New coins

Look how wonderful coins I got from my brother! He visited India with a mission group this February. You can read more about his trip to india and Bangladesh at his blog. If you don't understand Finnish you are not able to read it but there are also nice pictures from there. I wish I could visit those beautiful mountains some day! W don't have mountains in Finland at all and I really enjoyed Rocky mountains when we lived in Colorado.

Here are the other sides of the coins. I also got coins from Bangladesh. I didn't have any coins from there yet so now I have coins from 108 countries all together. So my collection is getting bigger slowly but steadily. Still way to go. I encourage all of you to travel a lot and then donate the extra pocket money that you don't know what to do with them after the trip to me! :)

At Norvajärvi

Last weekend we had a nice long weekend in Rovaniemi in Norvajärvi about 15 kilometers away from downtown Rovaniemi. Juha had his final big exam at the university of lapland. That gave us a good excuse to go to Rovaniemi as a family for couple of days because there might not be any reason for doing that any more after Juha gets his law degree. He still have some studies left but big exams are over if he passes this one.

Juha belongs to PAM (Service Union United PAM is a union for employees working in the private service sectors) while he used to work as an safety guard. PAM has a little resort village for the people who belong to PAM. We have been there several times and we love the place. It's very small, having only 6 cottages, it's situated on a very beautiful and peaceful place and it's inexpensive. Well, there isn't running water or bathroom in cottages but in a main building you can find both of them. In a main building there is even a tv.

We had such a good time! It was so relaxing. Here you can see how we enjoyed it.

First of all the landscape was so beautiful! As you can see. The other thing was that there was lots and lots of snow which I personally miss having in southern Finland. I love playing in a snow piles! And that's what we did...

The snow inspired us in many ways.

Viivi enjoyed being outside the most. She would go out by herself even when we others decided to stay in and relax. Here she peeps us through the window:











We also had plenty of time read, play games, stare at the fire etc. Girls got new legos from Rovaniemi so those had to tested too. Legos are their favourites! In a main building was a corona-game too. It's kind of biljard but in stead of balls you have little discs that you try to get in to the bags in corners of the game board. I think the corona was invented in central Europe at the 15th century. I played it a lot as a child while a friend of mine had it at home. Juha had it his home so he is still very good in it after so many furious games with his brother in childhood. The other game we learned was rummy. We had it at my childhood home and I bought it now to our family. So we had several games of Rummy too at the cottage.

How I wish we could have a fireplace at home...

When we visit Rovaniemi we always go to the swimming hall. So we did this time too. We all love swimming but I also like aquajogging a lot. It's very efficent and you are able to talk to someone while aquajogging which you can't do while swimming. There are aquablets for everyone to borrow almost in every swimming hall in Finland. So we aquajogged some too. I wouldn't stop swimming in swimming halls for that but jogging is definately a good extra thing to do in swimming halls. Try it if you hav a chance!

Still few more pictures of Norvajärvi.

There was also an outside fireplace.

Isn't this a good picture to end this post? We have such a beautiful nature here in Finland. I'm thankful to God that I was able to enjoy it in Rovaniemi. We need these special moments in life in order to go on in our every day life.

Inside pics

It's been freezing out here past couple of days. I LOVE IT! It's not a real winter at all if one don't feel the frost in your cheeks and have the white frost in your hair after being outside for a while. I like dressing up well. Now it's just perfect. The temperature is below minus 20 Celsius degrees. I know that i would feel differently if this would be an ongoing thing for over two weeks.

Anyway the frost made its art to our window while we were airing our appartment. Look how cute our class angel looks in our frosty window. Unfortunately the frost dissappears quickly after closing window... Well, I guess it's good that we have tight windows that don't let the cold air come in.

At our citchen window we have also this blue cow. I don't remember which one of our girls made it with class paints. We have these class paintings in various places. They give a cute personal touch to our interior decoration. I think that having children live in our home should also be seen. In order to survive this long and dark winter of ours we need vitamins. So we always have mandarins to eat. To ease the darkness I also like burning candles. This one is my favourite. I got it from a pupil of mine as a christmas present. It's made by finnmari .

Hablo Español

I actually don't speak Spanish but I would love to. When I was in Peru I got frustrated with the fact that I couldn't speak with people without the interpreter. There are millions of people who speak Spanish as their mother toung and I figured out that there might come other situations in my life that i would want to communicate with them. So I took a Spanish course.

I've been going to the Spanish course now for about 10 times. So I can't say that I can speak Spanish but it feels so good to learn a new language. It's hard and it seems that I haven't learned much yet but I'll do my best. here is a sample of my skill:

Soy Maiju. Tengo 32 años. Tengo dos hijos y un marido. Trabajo en escuela. Soy professora. En mi tiempo libre leo libros y eschucha música classica. Me gusta viajar. En Finlandia hay miles lagos.

Did you understand? Hopefully I didn't make many mistakes. If anyone is interested in writing e-mails with me in Spanish I would be happy to do that. I could do that also in Swedish or in German. I have studied them both but forgot almost all of it. I would love to be fluent in all of those langueges and maybe after ten years or so I'll take another language to learn...

Nordic walking

We've started doing nordic walking with my husband. Nordic walking is basically walking with poles. It's very popular here in Finland and it has spread from here very widely in the world. I like it very much while it's more effective than just walking, it's easy and a very simple way to improve your physics. And of course it's a good way to spend time with a hubby! Our walks last at least an hour and in that time we can talk together many things.

Nordic walking was developed into a fitness exercise with specific training equipment in co-operation with the Finnish sports equipment manufacturer Exel Oyj. Actually nordic walking poles has made it possible for the exel oyj to keep their factories open here in Finland. So if you decide to go for nordic walking choose poles from exel - the original walking pole maker from Finland! Exel has an office in 28 countries and well equiped sport stores should sell exel poles.

Knitting

On thing I love in holidays is the time you have to do stuff you don't normally have time to. I like knitting a lot. Now I found a new yarn from Novita called huopanen. The idea of the yarn is that you first knit what you want four times bigger that you want it to be and then you felt it in a washing mashing to the actual size. The outcome is anything but normal. It's thicker, stronger and warmer.

So during the christmas brake I knitted Viivi mittens out of huopanen. This is how the mittens looked before felting them. On background you can see our pet - cat I've knitted myself. Our other pet is around Viivi's neck. The snake is made of old socks. You know how the bottom wears out but the rest stays good. I decided to make those socks useful! Soon I'm going to do another one while we have a pile of old socks once again... I like recycling and making new of old materials! Actually i feel a little bit quilty if I throw something that might be useful to garbage can.

Now you see the mittens felted. Don't they look warm? I would like them to be little softer but Viivi thinks they are just perfect. Well, it was fun to make them and try jumbo knitting needles!

Epiphany

On Epiphany it's time to say goodbye to all the decorations and to the christmastree. We also light all the candles we have and vote for the best christmas card of the year. I've learned to love Epiphany day a lot. I enjoy the candles and when there are tens of them burning at the same time it's wonderful! Here are some pics of the candles

On Epiphany we also eat the gingerbreadhouse. Here's what's left off it:


Then we spread out all the christmas cards we got to the floor. We admire them for moment. Then we start choosing the best of the year. It's hard because christmas cards are so beautiful. There hasn't been a year we could have chosen only one. Last year we had to choose 4 best cards. This year there were three cards that wom our election. Here you can see them. Thank you for those who sent them to us! They brought us a special joy like all the christmas cards.

I keep all the christmas cards we get. I have a folder for them. it's nice to look at them every christmas time. Specially the hand made ones are so pretty and bring joy to me.

Now I want to wish all blessed year 2006! Hope that you enjoyed this christmas time and may the child of the christmas get a bigger part of your life this year!

Narnia

We went to see the movie of Narnia the other day. I really liked it. Even as a child I liked the book a lot. I think I read only the first one. The story is so good and the movie was very well made. My favourite was the sweet little Lucy and the mister Tumnus.

Five years ago Jonna got the book which has all the Narnia books in it as a christmas present. Juha started reading that to Jonna. Sometimes there was even a months gap in reading but it went on. It was very strict that I wasn't allowed to read it because Juha actually wanted to read it himself. It took them almost five years to get it read. In that time Jonna learned to read herself and she reads a lot. she has read all the Harry Potters and tons of other children's books. But she wasn't allowed to read Narnia herself because once again Juha wanted to read it too. Anyway they got it finished just before the movie came out. Talk about perfect timing!

Now Jonna started to read the book by herself and te speed is very different from the earlier. I think she'll get the first book read tomorrow. Narnia is worth seeing as a movie and also read as a book so go for it! Maybe I'll start reading it to Viivi so that I would get to read the other books too.

Triominos

Absolutely the best christmas present we got this year was the game called Triominos. It's like dominos but all the pawns or buttons are triangel shaped. It makes it much more interesting and challenging than dominos. We've been playing that a lot after christmas. We play it all together but many times after children's bed time we but on the radio and play it just the two of us. One thing we do differently than we are supposed to do. We don't count the points we play it just like domino.

When we lived in Colorado we had triominos there too. We loved playing it already then and I decided that we should have one in Finland too. It took almost ten years before I was able to find one from here (or actually before Santa had his helpers to make one for us :)).

I'm so glad that we now have triominos. I encourage every one of you to have one for yourselves too. It's so much more instructive, reasonable and enjoyable to spend time playing a good game than just staring the tv which I tend to do far to much on holidays.

By the way my brother has his own blog too. It's in Finnish but if you are an english speaker you might enjoy the pictures.

At the zoo

We have a year ticket to korkeasaari zoo. We go there every once in a while. Now we decided to pay the zoo a visit on christmas day. That's a good place to walk off all the extra you ate on christmas eve.

When we got there we found out that there was a special route for children in Korkeasaari for christmas time called the stable gnome's route. How I enjoyed it! As a daughter of an artist I can really appreciate things that demand imagination. I'm not sure if the kids enjoyed it as much as I did.

There were signs like this showing the route all the way around the island. Each one was different even though there were many of them. On the route there were also signs where the stable gnome or the girl gnome of the island told about some of the animals and how they have helped them. There were also few tasks for children to fill on a paper (like weighing animal horns, figuring out which hair goes to which animal). What I liked the most was the little scenes that had been built on the route showing the gnomes home, secret garden, kitchen, sauna etc. Look the pictures:

The girl gnome's kitchen

her secret garden
Indoors picture of the boat in which the stable gnome can go around the island

the stable gnome's forge shop

His sauna

The stable home
His skis.

At the end of the tour the girl gnome and the stable gnome had a fancy dinner at the zoo restaurant. The setting was beautiful but my camera's battery was already dead by that time.

I really like Korkeasaari. Most of it is outdoors but there are few houses too. I like walking there. In the summertime the garden looks beautiful and even in wintertime one can enjoy the good work of the gardenists. here is just one example.

Even though we visit Korkeasaari quite regurlarly there is always something new to see or experience. This time the male lion decided to play with our children fortunately through the glass. Exhibitions are quite big and well taken care of except for birds. I think they should have bigger exhibitions. Anyway I like it. And the stable gnome's route was such a special treat for me! Especially when the weather was just perfect. it snowing without wind big snowflakes. This picture is taken from the island towards the downtown Helsinki. Background you can see two ice-brakers waiting for their work season to come. girls enjoying the animal figures on the way to the zoo island.
Me and girls looking how teddy bears are in winter sleep in an very old bear cage. I'm wearing my favourite hat from Peru.

Merry Christmas

Christmas is here again! You can tell it when you smell the fir-tree when walking into your home, you see candles at people's windows, presents coming out of their bags and when you hear christmas carrols all over the places. It never dissapoints you but it comes every year bringing the hope to the world!

This year I've been thinking how tired Mary must have been on the first christmas after the long trip to Betlehem and even after got there in looking for a place to stay overnight all while being pregnant ready to give birth. Along the day she must have cried occasionally her tiredness and despair. I'm not sure if she remebered that she was carrying the Son of God in her. She might have been too tired to care for that. But she gave birth to Christ our Savior and those moments of despair changed into the night of the miracles after miracles, into the night that generations after generations would remember! All along God had been with Mary and Joseph making the divine plan come true. Mary just didn't feel it or even believe it.

I've felt it this December. I don't remember being this tired ever in my life. I haven't been able to concentrate to the real meaning of christmas. I've been too busy with my work and all the concerts, events, reports etc. which come along with my work in December. I've just been walking this road step by step towards the christmas doing all the things I've had to do. On the road I lost my belief for the fact that God cares for me and carries me in my moments of despair. But just like for Mary the real christmas came to me too. I can see it in the eyes of our children, in the flame of the candle, in all the decorations and most of all I can feel it in my soul. CHRIST WAS BORN! It's time to celebrate it.

I can't even imagine what my life would be without the first christmas. I'm so happy that God changed Mary's wearyness into the joy to the world. And He did it to me, too. I hope you all can experience the secret of christmas in your life!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OF YOU!

PS. This year I didn't send any christmas cards. With that money I planted a real christmas tree in Peru hoping that it will bring joy to the family in need with its fruit.

Christmas is coming

Angels and elves have found their way to our home once again! I love Christmas time! In decoration I like using self made little things, nothing fancy. Smaller elves on teh picture have been made by my grandmother and the others are made by some craftsman from Imatra. The christmas angel is a gif from my pupil.

Christmas time means also delicatessen and in order to have those one should either make them or bake them. I prefer baking myself. It's a good way of spending time with children and of course you get the scent of the christmas. In Finland the most common things you bake for christmas are gingersnaps and Finnish Christmas pies. I love the pies. We eat them only in christmas time. There is a picture of me making them and a picture of them already baked here.













Mother's enthusiastic helpers.


One thing is a tradition at our family. We don't make gingerbead house but we make a gingerbread creche. I want to remember and remind others that christmas is a christian event. Here is our creche.

It would be nice to hear what kind of delicacies are been made all over the world. Please, let me know! I will appreciate the recipies too.

Christmas means presents too. I love giving presents. I would love to give everyone selfmade present but I don't have enough time for making them. This year I've knitted few stocks. A Finnish company Novita has created a yarn that has stripes in it. It helps a lot when you don't have to change the yarn in order to get the stripes. So you get good looking stocks easily. Take a look!

There are still 6 more nights till christmas eve which is the biggest of the christmas days here in Finland. So plenty to do still. Blessings to your preparations!