the tide within seconds.
Bubbly water. This time unbottled.
Beach chick. This is about the maximum amount of skin I could reveal even with SPF 50. And I still got an allergic reaction! Oops, forgot to tuck my tummy in....

Pura Vida Part II, miscellaneous pictures

2010-03-25T19:48:00.004+02:00

White chested magpie blue-jay was the name of this bird. I think. At Rick's hotel.Rick's pool. The last night in Costa Rica. Howler monkies are sleeping.
Monteverde Cloud Forest. I think I saw Tarzan riding a T-rex...

Motmot at Rick's.
Hummmmmm. Humming bird.
We found theses tracks on Playa Grande early in the morning. I think we were on the beach at 6 am when the sun rose. It looked like a one-wheeled tractor had driven from the sea. A leatherback turtle had come during the night to lay her eggs.
The tracks led to this nest.
We found two dead, crispy little turtles. They didn't make it to the ocean.
This plant was found in the cloud forest.
Coati on our way to Arenal volcano. At Rick's place there was one (or probably a few, since you couldn't really tell them apart) that was tame. The boys fed him raisin and nut bread.
Calamari pasta. Risto and Tuomas shared this portion and I think their plates were empty in 5 minutes. Seafood is their thing!

Pura Vida!

2010-03-18T18:57:00.011+02:00

February 16th took us to Costa Rica via Frankfurt and Houston. 27 hours after we woke up at home we arrived at Rancho Armadillo Estate in Playas de Coco. Rick, the owner of the 6 room "hotel", is an amazing person. Despite the late night he showed the boys all kinds of critters with his torch. Within an hour of arriving we'd seen gekkos, bats, scorpions and scorpion spiders. The next morning before breakfast he took us on a tour on the estate showing us lemon trees, orange trees, cashew nut trees, bananas and a tree that one shouldn't touch since it's protected by ants whose sting hurt really bad. And we saw and heard howler monkies (in addition to our own).The dominant male of the crowd is on the left. It's quite obvious.

After two nights at Ricks, a canopy tour with 13 zips that petrified the smaller boys for the first few (more like 5-6, I thought they'd never forgive me) and tarantula hunting, we headed for the surf camp at Una Ola, Playa Grande.For six days we had 2 hours of lessons everyday, DH, Risto and myself; quite often the class was in the morning at 7 due to tides. Tuomas and Jaakko played with a babysitter with whom they had no common language.
A week of practice gets you here.... I wish. Risto was definately the best of us, thanks to his skate boarding background. Tuomas and Jaakko tried it, too, with the teacher and enjoyed it. We slept 9-10 hours a night, it was a quiet neighborhood except for some migratory birds that slept in a tree next to our hotel. Boy, were they noisy! They flew in around 5 PM, "chirped" until sundown, kept quiet for the night, but started their morning 12 hours later very loudly. We met really nice people at the hotel; it was a 8 room hotel so you got to know everybody. Colin, the manager, was super friendly and helped us with a lot of things.Sunsets were amazing.
After the surf camp we headed for the mountains and cloud forest of Monteverde. The distance was only about 200 km, but it took us half of the day. The last 35 km took us an hour. The last leg of the journey started at Tilaran. We just had a very general map, but the road from Tilaran to Monteverde was very well signed. Or that's what we thought. Just a few km out of Tilaran we suddenly came across a sign that had Monteverde crossed out. We made a u-turn and before we could say "pura vida" there was a friendly guy knocking on our window with a photocopy of a map, explaining quickly the road to Monteverde "make a left, a left, then right, left here". The map cost 2000 colones, about 4 dollars. It was so obvious that there was a connection between the misguiding signs and the friendly guy with the map!!! We paid him the 4 bucks and off we went.

The hotel in Santa Elena right next to Monteverde was amazing, The Hidden Canopy. Treehouses! We threw in our luggage and headed down to Monteverde for lunch and a quick look around before coming to the hotel for 5 o'clock tea (an experience we were told you don't want to miss.... so true). In Monteverde we noticed that we had a flat tyre. We were lucky: right across the road was the only service station in the area. We had the tyre filled, but they said it looked punctured. When we got back to the hotel, I asked the hotel owner Jenn (yet another amazing person!!!) if she could help with the car. She just said in a very calm voice "no problem, we'll take care of it. I'll just book you on a cloud forest tour bus for the morning, and while you're in the cloud forest I'll have the car fixed". Every word was true, no problems! And it cost us less than 10 bucks. Amazing.

Sunset at Hidden Canopy. Gulf of Nicoya in the background. This hotel was small, too, and very intimate. Jenn's a great host and it seemed like only nice people stay at her hotel :-) We walked a 3 km long walk in the cloud forest with 8 bridges across the canopy. Jenn told me to ask the boys if they could spot any dinosaurs. "Mom, they're extinct!!!" Couldn't fool them. But I think I saw Tarzan. In the clouds.

We visited the Bat Jungle, but it was quite obvious that the tourist stuff was a bit too much for the boys. They were restless and wanted the company of children.

Luckily we ran across José-Pablo and all four boys were happy to play some football.

Two nights in Santa Elena, then we headed back to Tilaran and around Lake Arenal to see the volcano. In Tilaran we stopped at a bakery and also to get some fruit. The road from Tilaran to La Fortuna combined with a toffee filled doughnut was too much for Jaakko. Two kilometers before our next hotel, El Silencio del Campo, and after I put the plastic bag away that I had held infront of him for the last 20 km..... well, all I need to tell you that Jaakko entered the hotel in his underwear.

This hotel was nice, too, but a bit of a disappointment after the three previous ones. We didn't meet the owner at all (it was a bigger hotel, though) and the staff was semi-friendly. The towels were nicely folded.
Plus it rained and rained and rained. Driving into La Fortuna we saw 4/5 of the volcano, but didn't take any pictures; left it for the next day. Mistake. The next morning was totally overcast and it rained. We enjoyed soaking ourselves in the hot spring and
we did see this happy little creature in his natural habitat.

Snow

2010-02-13T13:38:00.002+02:00

We have so much snow here. Last Sunday we cleared about 70 square meters of rooftops and ended up having a huge pile of it for the boys to jump on. Even Jaakko climbed on the roof and jumped down. Risto pretended to be walking on the Great Wall of China and accidentally walking, off, Tuomas pretended to be a drunken old man falling off the roof and every time Jaakko walked to the edge ready to jump he yelled:"I'm Lady Gaga!!!!"Jaakko and Tuomas have been skiing at day care, Risto skates in school. A proper winter!

Where were you on our wedding day?

2009-11-29T21:47:00.002+02:00

Well, I survived another year with this lot! Tuomas was away on our wedding anniversary (September 26th, incase you didn't remember....), so this was taken almost a month later. 11th wedding anniversary... not too bad!

Long lost friend

2009-11-13T16:18:00.004+02:00

Just like this old window frame that waited for years for my attention, another friend patiently waited for my attention for four years.

Our paths finally crossed last weekend. We lost touch about the time we moved into our house, I was pregnant with Jaakko and everyday life seemed to be a struggle time-wise. There are still only 24 hours a day (just in case you didn't know...), but maybe now I use my time more wisely (and the boys are older).

We shared good times, therapeutical in my opinion. For my friend it was more work. At times I felt that my friend was just stuck and stubborn, but I guess I was asking for too much. Now I know better, I know what my friend can achieve. There are physical limits to be considered, too.

We always overcame those stuck situations and managed to work together to achieve a smooth result. Our times together have always been quiet, with a calming humm, something different from the hectic hullabaloo.

But last weekend the self-denial ended. My life was wrinkly, I needed to get back in shape, smooth things. I wiped the dust off my dear friend who had sat quietly in the corner of our utility room. Plugged her in and started mangling the sheets.

Eyes

2009-11-13T15:55:00.003+02:00

Their future girlfriends will be so lucky to be able to stare at these eyes. I know I like doing it.

A bag

2009-11-13T15:48:00.002+02:00

I found a perfect pattern for a perfect bag. Then I found the most perfect Hello Kitty -fabric (not pink!) and red mushroom fabric. Unfortunately my boys aren't really into Hello Kitty, but luckily their girl friend is. She seemed to like her birthday present.

Modesty

2009-11-13T12:18:00.002+02:00

"Ok, ok, thank you! It was an ok shot!"

I've changed the settings of commenting, if this would stop unwanted ads in the comment fields. Otherwise I'll have to close the whole blog, open only for listed members. We'll see what happens.

Summer memories

2009-11-10T16:58:00.001+02:00

Jaakko with wild strawberries and bilberries. On a straw, of course!

I've been to Udmurtia and I know I'm cool

2009-10-26T21:19:00.003+02:00

Let me educate you first. I doubt you know where Udmurtia is. First, hop on a plane and fly to Moscow. Then board a train heading towards Siberia and China. After about 16-18 hours, depending on whether you took to fast one or the one that stops in every single village, you'll end up in Udmurtia, west of the Ural mountains.
The view from the train is far from promising. Though I have to say that the surroundings around any train track in the world are probably not the up-market areas.

This modern little kettle provided us with hot water for tea in the train.

Public transportation in Glazov, northern Udmurtia. The view is from my hotel window. The hotel was clean, didn't see any little critters. The bathroom was a relief after the experience on the train.
Beautiful old buildings in Glazov. Unfortunately rundown.
This little chap in front of the railway station is pointing the way to the nearest liquor store. The locals were proud of the Kalashnikov vodka. Tasted like at the dentist's, blaah.
Major effort was put into renovating this orthodox church.

This is what one was apparently supposed to use to scrub the toilet bowl on the train. I did my best to keep my legs crossed to avoid going there.

I wanted to send really touristy postcards from Glazov, but apparently they don't get that many tourist since I couldn't find any.

An extremely interesting trip, professionally and culturally. Would I go again (it's in my job description so I don't have that much of a choice)? Yes, definately. The food was great, there was plenty, our hosts were nice, professionally very educating. The only down side is really the bathrooms....

Accidents may happen

2009-10-24T21:06:00.003+02:00

Risto got a kick bike a week after school started. Theoretically it's the boys', but Risto uses is the most. Jaakko is quite good with it, but on October 1st he went down a steep hill, couldn't turn and went straight to the road. Luckily no cars and he was wearing his helmet.

Maybe the reason was the wheel. After 1.5 months it looked more like a triangle.

Boys

2009-08-12T21:57:00.002+03:00

I am a mother of three boys. And I'm sure life in a house with only girls is sooooo different and (correct me if I'm wrong... .which I probably am!) and so much more easy.

You see because:

Girls do not call their mother an idiot (or stupid), don't make everybody aware of the fact that there is wind coming out of their bodily orifices, don't fight 22/7 (yes, there is about 2hrs of peace in an all-male household on a good day...), don't make artificial farts using their palms and armpits (oh, this is an artform), don't urinate standing up and messing up the whole bathroom, don't roll up their filthy socks in tight little balls and hide them, wear out their bicycle tires in a month so that you can poke your finger through them.
Instead these pretty pink mini-females sit quietly reading books, playing with their dolls, help around the house, make their mother a cup of tea (green tea and mint, please!!), admire the flowers in the garden and don't pick them and say only nice things never yelling.

I'd like to trade for a day and then return to my wild family!

Since I love these boys from the bottom of my heart!

Babysitter

2009-07-18T20:44:00.003+03:00

The last two days of work before starting my summer vacation the boys had a babysitter. My cousin had volunteered to babysit and I gave him a call a couple of weeks before the D-day. Matti has seen the boys a few times, the boys like him and he is great with kids. And a male babysitter is a nice change for them. Matti plays in two bands, writes the music and sings, too. With black dreadlocks (which he has now cut), tattoos and a black beard he's not the typical babysitter!

After the first day I told Matti to be honest and tell me if he didn't want to come the next day, but he said that despite being a lot of work it was fun, too. But he'll stick to his day-job as a musician than become a professional babysitter, I guess....

Jaakko had asked Matti if he has family. Matti lives by himself, but told Jaakko that he has his parents and siblings with their families. But Jaakko was worried and told Matti that he could come and live with us so he wouldn't have to be alone. Matti had asked Jaakko, if he should move to the guest house, but Jaakko had replied:"No, no, you can sleep upstairs with Mom and Dad. They have three pillows in their bed!"

In the evening Jaakko wanted to discuss this with me. He was still quite concerned that Matti lives alone and said that he really should move in with us. "But he can't live alone. What if he dies.....?" I tried to convince Jaakko that Matti won't be dying any time soon and he's apparently quite happy living by himself, but he's always welcome to come over for a visit, evening tea etc. I told this to Matti, too.

Male anatomy

2009-07-18T20:43:00.002+03:00

A couple of nights ago Jaakko walked out of the bathroom naked fiddling his private parts. Suddenly his face lightened up and he told me excitedly:"Mom, I have TWO testicles!!!"

No pictures.

Annecy

2009-06-30T22:08:00.005+03:00

I've been to Annecy three times on business, a beautiful city near the Alps. Luckily I've had the chance to see the old town a bit and also the opportunity to play with my camera.

I liked this arrangement of flowers and plants I found in one of the back alleys in the old town. And guess what Tuomas said when he saw the photo? "Oh, mom, there's a Coke bottle!". Can you see it, right behind the wheel....

Live music. These guys were having a lot of fun. I was too shy to stand between them and the audience to get a decent photo.

Who? Part II and III

2009-05-26T21:44:00.002+03:00

And these blue eyes belong to.....?

Edit: Tuomas, almost 5.5 years. My sister has often asked if I pluck his eyebrows, they are so nice and even. And no, I don't!

Is this one the eldest, youngest or the middle one?

Edit: Risto, almost 7.5 years. Unfortunately he was wearing a bicycle helmet so the blueness of his eyes doesn't come out that strongly. They're almost Robert Redford blue.

I didn't think about giving any prizes for the winners. But I'll be more than willing to take YOUR picture!

Who?

2009-05-23T16:28:00.002+03:00

Who is staring at you?

Edit: This charmer is Jaakko, 3.5 years.

Help!!! Let me out of here!!!!!

2009-05-09T23:08:00.001+03:00

Pictures

2009-05-09T22:57:00.003+03:00

Random pictures from Florida.

Jaakko is a bicycle boy, now. Just like his older brothers. I took off the supporting wheels on April 14th, and he really enjoys his freedom! It took him about two days to really get the hang of it. He's 3.5 years so pretty good, IMHO.

I bought a children's book on human anatomy and gave it to Risto. He's extremely interested in it, reading (and I mean READING, not just looking at the pictures) it almost every night. And it's in Swedish!

We're trying to teach Tuomas how to pronounce the letter "r" like the Finnish do, not like the French. It's hard and he gets frustrated very easily.

Timppa is looking forward to the golf season to start properly.

Birthdays

2009-05-09T22:18:00.003+03:00

Birthdays, birthdays, birthdays. We combined Tuomas' and Jaakko's birthday parties since they are in the same day care group. Jaakko's 3rd birthday was back in November and Tuomas' 5th was in January. But then we went to Florida and these things take long to arrange, so it was late March by the time their friends were invited.

I was really proud of these cupcakes I made, with frosting and all. And individual candles so everybody got to use their lungs. Guess if the kids liked them?!?!? Nooooooooooooooo.

Matilda Lilia

2009-04-13T20:24:00.002+02:00

SIL and BIL Productions proudly present Matilda Lilia!
Opening night April 8, 2009
Starring Matilda Lilia
Supporting actress SIL
Supporting actor BIL
Filmed on location in Nottingham, UK

Random pictures 2008

2009-01-14T21:36:00.006+02:00

Riding in Saviaho, the best hotel in the world!!!!
Risto at Repovesi National Park in August.
Not Bob the Builder, but Tuomas. He really loves the tiger t-shirt he's wearing under the vest.
DH in Japan back in September. The love of my life!
A carrot, what else?!?!
Japanese soft drink. Sweat to quench your thirst!
Myself at Osaka subway station on our way to Osaka castle.
Cakes I made for my colleagues for my farewell party i August. Believe me, they were good :-)
How to behave in Osaka subway!!! "I quietly hold my breath whenever I come across someone smoking." "If you're going to read words during rush hour, we wish you'd also read between the lines."
Sensouji shrine in Tokyo. The smoke should heal you.

Christmas 2008

2009-01-13T21:15:00.004+02:00

Christmas 2008 came and went. We spent Christmas in Ylläs, Lapland. My parents drove to Ylläs with Tuomas and Jaakko arriving on the 19th (a drive from hell according to my parents even though they drove the 1000 km in two days... apparently Jaakko has been blessed with an amazing lung capacity... need I say more?). DH, Risto and myself started off the next morning at 06:00 arriving at the cabin some 13 hours later. A long drive, but thanks to the DVD´s it went ok. The next week, on the other hand, was just down hill in many ways:

Risto took a 3-day skiing course and in my opinion learned to come down the slopes way too fast. Tuomas took a couple of lessons and together we skiied down from the top of the fell!! A lot of screaming from Tuomas, since the wind was pretty strong, but after 10 m it was fun. Tuomas is quite black-and-white when it comes to skiing. His opinion about the slope and skis changed every 50 m, depending on wether he fell or not. Either it was the best slope in the world and the best skis or then they were the crappiest pair of excuse for skis.

But what else went down hill i.e down the intestine/up the esophagus. Warning: a lot of bowel information to follow!!! But to look on the bright side of life: nobody gained weight during the holidays and nobody was sick in the car.

Risto fell ill the next night after arriving, diarrhea and vomiting. Luckily he's old enough to find the bathroom in time!!! DH (had a bad cold) spent the Sunday inside with him when I went sledding with the smaller boys. There was a lot of snow, but the temperature wasn't that bad, only -5C at the coldest. The fun ended the following night when Jaakko started vomiting, followed by Tuomas half an hour later. You can only guess if they made it to the bathroom. Nope! DH changed their sheets four times that night! It was a first time experience for him to watch his children simultaneously emptying their stomachs on their beds and then on the floor, right next to the buckets placed there an hour before.

Monday the 22nd was Risto's birthday and he was able to got to the slopes. By that time I had lost my appetite and my father wasn't feeling too well either. But I did manage to join Risto in the slopes, had fun! Tuesday was my turn to have a complete colon cleansing lying in bed/on the sofa most of the day and feeling sick. The smell of the ham cooking in the oven was not mouth-watering. My mother managed to cook the ham before she fell ill. DH was feeling quesy, but was able to do some last minute grocery shopping. MIL arrived around noon only to find the whole cabin full of more or less sick people!

Surprisingly enough we all sat down for dinner at Christmas Eve! Jaakko gave us a scare emptying his stomach again the night (why does it always happen during the night!!!!) between Christmas Day and Boxing Day. All I could picture in my mind was a boxing ring with this blonde chick in bikinis and high heels holding a sign sayin "Round Two". Luckily "Round Two" involved only Jaakko and the next day we drove back home. What a Christmas!

Since I won't amuse you with Christmas pictures of pale, sick people, enjoy this one of Jaakko taken back in October!

10th wedding anniversary

2008-12-03T20:46:00.003+02:00

Our 10th wedding anniversary was way back in September, but we did not have the chance to have our traditional wedding day picture taken until mid November. But after our trip to Japan, DH's to Scotland and a couple of colds, once again an innocent passer-by was stopped in front of our wedding church and asked to snap a picture of our happy family just as it is.

The end of November was a challenging one with all the boys having severe colds + ear infections, I was blessed with sinutitis. We're all better now, waiting for Christmas (not a single preparation for the holiday made so far....) and still not knowing where we'll spend it.

Despite the depressing snowless, but wet and cold winter, we're all in good spirits.

Over and out.

Time, time, time

2008-11-04T17:47:00.002+02:00

Unfortunately there is only 24 hours per day in my world, too. Wake up at 0620 (for some of you this might not sound too bad, but keep in mind that I used to wake up at 0730 the earliest and be at the office by 9 am), quick breakfast and out of the house by 0715, car+bus+metro+bus to work, work until it's time to pick up the small boys from day-care by 1700 (after 1h of commuting), cook dinner, spend time with the boys (play, if it's a good day; try to separate them from each other if it's a bad one), the boys in bed by 2100 (check Risto's homework before that), clean dinnertable, kitchen, laundry etc., talk to DH, sit brain dead in front of the telly, to bed by 2200 (hasn't happened too many times) in order to get enough of sleep. It you can find a time slot when I could blog (and edit some pictures), please tell me!!!

But what has happened... last weekend was interesting: one broken ceramic vase (wedding gift from Iceland), one broken ceramic mug (a really nice one from Norway) and one broken wine glass (Ikea, not a great loss) + one bleeding nose. Sounds bad, eh?!? Jaakko broke the vase when vacuum cleaning (hey, he'lll be 3 in a couple of weeks and should be able to do his share of housework), it way really my fault, I'd left it on a low window sill. The wine glass broke in the dishwasher and DH banged the mug accidentally on the kitchen counter. The only thing that wasn't accidental was Tuomas' nose bleed: Risto "rubbed" their noses against each other a bit too affectionatey ("no, I didn't mean to hurt him"... do you believe him?). Risto was misbehaving in so many ways that the TV remains shut for this week and he gets to walk to school and back every day. This gives him plenty of time to think about his behaviour. But the weekend wasn't a total disaster; MIL was over for dinner on Saturday (and when we sat down to eat I remembered that it was our 11th engagement anniversary) and we started getting the guest house ready for my sewing and knitting stuff!!!

Pictures... soon... I promise....

A new family member!!!

2008-09-22T20:08:00.002+02:00

Ok, don't get excited. DH has just finally decided what our next car will be and told the boys Friday night:"Our new car arrives right after our trip to Japan.... or was it America.... oh, damn!" So, we're off to Osaka on Wednesday and then take the bullet train after one night to Tokyo. Unfortunately Lenny Kravitz turned ill and cancelled his concert. That was DH's plan for Friday! He did think about extending our stay until November (the concert will be held then), but then he remembered that he's going to Scotland beginning of October, so we must come back home.

Clara left yesterday, feels so strange.... I mean using the washing machine again!!! My friend told me to try to find some luxury in it, since I haven't done it in a looooooooooooooooong time. I'm afraid that the luxury will wear out pretty soon.

No pictures this time. Hopefully soon and a story about geo-caching!

Travelling

2008-09-15T20:30:00.004+02:00

The boys are happy to play make believe travelling. They used to want to go to China all the time, mainly because I've told them that in China you're allowed to slurp your soup. But lately Tuomas and Jaakko want to go to Australia. Tuomas has actually several times whined about when are we finally going to Australia, as if he had been promised a trip next week.

Last week one morning just as I was ready to leave for work Jaakko woke up and crawled into our bed. DH and him hid under the covers (sorry, it was a space shuttle...), DH asked Jaakko where they should go to. "Australia" was his answer. But the his answer to DH's question about what would they do there was something that you'd never guess:"Eat sausage soup!" I forgot to tell him that slurping is not allowed there.

Wednesday will take me to Paris, again, for one night. Then Wednesday next week DH and I are off to XXX to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. My father will look after the boys for the 5 days we're away.

Pictured above are my sister's two boys and daughter with our boys.

A new life

2008-09-14T20:16:00.004+02:00

Our life has really changed lately with Risto in school and me starting at a new job. Plus we (or I) cancelled our subscription to the main newspaper. Ever since I was a kid Helsingin Sanomat has been a major part of my morning routine. But now that I'm commuting to the other side of the greater Helsinki area, I have hardly the time to have breakfast let alone to read something. DH hasn't read the paper during the week for years. Weekends we've enjoyed our breakfast reading the paper, but then again our dear little angels make it difficult. So, I cancelled it.

Commuting is a new thing for me. Getting up a lot earlier, catching the bus, sitting in the metro. People walk like ants, knowing their destination in a single line right after one another. Funny. The first week of commuting I was able to knit half a meter of a scarf.

Above you can see what my ex-colleagues gave me. I wear the jewellery every day. The long one is actually a test specimen!

(Oh, our lives will change even more dramatically on Sunday when Clara, our au pair, goes back home to Germany!)

News flash

2008-08-20T12:14:00.004+03:00

Oops, it's been two months since my last up-date. Here is a list of excuses:

1. I got a new camera in April and earlier this summer I started shooting in RAW. Which meant that the files were 12MB and our PC was too slow to work with them -> we have a brand new MAC now which a lot more capacity. Being new to the MAC world and RAW world I'm still in the learning process and I wanted to put piccies in the blog -> didn't blog at all.

2. I'm changing jobs and finally about a month ago (that long?!?!) I got the new contract signed and am starting in September. I didn't want to say anything about it until it was confirmed.

3. Summer vacation. No time to blog.

4. Risto started school last week.

5. I'm pregnant..... oops, that's a lie ;-)

Summer vacation is over. We spent a lovely week at DH's Auntie P. Horses, dogs, swimming in the lake, excellent food and company. A couple of weekends at my parents' cottage, their 40th wedding anniversary. Risto chipped his front tooth the evening before midsummer (luckily his was over at our house and the friend's mother is a dentist), not a milk tooth but one of the only two permanent ones he has so far. The dentist was able to glue the chip back. Risto bumped into Tuomas' hard head!

Tuomas is in love with a girl at day care. He is sooooo in love, just as she is. It's so cute. Jaakko has grown a lot too and his temper tantrums are getting worse. Things are flying and his brothers have teeth marks on their backs. DH has a surprise for me. Our 10th wedding anniversary is in a month and he's taking me on an extended weekend trip, but I don't know where (just like our honeymoon!). But before that I'll start at my new job and Clara, our au pair, will go back to Germany. Hopefully (and soon!!!) pictures and more up-dates.

Difficult questions

2008-06-16T12:46:00.002+03:00

Tuomas asked a difficult question yesterday:"Do angels get vaccinations?" followed by "do angels ever die?".

Risto is flying home tomorrow. He's feeling home sick every now and then, cried over the phone on Saturday. But my sister said that he's really enjoying his time there, so no worries. Yesterday he was worried that his plane would crash. I tried to convince him that it wouldn't happen.

Risto: "But planes do crash and people have died in plane crashes".
Me: "Yes, but it's highly unlikely". (Is there any point in explaining statistics to a six year old?)
Risto: "And what about the ship that sank, how many people died there?"
Me:"Which ship?"
Risto:"The one with four chimneys, that one!"
Me:"Titanic??!" (I don't remember telling him about the Titanic)
Risto:"Yeah, that one. How many people drowned?"
Me:"Oh, well, quite a few."
Risto:"How many people were saved?"
Me:"Very many people survived!!!! Oh, yes, many!" (This question was a relief!!!)

How do explain the death of hundreds of people? How do you explain the deaths caused by human cruelty, war? How do you explain the Holocaust? Would a vaccination help?

A new cousin

2008-06-13T14:48:00.003+03:00

Our boys' cousin was finally born yesterday, a boy of 51 cm and 3,7 kg. Pictures hopefully soon.

Risto to Sweden

2008-06-10T09:46:00.002+03:00

Risto is off to Sweden tomorrow. He'll be spending one week with my sister's family. DH is going on a business trip to Stockholm and Risto is flying with him, but flying back by himself. Exciting! Judging by the picture, I'm not the only mother gone crazy after 3 kids....

Past, present and future

2008-06-08T21:15:00.006+03:00

A picture from the past. Not so distant past, but from last Easter we spent at my parents' summer place. We have a 4WD Land Rover and DH wanted to test it on snow, and I mean half a meter deep snow. This was a 10m stretch of road that was unplowed. Just look at the picture, do I need to tell you what happened?!?We got stuck with all the boys + Clara in the car. And since we don't carry a snow shovel with us we had to call my dad to bring one. He brought two and I guess the other one snapped in two. Well, after 20 minutes we were free to go. But DH swore that he'd try it again. Which he did on our way back home from the summer place. Again, car full of kids who eagerly want to help and our luggage, and DH determined to try it again from the other end of the road. My mom was almost hysterical with laughter when I called her 5 minutes after we had left:"We need a shovel...." I didn't dare to take a picture that time.

A picture from the present (picture it, ok?). Jaakko has been without a diaper for TWO DAYS. And no wet pants, either!!! Is the end of our 6.5 year diaper-infested life coming closer?

Future. Next week. No pictures yet, since the baby hasn't been born yet. My brother's first born is 13 days past the due date, so it should be next week that the boys get a new member for their football team!

More art from Risto

2008-05-29T09:49:00.003+03:00

There was a fire across the street at the boys' daycare on Tuesday. Someone had set a heap of twigs and branches on fire. The flames were several meters high, charring a nearby pine tree up to 5 meters. Risto got really scared and started crying even though there was no apparent danger. The fire fighters came and put the fire down. Exciting and scary! For the past two days Risto has been drawing fire trucks.

Last night I asked him to draw a picture of our family. He was happy to do that since it meant that he could stay up later. Risto is onthe roof with his basketball, Tuomas has his football and Jaakko is holding a spade. DH has a lollipop (!) and I'm holding a flower. It's cute that DH and I are holding hands. My ears are not visible since my hair is so long. The smoke coming out of the chimney indicates that my parents are inside barbecueing sausages for us. Our Family!

Mother's Day

2008-05-17T17:28:00.000+03:00

As you can see, we all go to the same hair dresser called Windy ;-) I had a lovely day: I slept late, Clara had made a cake for breakfast, I got cute drawings from the boys (Risto had made a Picassonian pencil drawing of a cargo ship with three heaps of coal...) and DH took care of breakfast, lunch and dinner. MIL was over for bbq lunch and I was in the flower beds killing weeds.

How many husbands does it take to change a lightbulb?

2008-04-30T14:49:00.002+03:00

Ok, the answer is one, I'm happy with the one I have even though I had to take a picture of the historical time he changed a light bulb. As you can see it's pretty high up and impossible for me to change it.

But the morning when this picture was taken back in November, DH informed me in the morning that he had noticed the night before when he came to bed that the light bulb had burned. And to my surprise he walked to the basement to get the ladder and a light bulb and changed it right there and then. I was lucky enough to get a pictures of it!!!

But I guess this is a "once in a life time" thing, since a couple of months later our stair case was dark for over a week....

Comments

2008-04-29T09:35:00.002+03:00

For some reason commenting is not possible. Trying to find out what I've changed in the settings...

Edit: should work now.

Sorrow

2008-04-28T15:22:00.002+03:00

Risto wants a pet. Saturday night he started crying that he wants a hamster or a guinea pig. He really cried, tears rolling down his cheeks and his sorrow was so profound. I held him, trying desperately to comfort him, but knowing exactly that nothing could heal this pain inside him. "I want a hamster or a guinea pig, not a slimy frog or a lizard. I want something furry to hold and have it in my room and call it my own!".

I remember feeling the same way when I was a kid with an allergic mom and denied all furry animals. Now my son is in the same situation with an allergic dad.

Sleepless in Espoo

2008-04-23T11:57:00.001+02:00

I escaped our testosterone filled bed at 05:36 AM. Are you asking why?!?!

Activity

2008-04-23T11:42:00.003+02:00

Every time we go to the park it seems that our boys are the loudest ones, jumping, running, screaming, but IMHO taking the other children into consideration and playing with them, too. I think this picture of Tuomas taken on Monday night sums it up. The boys use the see-saw this way. I can picture a snow board fastened to his feet.

Easter

2008-04-09T14:01:00.003+02:00

Skiing with Clara at my parents summer place. This crazy German skied wearing a skirt + swam in the lake (in the hole we sawed through the ice) and actually washed her hair standing in this icy water (and put some hair conditioner, too). Crazy!!!!

Picasso, part II

2008-04-09T13:54:00.004+02:00

I guess that only as a mother I can see the beauty in this picture. Tuomas has drawn yet another picture of me, now with even more detail. Let me explain:

1. The line above my head is my hair.
2. The four vertical dots inside my head are my eyes and ears, and the fifth one is either my nose or my mouth. Tuomas wasn't sure about this.
3. The line on the left side of my head and the circle on the right are my shoulders.
4. I'm holding a bag on my right hand (which naturally is on the left in the picture).
5. Now this is the best part: The circle below my head is the combined breasts and belly button!
6. The line below this aforementioned breast-bellybutton combo is "not a penis, Mom, but the one you have".
7. The long vertical lines are self-explanatory.

Table and two chairs

2008-04-01T14:15:00.004+02:00

We're selling this children's table and two chairs. I'm not sure about the table, but the chairs seem to be Aalto chairs. I think we're the third owners of this set, so they are not in perfect shape.Drop me a line if you're interested!

Edit: the table and chairs have found a new home at White Country.

Art

2008-03-19T15:48:00.005+02:00

The boys have never been enthusiastic about painting or drawing. Only last fall did Risto's pictures evolve from mindless scribblings to something recognizable. And now he draws wonderful pictures!

So I was surprised on Monday night when Tuomas announced that he wanted to draw. After a couple of minutes he came to me, told me to close my eyes and handed me this:

"That's you, Mom!" I was biting my lip when I asked what the two dots under my head were, but surprisingly they had nothing to do with my breasts, they were my eyes, OF COURSE!!! But Tuomas apparently noticed something unorthodox in the location of the eyes since his next portrait of DH was a more conservative interpretation of the human body:

Then he drew a portrait of Clara (he's really warming up to Clara, saying "thank you" and "I'm sorry") and I asked if he could manage to draw some hair on her head. "No, because she's bald and angry!!!" *giggle-giggle-giggle* That portrait was followed by ones of my parents with hair. And this morning he drew me an airplane. Our Picasso!

Again in Paris

2008-03-11T11:45:00.003+02:00

Last time I was in Paris in November I caught a terrible cold. Now I flew to Paris already with a terrible cold, but I'm hoping to leave it here and not take a new one back.

Our whole family has been quite ill during the past three weeks. First Risto and Tuomas were home with Clara for a week due to influenza. A challenge for everybody, but Tuomas was so sick that he was even able to smile to Clara and not just hate her. Since Jaakko got a shot against influenza back in December I hoped that he'd stay healthy, but he started coughing the following week and it was his turn to spend a couple of days home with Clara. She said that being home with just Jaakko was on the other hand easier (he had no one to fight with), but on the other hand more difficult since Jaakko demanded a lot of attention. DH sneezed every now and then and I started getting symptoms last Thursday (but went to the gym anyway, which resulted in the cold getting worse and muscle pain so bad that walking the stairs was more or less painful....yeah, not wise!). The night before flying to Paris Tuomas started crying around midnight and complained that his ears hurt. The pain killers worked for a couple of hours (he 'slept' in our bed, kicking the blanket, I climbed to his bunk bed), but around 5am he started crying (more like screaming) again and DH took him to the doctor. We knew the diagnose: ear infection. It was actually quite good that Tuomas stayed home with Clara again, but now just by himself. Clara said that they had a nice time, Tuomas was very cuddly and cute. Hopefully he'll stop hating her.

So now I'm in Paris, the Mecca of shopping... DH should be grateful that his wife is such a bad shopper. I can't find anything nice, even a 10% discount coupon to Printemps didn't help. I guess -10% isn't really enough of a discount when looking at handbags that are fastened with cables against theft. Well, I did find something nice for DH, but I simply won't spend €200 on a men's shirt (even though he definately is worth it!!) since I wasn't sure he'd like it. The boys will be disappointed that I won't bring them toys or something special, but in my opinion we have enough of toys and stuff and it is also important for them to learn about disappointment (ok, I've bought some goodies...).

Now I'm back in my room at the hotel after a quick meal at a sushi restaurant next door. My cold has not gone away, and I guess I miss the hullabaloo at home since I can't be in a quiet room all by myself (remind me of this when I complain about the noise at home...), the TV is on, something in French, I'm not even watching it. Soon I'll go to bed and continue knitting the hat I started working on the plane.

This time no pictures from Paris, since I left the camera at home. Au revoir!

Ylläs

2008-03-05T18:51:00.000+02:00

Tuomas skiing.

Clara and the boys

2008-03-05T18:46:00.002+02:00

So, you can only guess who has affected whom... Risto 6, Tuomas 4, Jaakko 2 and Clara 20-something. And their combined mental age?!?!

Education

2008-03-03T13:56:00.000+02:00

As previously mentioned, Risto is eagerly waiting for school to start. Once when Risto was talking about going to school, Tuomas informed us that he’ll skip school and go straight to the army (and he wants DH to buy him a real gun…). Risto then corrected his brother:” You can’t go straight to the army. First you have to go to school, then to university, then to the library and after that you’ll go the army!”. Somebody should take our boys to the library before starting school…..

Yes, I'm alive!!

2008-02-19T13:20:00.007+02:00

Can you call this a blog any longer, if I update every two months?!?!?

We're alive and kicking. Life goes on, nothing special has happened (no, I'm not pregnant even though it is that time of the year again! But our boys will be getting two more cousins this year!!!). This autumn that started in September/October hasn't turned into a winter and that seems to have sucked all the juices out of me. I don't know how I would've survived this winter if we hadn't Clara, our au pair, to help us. Even though she takes care of most of the laundry, cleaning and cooking, I don't have any energy left at nor after work :-(

Well, what has happened:

Risto turned six two days before Christmas and consideres himself so grown up. He is talking about starting school next August and is really looking forward to it. We have decided to put Risto into a Swedish speaking school that's only 2 km from our home. The best part is that two of his best friends will come to that school, too. And there are only 100 pupils. The nearest language immersion school was an institution of 600 pupils, so we decided against it.

Christmas came and went. We were nine around the table; our family, Clara, MIL, SIL and her hubby. When Santa came with his HUGE sack of presents, Tuomas was nowhere to be seen. I thought that he had hid himself, but SIL informed us that they were downstairs in the bathroom. When Tuomas finally came to the living room, he wasn't shy at all but informed Santa and his helper:"Well, you see, you know, 'cause I was in the toilet peeing and pooing, that's why I wasn't here!" Risto sang to Santa (but said that his helper had a fake beard) and Jaakko was suspicious of the dude in red. Jaakko reached a new milestone on the 27th: bye-bye to the pacifier. I lied and told him that it was given to the lion babies in Africa! Luckily he has his rag to comfort him and now he doesn't miss the plastic yucky thing at all.

The first week of January I was on a 4-day business trip and Clara was in charge of picking up the boys from day care. She did a great job even though our little angels (especially Tuomas) gave her a hard time, not obeying, running away, calling her names (I wasn't really proud when I heard that Tuomas had called her 'you shitty German'). When I came home Thursday evening I bumped into Clara in our yard. DH had come home already and she said that she had to go for a walk just to calm down.... I think they were all glad to have me back!

Tuomas turned 4 at the end of January. He's a big boy, 114 cm tall and 22 kg. Height estimate is still closer to 2m than 1,9m.

The first week of February took us all to Lapland to ski. DH and Clara drove our car and I flew with the boys. The first morning Risto was outside playing in the snow before 8 AM. The first day Risto and Tuomas had a down hill skiing lesson. Risto learned quickly, but Tuomas, being just four, wasn't too interested; he was happy just riding his sled down the hill. The next day Risto tried snow boarding (was quite good!), but decided that he liked skiing more. By the end of the week he was able to ski down from the top of the mountain! DH had booked me a snow boarding lesson, too. I wasn't really jumping up and down from excitement having snow boarded the last time almost 6 years ago and remembering it to be extremely painful for my knees, bum, elbows and head. And it didn't add to my excitement when DH realised that he had left my boots at home. I looked quite sour even in the ski shop when DH literally had to pay for his bad memory: new boots and a new board... But my instructor was absolutely great and now I'm really into snow boarding!!! I've actually dreamt about it. But the greatest thing was that I could snow board with Risto, we were both equally fast coming down(ok, I was a bit slower but I had to fasten the buckles every time coming off the ski lift.). Clara, DH and I took turns baby sitting Tuomas and Jaakko who enjoyed the play ground at the bottom of the slopes. We met a Welsh family at the play ground's camp-fire and I gave them a real surprise by speaking (fluent?!?!?) Welsh. That was fun!

My head is full of crafts and redecorating ideas. I'll just have to wait for the spring sun to get more energy.

I have loads of pictures to put on this blog. Patience, my dears, patience!

Over and out!

Mother of the Millennium

2007-12-18T13:50:00.000+02:00

Christmas is a busy time, but I don't seem to have the brain capacity to cope with all this hullabaloo. If ever there is a "Mother of the Millennium" I won't rank very high:

Saturday. I was doing the grocery shopping with Clara (our au pair, more about her later!) when it dawned on me that Risto was supposed to be at a friend's birthday party that had already started! I quickly called Timppa and asked him if he could take Risto. He was not happy about dressing up three boys and driving Risto to the party. But DH was quick and I doubt Risto even realized that he turned up late! The icing on the cake was that the birthday present was with me in the shop...

Monday. Jaakko's Christmas party at day care. I realized that he was the only one not dressed in christmasy clothes, unless you call a bright lime green t-shirt with a chameleon on it christmasy. Nor did he wear a red Christmas gnome hat like all the other kids. Plus the battery of our camera died.

Tuesday. Tuomas' Christmas party. Clean clothes, 1 point for that. But several minus points for not charging the battery of the afore mentioned camera!! That was a real shame since this time Tuomas participated in the singing and dancing and wore a costume. At the spring party he was not co-operating. And I didn't get his happy face recorded... luckily another mother promised to send me some pictures and also handed her camera to me to take some pictures myself.

Tuesday continues. I went to work after the party (I'm still here.... um... working), but forgot to turn on the sound on my mobile phone. When I finally remembered to turn it on I had several un-answered calls: one from Jaakko's day care and three from DH. Oops! Luckily DH was running errands with Clara and was close to the day care when they called him (since I didn't answer) about Jaakko having an eye infection and needing a doctor. 26 minutes (yes twenty-six!!) after DH got the call from the day care he walked out of the doctor's office with a prescription for antibiotics. TWENTY-SIX... it has to be a world record!

Now Clara, our Christmas angel i.e. au pair, is at home with Jaakko fixing dinner for us. Yesterday she cleaned the whole house, made delicious lieb-küchen (probably mis-spelled it, but German gingerbread with almonds, orange and lemon zest and oh-so-delicious!!), chocolate cookies and just helped with everything. We all love her. Jaakko calls her Kala (fish) or Kaala (since it's too difficult for him to pronounce) and Tuomas after a couple of days of calling her "the German" now manages to call her Craala. Close enough! In just the few days that she's been with us (she arrived on Friday and already at the airport took the boys in control!) she has proven to be the answer to our prayers. Great with the kids, wonderful help in the kitchen and around the house and also great company for us adults. I'm off to a rock concert with her on Wednesday!

So everything is fine!

Paris in November

2007-12-03T14:57:00.000+02:00

I was in Paris last week on business from Tuesday to Thursday.

Just close your eyes.

Think about Paris around Christmas time.

Can you feel it?

You take the metro to your hotel, in Paris. Just keep the image of Paris behind your closed eyes. Ok? Ready to continue?

You walk to your hotel. In Paris. Christmas time (I think the end of November can be called Christmas time...)

You walk to your room. In Paris. Hear the jingle of Christmas bells?

Your draw the curtains.....

A room with a view.

I should've known that something bad would happend when I saw the view. I caught a terrible cold, I'm still wearing the same pyjamas I put on last Friday (did you really want to know that.....) and I haven't been this sick in months. Merci Paris! Well, it was nice, business-wise and leisure-wise.

Utility room, before and after

2007-12-03T14:50:00.000+02:00

"Utility" room, before.
Utility room, after. I see a difference, a change for the better. And I just simply love it. Now, if I could only get a sewing room...... me want, me want, me want.

"Mothers of Three Sons" Club

2007-12-03T14:47:00.000+02:00

Unfortunatel my sister won't be able to join this club, since this morning at 01:27 GMT+1 time she did something unheard of in our family. She gave birth to a

*************GIRL*******************************

"Felicia" weighed 3,7 kg and was approximately 50 cm tall. Apparently everything went well, since I spoke to my sister at 13:30 GMT+2 time and she was on her way home with her daughter!!!

Unfortunately no photos yet!

Baking

2007-11-20T15:54:00.000+02:00

We baked again the other day. In the boys opinion the more raisins and flour you add, the better the result. I agree on the raisin part.

Tuomas concentrating on what part of the dough he'll eat.

Risto thinking......

Oooops, I hope whatever he picked from his nose/mouth didn't end up in the pulla!

The result before baking. Risto was quite upset that the raisins popped out during baking.