What we did on our vacation: The 2010 Edition

What - summer's over already?! Unfair!

Well, weatherwise summer still very much hangs around. It's been a record-shattering heatwave summer - Virginia heat last year was mild compared to what we've had - and tonight the Helsinki region got a cosmic whopper of a thunderstorm (it's a miracle we didn't lose the electricity). The was even something like a tornado that ripped a big branch off a tree in our yard - and threw it precisely on our car! Because this happened only about 45 minutes ago and it's still storming and very dark outside, the actual damage will become clear tomorrow :( This is very, very unusual for Finland, kind of creepy, really.

Anyway, Make's returning to work tomorrow, Annu has already been working for a few shifts, and the boys go back to school on Tuesday (Reko eagerly, Atte... less so). It will take a while to settle into the routine, because our summer has been a good mix of travel and plain lazing about (in the heat it was sometimes the only thing to do, too). During summer, this has happened:

• Travelled around in southwestern and central Finland, including a visit to Make's childhood and teenage years' summer regions in the islands, where Sterling visited in '86. The house is still there and someone seems to take care of it. *sigh*

• Got ourselves lost on a nature trail on said islands; Reko proved to have a bird's sense of direction and saved the day!
  

• Spent two days in amusement parks (Atte and Make: rides, Reko and Annu: general support, reading and relaxation).
  

• Spent time on beaches, with boys now swimming truly like fish. Reko likes to dive from a 3-meter board while Atte is more into distance swimming. We keep an eye on him, of course...
  

• Atte has been practicing his guitar a lot and very much looks forward to returning to his lessons.

• Annu was diagnosed with an overactive thyroid, which fully explained her often exhausted state, hideous heart rate and mood changes. She's been taking thyroid pills and beta blockers for about 2 months now, and they seem to be working nicely (the mood changes are not entirely gone, but that's life, eh?). They say it's not necessarily a for-life condition and it may actually go away for good with the medication, but we shall have to wait and see. Strangely enough, long distance driving seems to work as a therapy as well! In any case, by this time she's improved enough to plan running the 10 km Helsinki Midnight Run about a month from now.
  

• Make has been working with his current band and they're trying to get live gigs for the autumn.

• The whole family has watched the James Bond movies, in chronological order. We just arrived in the Timothy Dalton films and us adults wonder what we should do when we get to the latest, the Craig/Bond movies... The boys are immense 007 fans and they seem to know all about that stuff. We found a pile of Finnish 007 fan magazines for them and they've studied them as if they were sacred scriptures. It's just amazing how much useless information a young brain can process and hold ;-)

And to finish with, here's some visual evidence! Click on the picture to see it full-size.

Love,
The Latvanen Gang

The boys in the beginning of summer.


















All us guys in Särkänniemi, an amusement park in the city of Tampere.












Midsummer's picnic in the lakeside park in our home town of Järvenpää.












Annu and the boys reach a high point in the islands...












... and so does Make.


















Reko saves the family from the depths of the forest! Hooray! (Notice the humble "I just did my duty" smile on his face)











Safely back home, Annu found a farm selling organic "U Pick" strawberries.

















Return of the North Carolina Beach Bum!

Oops - it's summer again!

Surprise: we’re still here! We really have no excuse for not writing in *nine months*!!! so we will offer none. As for actual reasons – well:

· busy
· harsh and long winter that froze us in place
· work and school
· busy
· advancing middle age; perception of time getting hazy
· constantly exhausted because of too little sleep
· busy.

In Finland, this life period is called The Rush Hour Years, and now we know what that really means. We are very grateful our boys don’t play soccer or hockey or any of those sports that require the parents to do… well, the things that soccer moms and hockey dads seem to do a lot. We’re not made of their stern stuff; we would crack under the pressure… Oh all right, one of us would (and that’s not Annu).

This spring has been exceptionally demanding, especially as it follows a very hard, long winter (with record deep snow). Annu has been working hard. Her job demands a lot and she sometimes feels insufficient – there are limits to one's resources. Or maybe not: somehow she found the stamina and will power to do the Helsinki City Run, an annual half-marathon (about 21.5 km). Turned out 2 days later that she did it with a hairline fracture in her other ankle. Gutsy woman.

Make has found himself getting mixed up in various projects that should take Finland's government web services to a new level. It's exciting but at the same time there are all the risks that go with doing things for the first time. The results will be visible in late October, and since the projects have already been dragging on for a year now, the tolerance for living with constant uncertainty is getting a bit thin in places. But if everything eventually works right, something good will have been accomplished.

Reko played chess and read these huge Lord of the Rings / Harry Potter fantasy novels throughout the school year, and Atte has started with his guitar lessons. That's electric guitar, to be precise, and we're happy to report he hammers out AC/DC, Judas Priest and Metallica riffs very convincingly already. That boy just loves his Stratocaster and would take it to bed with him if it wasn't risky for the instrument. Both boys are doing excellently in school, by the way.

This summer us adults will only have about 1,5 weeks vacation time together, and our summer travels will be in Finland. We also try to save up a bit so we can come to USA and Canada again in summer 2011. We already have the basic plan figured out: drive (Annu drives, that is – she got the hang of American highways last year) the Atlantic coastline north from New York, all the way to Maine and there cross over to Canada where, we hear, will be a special birthday we have promised to attend :) Then to the UP in Michigan, and then around the Great Lakes' western shores in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois (perhaps see Chicago) and then into Michigan from the South.

2013 it'll be Vancouver, BC, and Seattle, WA, and in 2015 the classic NY-LA trek. We've got a huge map of North America in our dining room so we can trace out possible routes and mark the traveled ones. So yeah, we will be around...

August 2009: Cat muffins and jello cats for the cats' birthday -it's a tradition already, and we usually serve something vaguely American for the occasion.

Reko the Vampire at Halloween. Notice grand aunt Ghastly's portait, straight from the Past Tense country store :)

Make recording the drum parts for the new band's demo on Dec. 5. You can listen to the results at http://maihinnousu.net/altidude. The latter is the band's name, duh.

Christmas Eve, the main cemetary in Helsinki. Annu with the boys lightning candles for the ones gone before us. Jack was lovingly remembered, as were Annu's late father and others now absent.

The absurd masses of snow this winter don't really come through in this picture, but otherwise it's so Finnish: snowy trees, cross-country skis, and the mandatory Nokia cell phone. Annu demonstrates the correct style of conversing while not letting the ski poles drop.

February 13, Make's 44th birthday and we're in Stockholm, Sweden. No hurry that day, because the birthday boy managed to hurt his back and we did the day very, very slowly... which was nice, for a change.

Our traditional Easter window, the 2010 model.

The Wonder Woman getting ready to do the half-marathon. Notice the manic gleam in the eyes - everything you've heard about running being addictive is 100% true.

...and spring finally arrived for good in early May. The slightly solemn faces are because the boys were told to put away the pc games and books and go outside 'cause it's wonderful out there and you'll need the oxygen and so on and so on. But they loved it, really.

Almost summer.