After a tragic week, nature blazes

A week ago a tragic act of violence shook Finland to its foundations. It was made even more disastrous because it was the second of its kind within ten months. In both instances, the atrocities were carried out by young, alienated males, with handguns, whose primary contact to the world was the Internet.

There's been so many questions on how we Finns bring up our kids, and what kind of people we really want them to grow up to be. There is no single answer that would solve everything but we hope our leaders and decisionmakers will wake up to the fact that what we do need are policies that support caring, tolerance, social skills, openness and creativity instead of the current forces of greed, self-gain and alienation.

Needless to say, we also strongly question the reasons why any civilian would ever need to carry a firearm.

All we can do, as parents, families and individuals, is carry on and do our honest ten cents worth to give love strength and alleviate suffering. Given the hard edge of our times it may sometimes be a tough call. But we have no other option, and neither should we.

And oh my: what wonderful colors we have had through these sad and confusing days. We spent the last weekend with friends, about a 120 north of Helsinki, where we enjoyed the season's quite possibly last outdoor games of soccer and badminton, and where the autumnal nature really showed her best. If we city dwellers had any chance of actually surviving in the countryside, we could move out there. Now there's a surprising thought...

Peace.

Planes, trains, soccer, drums and exercise

Oh, it's such a stuffed life with kids, isn't it? There seems to be little time for anything else than the obligatory stuff, but when you look closer... at least some of your daily hours are spent on doing something voluntary.

Atte has picked up two new things to do. He goes, with Make, to a model railway club at our town church. The kids get to both drive the model trains and in time they will learn the maintenance and landscaping tasks of a fairly big model set. And when he's not there, he loves to fly! The Microsoft Flight Simulator has totally taken him, and it's truly cool to watch him learning to read the real instruments in a plane's cockpit, and learn the genuine basics of civilian aviation. (Make too has a few flying hours under his belt by now...)

Reko has started soccer last week. He seems real enthusiastic after he got bitten by the Euro Champs this summer; his skills are not top notch compared to most others in the group but at least for the time being he makes up for it by going headlong into the game (sometimes literally).

Annu is trying to accomodate herself to a work with extra long shifts (even 24 hrs at a time), and she enjoys the rewards - days off in the middle of the week - immensely. There's plenty to learn and internalize yet, so the job at this point is probably more draining than it will in time be. She loves it though! She's kept up with her jogging, and taken up swimming on the side as well. The boys in the family try to keep up with her :)

Make has joined an ex-work buddy's band, so the drums stay in the picture very much. He even remembers to take his earplugs to rehearsals nowadays, although remembering anything else is something of a chore. Oh well.

Signs of autumn

We spent our traditional annual end-of-summer day at Make's stepdad Raimo's and her mother Vivi (who Reko thinks is one of the world's greatest cooks, along with grandmother's Lea, Kaija and Jeannette!) place near the town of Porvoo. Annu and Make gathered blackcurrant leaves (no berries this year) for a delicious natural drink, and the boys played soccer and flew a model airplane. Well, the adults got into some of that, too...





Annu at a blackcurrant bush














Atte takes it easy














Reko's become a little hippie. Peace!

















Annu shoots...














...and Reko saves!













Make, Atte and the airplane












Annu, Raimo and Vivi













The leaves are turning













Off into the dark season...

The Everyday Grind: Welcome to the Machine...

Well, it's definitely September rolling in. Raining, raining, raining, and grey - so hello you guys there Down Under, we're not sure if you'd really like this or not... Truly, Finland between September and April may be pretty way over in Lapland or something, but otherwise. Oh well.

The boys' school has somehow just started running like an engine. Atte's strange in that he shows no signs culture shock; for him, school just... began. Probably his reading and other such "school skills" help in that. On the other hand, his school routines like homework do need some looking after - they don't come so naturally. "Work before play" is a principle that will take some time to be learned thoroughly.

For his Religion class, Atte had to draw a picture of himself with other God's creations. Well, the six-year old artist came up with a drawing of himself, some trees and animals, God, the Great Wall of China (Atte's been using Google Earth a lot) and a Finnair jet on its way to Australia, carrying Lorraine with it. It's a very nice picture but it will probably need some explaining for the teacher :)

Reko is very fastidious with his homework, but sometimes gets frustrated if he doesn't get it right the first time. There's a lot more homework on 2nd grade, and a lot more English, too. By the end of the year he will probably have a working grasp of the language. Today, for instance, his English homework consisted of math tasks in English (numbers in English etc) and an English hidden words crossword puzzle. The rest of his time is spent with Pokemon trading cards. Oh well, again.

Both boys seem to have many friends, and they spend their time with them, too. "Where's Atte/Reko?" "Oh, outside with his friends somewhere" - a pretty common dialogue these days. They're growing up...

We're past the 2nd Harry Potter novel for bedtime reading, and in Chapter 8 of Tom Sawyer! It was a gamble, because there was no telling whether they could get excited over 19th centuryAmerican boys, but they can! It seems very little has changed in a boy's life over the past 150 years, which is kind of hopeful, really.

Annu is pretty deep into her new job even though it officially starts next Monday. She seems very happy with it, and even the pay is, for a change, decent. It's close to what she's studied for, and she feels she really can contribute to that community. Even if everyone else there is at least ten years younger than her. Oh well.

Marko joined another band on top of his E.L.O. tribute band. Earplugs, now more than ever! And also on the music front, we got the wonderful news that our great favorite, the perhaps-the-greatest-songwriter-alive, Mr. Randy Newman, will give a concert in Helsinki on Nov. 14. The tickets will come available on Monday.

So we're pretty busy but will keep on blogging - next time we hope to have some new photos too.

Summer's out, school's in

Well, here we go with our very first blog in English! We started this so that we can share our everyday doings (and undoings) with all our friends abroad, post pictures and links right on the page. We will keep emailing everyone personally, of course, but the general diary-like things we will post in this blog. Do write your comments here, too - maybe we all can end up having some interesting discussions :)

So - hello everyone in different parts of the world, wherever you are!

Our vacation season is well and truly over. Marko's been back to work for three weeks, and the boys' school started last week. Atte is now an eager first-grader, and Reko enjoyed joining his classmates for his second grade year.






Atte's first school morning








Reko's 1st morning on 2nd grade









Annu has been working shifts at a group home for young people, and evidently she has made an impression: the owners offered her a full-time job for a year that she promptly accepted. She will begin her new job on Sept. 1.

The summer vacation itself was fun. We did a bit of travelling around Southern Finland, visiting friends, relatives - and theme parks.





Atte and the Skywheel







Close to the end of our holidays old friends (hi Suvi, hi Ingo!) celebrated their marriage, so we had the chance to catch up with both them and a mutual friend, Lorraine, whom we got to know during Suvi's early days in Singapore.

Lorraine flew here from her current home in Melbourne, Australia, and spent a whopping three weeks all over Finland, plus a trip to St Petersburg, Russia. We were lucky to host her twice during her Finnish journey. She left only yesterday, and we're still smarting - it was ten years we'd last seen her (seems we've specialized in overlong periods of separation). Reko said that she brought extra joy to our home, so Lorraine, we do hope and believe we'll meet you again in about 330 days time, in Toronto, corner of Dundas (it was not Spadina after all!) and Bloor. Ok?





Annu and Lorraine, farewells at Helsinki Airport







Our next summer's plans have evolved a bit again. We have found a very nice apartment hotel in Toronto. We plan to stay there for four weeks and spend another four weeks in Virginia and Michigan. (Sterling & Kathy, Jack & Jeannette: we'll ask about your schedules for next year over email very soon) This means us staying in N. America from about June 7 to the beginning of August.

Even if this summer's fun and games are now the stuff of memories, one has to have fun, too. The Living Thing, Marko's Electric Light Orchestra tribute band, played their second concert on the 17th, and at least we got a picture of the stage, if not the band:





10 minutes before going on stage...




Neat, eh? We'll try and get some pics of the band too, next time ;-)