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.