Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Yesterday and today we've got snow AND I LOVE IT! I've always loved snow but now I have en extra reason to do that - the yard of our own! At the moment I'm watching out of the window looking at the snowy yard and I feel so happy. Viivi had built the snow lantern and I just had to rush out to take pictures. Hopefully we'll have snow and frost in Christmas so that we can make lantern of ice too to our yard.

We also have bird feeder at our yard for the first time. We enjoy watching the birds come to dine on our yard. We also feed four squirrels. They are so much fun! Sometimes they'll run around like crazy, they'll jump in trees or they use time finding good place to hide the peanuts.

As you may have guessed we love living here in Vantaa. Now we have a home with enough room and a sauna of our own. Our friends and family are close and all the activities of the capital area. God has blessed us with lots of things.

May the light of our Lord shine in your lives too!

Imatra

Imatra is a South Carelian town about forty kilometers (half-an-hours ride) away from Lappeenranta where we live. We have lived in Imatra for three years. Actually my first job as a teachers was in Imatra and also my first assignment as a music class teacher. We have very dear memories from Imatra and we liked living in Imatra. During this year when we've lived in Lappeenranta we have visited Imatra several times and actually Juha's office has a offive over there too. Imatra never dissappoints us!


Imatra's biggest sight is the one in a picture: Imatrankoski rapids. It's actually the oldest tourist sight in Finland. Already in 1772 the Russian empress Catherine the Great visited Imatra in order to see the rapids. Powerplant was built in 1929 and that's why the channel is dry like this mot of the time. During the summer the dam is opened every might at seven o'clock for 20 minutes. It's a powerful and very impressive! I've seen it many, many, many times but I never get bordered to that!

We went to see the show in July with Juha's cousin Jaana and her son Jonni (in the picture with Viivi) and we weren't the only ones! Can you see how crowded the bridge is?







Can you see the cable wire? People were sliding on it to the other side. It looked scary! I would like to be brave enough to do it myself but I think I might chicken out!



Along the river banks of Imatrankoski there is a park called Kruununpuisto (two last pictures from the park). It was established in 1842. There are sightseeing pavilions, dozens of giant's cauldrons, signatures engraved in the rock by visitors, magnificent ‘Jugendstil' Hotel Imatran Valtionhotelli (the first picture), the power plant and Imatra's summer teather in the park area. This year the summer teather is having a play called Kruununpuisto. It tells about life in the beginning of 20th century in Imatra. I went to see it with Jonna and we both enjoyed it. Jonna mainly because there was a real horse in a play! This was my last post about South Carelia. We'll be moving the day after tomorrow and my mind will be focusing on the move and settling back to Vantaa. I'm glad I've got to know South Carelia, beautiful piece of Finland, but I'm happy to get back to the capita area!

Lappeenranta, the summer city

Even tough we didn't quite adjust to Lappeenranta and are moving back to Vantaa we've enjoyed the summertime here. The whole city seems to wake up in the summer but especially the harbour. It's called Huvisatama during the summer (huvi=amusement, satama=harbour). There are twelve amusement devices for free to anyone to jump in in the area starting from the carousel all the way to the Ferrish wheel. There is also a market place, two restaurant ships and little huts selling vety and atomi (local treat: meat pies with ham and egg or just either, tastes good), ice cream, waffels etc. in the harbour. The one thing I like the most in Huvisatama is the sandcastle!
Sandcastle is a large area where are sand sculptures made out of 3 million kilos of sand. This years theme was space. I like walking around the area watching those marvellous sculptures.

Right beside the Sandcastle there is a little Wendy House village. There are eigth fully funished and equipped playhouses there. Different firms have donated money in order to keep it free for the public and so they also got to furnish and advertise in those playhouses. My favourite is this:
We visited the Wendy House Village with Juha's cousine Jaana and her son Jonni who is Juha's godchild. His favourite was the one where you could send an imaginary space ship in to the space!

This is a cute one too.There are also many kinds of events in the harbour in the summer. The one our children loved the best was the presentation of Finnhorse. It's the 100 jubilee year of Finnhorse this year. That's why there are Finnhorse presentations all over Finland this year. We saw how to harness a horse with an old harness and with a new harness, girls got to go for a little ride on a carriage and also on a saddle. One horse even got new shoes in the event!


In this last picture the horse isn't a Finnhorse. There was another event when girls got to ride with Lauke for free.
One day I went to the Ferrish wheel with Viivi. The view was beautiful!


The picture above gives you a better view of the harbour area. This walkway takes to the sandcastle (distance maybe 500 meters), on the left you see the market place, on the right there is the Lake Saimaa and up on the hill is the fortress of Lappeenranta. Another place worth visiting. All the sights are easy to reach at a time. The fortress is place for history and art lovers. FOR ME!

In this building there are a few gallerias and a wonderful cafe with old furniture and athmosphere.

There are also three museums at the fortress and one more very close in downtown. I must admit that I've only visited the South Karelian art museum and South Karelian museum. The one in the picture is the museum of the cavalry. I've wanted to go to the house museum of Wolkoff since last summer but it seems I'm not able to visit it before we move away, it's a pity! Well, it's a good reason to come back to Lappeenranta for visit some day. Girls had a drama tour in South Karelian museum this summer. It was a nice way for children to get into the theme of the exhibition of Suvorov. Suvorov was a Russian general who lived in south east Finland (it was Russia then) 1730-1800.

Summer in Lappeenranta has ment easy access to swim. That we have done a lot! I love swimming and water generally.

Even though Lappeenranta is a beautiful small town I must say that I'm glad I get to go back to Vantaa. It has been a hard year here without friends and family. Our home is in Vantaa and I love it more than Lappeenranta although there isn't the Lake Saimaa and it's mainly ugly block buildings built on a former flat field. You can't reason your heart!

Camping in Lohilahti

Now when the move away from South Karelia is closing it's time to do the last visits to our favourite places. Today we made a little longer trip to Lohilahti, Sulkava. It's about 90 minutes ride from Lappeenranta. We lived 14 months in Lohilahti during the years 1998-1999. It's a beautiful little village in the middle of nowhere. We had our favourite place to go for swimming and camping there called Kiikkuniemi. It didn't disappoint us. On the contrary we had so wonderful day that I'll remember it long time.


Kiikkuniemi is inside in backwoods. As a matter of fact it was little hard for us to find it at first after such a long time. Little forest road and rest of the trip you must go walking. There is a fire place and wood available over there and a marvellous sand beach. The bottom of the lake is sandy as far as you can reach the surface standing and even longer. So very good place for swimming - and we enjoy swimming! Well fool around in the water to be exact...

Water pictures taken by our daughter Jonna, she is always the first one to com out of the water while she gets cold very quickly, poor thing! She also caugth this butterfly to her camera:

Of course we made food with fire! This time we decided to have a little healthier menu than normally on bonfire (makkara/sausage). I also love to fix my gaze on fire...

Our menu: Good Finnish rye bread and spinach and carrot pan cakes. Food made on fire tastes always so good!









Viivi got excited of the blueberries in Kiikkuniemi. She wandered in the near woods for picking up them and we all got to eat them. Fresh berries are sooooooooo good!
























On our way back from Kiikkuniemi we stopped for a minute or two to the downtown of Lohilahti. That's were we lived. Right by the lake Saimaa and the view was wonderful. Check yourself:

In Lohilahti there are a grocery store, bank, a little health center, gas station where you have a post office and a restaurant, school, day care, outside tennis court, flour mill, summer dancing hall, summer teather so enough services to live. I enjoyed living in there but working in the local school was a hell for me. Not because of the children but because of the other teachers.

We also visited one family we got to know while living in Lohilahti. Their daughters are good friends to ours and we enjoy the company of the parents. They had something our kids have wanted to have for a long time: A giant trampoline!

We had a perfect day today! Pity you don't see the grin on my husband's face properly in this picture. It would give smile on your face too. Now I have evidence that he is crazy and I can keep on wearing my t-shirt saying: MY NEXT HUSBAND WILL BE NORMAL!