On athletics event for children

Yesterday I took our girls to an athletics event organised by our bank. There were about 100 children on the field enjoyig athletics. Everyone got to run a short distance run (20 meters - time was taken by electric equipment), throw a children's javelin and jump long jump. All the results were marked on a little paper and after doing it children got a little present.

Our girls loved the long jump. They did that at least 7 times. Every time the same men who had been working as volunteers on world championshps in athletics here in Helsinki messured the result with smile on they face and encouraging words on their mouth. Girls didn't like the javelin... We did some high jump too even though it wasn't arranged there and wasn't messured at all.

While our kids were taking part on these acticities I took an UKK walking test. In that test you walk 2 kilometers and after that they take your pulse. And of course the time you've spent in walking is messured too. After couple of weeks I will recieve results of my physical condition. I'm little bit afraid of that because last time I took the test results were very bad. I haven't done much after that. It's such a change in my life. I use to be in very good condition while I played Finnish baseball. How can it be so hard to take care of your physical condition after being competing athlete?

Anyway we had very good time yesterday! We went to the field by bycicles were there for two hours adn drove back (4 km one way) so you can imagine girls were ready to bed when we got home. Today the violin teacher said that Viivi was very tired today - wonder why?

Coin collecting

Since I was a child I've collected coins. I wasn't active in it for 7 years but now I've started to be active again for about a year. Today I've been organizing my coin album in order to fit the new coins my brother brought me from his trip to East Europe. I got new coins from Poland, Slovakia and Romania.

I've got coins from 105 different countries. Of those countries I've been in 22 myself. Three newest once are from this summer: Latvia, Lithuania and Peru. Someday I would like to have at least one coin from each country on Earth. That will take time but maybe when I'm 64 that day will come...

Most of my coins I've recieved from my friends and family. Some I've bought through internet or from second hand market and some I've brought myself from my travels. If there's anyone out there who would like to change some coins with me I would love to do that. I've got extras I could give up.

I also have three coins that I don't know where they are from. I can't even remember where I've got them at first place. Here are pictures of those three coins (6 pictures, each one from both sides -first and last go together, others go together in order). If anyone can help to identify these coins, please let me know!

Night of the Arts

Yesterday we took our kids to my sister's and visited the Night of Arts in Helsinki with tens of thousands of other people. Night of the Arts brings arts to parks all around helsinki for people to enjoy free. There were all kinds of arts to see and experience: dancing, singing, acting, sircus, painting, sculptures etc. I really like the athmosphere!

The main thing for us was to see the national opera's picks of the coming seasons. I LOVE OPERA! On our way to the opera we walked through a big park with many kinds of cultural activities. Still what I enjoyed the most was the art God has provided to the sky! It was really beautiful: rainbow, multicoloured clouds, sun giving the last rays etc.

Oh, how much I enjoyed the hour that national opera and ballet provided for us! When I was sixteen my father took me to opera for the first time of my life in East Berlin. We watched the Magic Flute by Mozart. Since that I've loved the aria of the Queen of the Night and yesterday I heard alive again. That was a special treat! When I was younger I dreamed that I could sing it one day. Now I've given up hope. I almost gave up the singing totally but since God has given me a good voice I've thought of starting it once again. It's the best way I've ever been able to express myself.

The other song I loved very much was performed by a Spanish opera singer who is visiting our national opera. He sang the song if I were a rich man from the musical Fiddler on the Roof. The performance was very good even though the pianist (the leader of our national opera) didn't have one page which he noticed during the performance. Well, professionals can deal with it with glamour! After that song I decided to represent the musical Fiddler on the Roof to my pupils next. That's a good one!

The school has started

Once again a new school year has started. This year I have the sixth grade. The same class that I've had already three years. What a joy it is to be able to enjoy the same kids, see them grow and learn for a longer period of time. I have a musical class and now it's time to enjoy the fruit of hard work with the basics. My pupils are very good and I just wouldn't be able to teach them anything more after the sixth grade. I'm glad that after that they will have a music teacher.

Two things are new to me this year. It was my turn to take the school's brass band to direct this year. Last year I had the string orchestra and loved doing that. I felt a little bit sad in giving it up but after two times with my new orchestra I don't regret it anymore. Of course it takes time before I remember how to write to saxophone, trumpet, clarinet, oboe and flute so that it's easy enough but not too easy. But I love learning new stuff. And because I can't proberly play any instrument I love conducting an orchestra because it gives me the opportunity to play something well! Even though the kids are the ones who make the work...

The other new thing is that I teach religion for our 9th graders. We have grades from 0 to 9. I really enjoy dealing with older pupils once in a while. they have their own ideas already and the conversations are very refreshing.

Even though I'm much busier now that the school has strated I'm glad it did. I know that there will be times that I get very tired and would like to find an easier job but I think teaching is my thing. I love being around children and youth!

At allotment garden in Oulu

When we were in Oulu for my grandmother's birthday we stayed at the allotment garden cottage of my aunt and her husband. I've always enjoyed that place a lot! Here on the left is the picture of that cottage.









Here you can see the yard of the cottage. On the right there is a little playhouse and at the back is a neighbours cottage. Picture has been taken from the stairs.

My Aunt and her husband grow black currant, red currant, raspberry, gooseberry and strawberry and some other things at their yard. I'm a berry lover so I enjoyed the berries a lot. Joonas and Viivi enjoyed picking them a lot. It's such an adventure for town children to get in touch with a little "farming". When I was a child we also had currants at our yard and I miss the chance to just go and eat them straight from the bushes.

The thing the kids loved the most at the cottage was the giant trampoline! I think they were jumping there all the time even after the birthday party untill midnight! Very good excercise. I could do it for ten minutes and get exhausted.







The other thing the kids loved (especially Joonas) wa a little bond with real fish in it. Joonas would catch them with a net bag and them put them back. Here you can see him in action. Now you can have a better look of the playhouse too.


This is the porch ofthe cottage. I really love the way how it's furnished. You can find many old things in the cottage. It gives the place a certain athmosphere which I like a lot.


Here is a cupboard from the cottage. The lowest shelf is for the girls to play with little teddy bears.


The allotment garden is situated on the river and that was a special treat for me. As I've grown up on the lake I love swimming a lot. That is one thing I miss the most of my childhood to be able to swim when ever you felt like it. Well, on winter time it was a little difficult because of the thick ice on it. Sometimes my father would make whole in it for us to "swim" on winter time too.

Anyway I really made the most of the river. I took a morning-swim, a day-swim and an evening-swim. Joonas and Viivi enjoyed swimming too but normally gave up before me. At the allotment cottage there is a common building near the river. There are saunas for men and women which they heat three times a week during the summer and twice a week in winter time. When the saunas weren't heated you could go and take a shower anyway there. Near this beach there was a play ground for children too. So in total it was the best kind of a place to stay with kids for couple of days. At least I enjoyed it a lot!

In the last picture you can see my mother (on left) and her two sisters. The one in the middle is the one who owns the allotment garden cottage.

My Grandmother's 85th birthday

My grandmother had her 85th birthday the 12th of August. We had a wonderful surprise party for her. All of her living children and most of the grandchildren and greatgrandchildren gathered at her home to celebrate her birthday from all over Finland. She didn't know that there would be a party for her! She was so happy to have us all there. I guess the life of a widow can be very lonely time to time.

My grandmother has given birth to 6 girls and one boy who passed away almost immidiately after birth. One daughter of hers has passed away about ten years ago. She has 18 granchildren and 10 greatgrandchildren.

My grandmother and grandfather get to know each other because of the war. My grandfather was a soldier and my grandmother was a nurse. One day my grandmother had to take care of my grandfather - her future husband. So, I guess I should be happy that Finland was in war with Russia (or actually Soviet union).

My grandmother is still living at home and in my opinion she's doing fine. Fortunately she doesn't have any problems with her brains or memory and discussions with her are very interesting. She is still travelling some.

My grandmother is originally from that area of Finland that now belongs to Russia. She has very dear memories from Terijoki. I have visited Terijoki too when I was 9 years old. At that trip we also visited Leningrad (now called Sant Petersburg). I got lost on a subway down at the main avenue. Somehow I managed to walk back to our bus in front of the Eremitash. My parents were of course almost losing their minds. My mom told that she went to a bathroom to pray and after that she walked right to me.

Anyway I love to have a big family. Most of my cousins are same aged and now there are many same-aged greatgrandchildren too. Our older daughter is the first greatgrandchildren to my grandparents and also first grandchildren for both my parents and my husband's parents.

In this picture you can see my parents before the birhtday party.

Here is our younger daughter Viivi in a North Karelian national costume. That's where I spent my childhood. With Viivi is my sister's older son Joonas. We went to Oulu where the birhtday party was in one car. My sister couldn't go and our older daughter Jonna also couldn't go. So in that car were my parents, Viivi and Joonas. Children enjoyed the trip a lot.

Climbing

Today I had a special day. I got to meet a friend whom I hadn't seen in about 17 years and I got to do a little rock climbing. It sure sounds awful that I have friends from so far in time that almoust 20 years! I don't feel any older that in my twenties.

Anyway last time I have rock climbed was in my youth when I visited Siperia, Krasnojarsk. My parents use to help ingrian people living in Russia (ingrians are related to Finns) at those times. They got to know a world champion in rock climbing who was also ingrian. They helped her and her family to move to Finland. So we get into the rock climbing circles in Russia and twice they invited me to their rock climbing paradice in Krasnojarsk.

Those trips to Krasnojarsk were very interesting and enjoyed them a lot. Both times we went to the surrounding wilderness to climb on the rock pilars back there. We stayed in cottage that situated on one of the pilars in the height of 40 meters. The little cottage situated in a cave of the pilar which grew straight from the ground to the heights. It was a scary place but I liked it. We stayed there for 3 to 4 days. Climbing was easy because I had three generations of world champions helping me all the time. This time was different!

I climbed indoors this time. It was different but still very enjoyable. At first I was little afraid of the height but I got use to it pretty quickly. I also realized how good excersice it was. After taking two routes I was sweaty all over. I had to give up climbing after three and half routes. But it gave me hunger for more! I recommend everyone to try rock climbing at least once in a lifetime. In Helsinki you can do it at the sport center of Tapanila. find out more: www.kiipeilykeskus.fi

It sure was good to meet an old friend too. With that special friend of mine I good look back the many summers when we were on kantele camp in Ilomantsi. Kantele is our national instrument. We had such a good time on those camps and I still love kantele music. It would be so great to take my own girls to the kantele camp in Ilomantsi and pass on that heritage to them too.

Read about kantele in here: http://virtual.finland.fi/netcomm/news/showarticle.asp?intNWSAID=27002

By the way has any of you watch world champioships in athletics in Helsinki? Helsinki is the capital of Finland. I've enjoyed the international athmosphere it has brought to our capital.

Lima

When we were in Lima our main purpose was to get to know the slums of Lima and in those we spent the most of the time but our hotel situated in Miraflores, totally different kind of Lima. Here are some pictures from there. I hope you enjoy them. One thing I liked a lot was the colouring of the houses.

I guess whenever you are travelling with children you'll get to know where the closest swing is. Our girls enjoyed the local play park as much as ones in Finland even though mom was little afraid if the chains in swings will hold etc.

Lima is the capital of Peru situated on the coast of Pasific Ocean. There are over eight million people living in Lima. It has a mild climate, with warm summers and cool winters, very humid all year round mainly because of the Humboldt sea current. It almost never rains, but it drizzles very often during winter time. The drizzle, however, is generally so thin that only moistens every surface exposed to the atmosphere...

We didn't see the sun except once while visiting the slum of Keiko Sofia which is situated little pit upper than Miraflores and futher from the coast. Because of the lack of rain nothing grows without watering in Lima. Funny thing was that all the flower arrangments by the roads were actually adds. Once I saw Pambers written with flower arrangment. Kind of a clever idea!

I loved all these different kind of trees that were bloomig! Because there was so little green naturally anywhere people grew flowers in very small pieces of land and that was such a delight for the bypassers.

This was a very common sight on our way to slums. As you can see nothing is growing. So you can imagine what an impact a flower add has there!

Hanko, Finland

I had never visited Hanko before my parents moved there a few years ago. After that it has become a familiar place for our family. Later on Juha's mother moved to Hanko too after Juha's father's death. So now we have both grandparents' homes in Hanko in a same building just in different floors. You can imagine what a fun it is for our kids to run from other grandparents place to the other! Actually they enjoy the special attention there so much that they normally sleep in different appartments. Clever kids, don't you think!

I like Hanko a lot! I'm glad my parents decided to move there because otherwise I might not have visited that at all. Hanko has beautiful beaches, lots of rockies and the best of all these fabulous villas! I always get carried away looking at those. It sure is my dream to own or live in one of them! Well, it's almost certain that it won't happen but maybe God has a place like that for me to live in heaven.

Hanko is the southest place in Finland. I think it's worth visiting. Just the landscape is so relaxing. If you want to know more read the town web page. www.hanko.fi