Home Bound – In Transit

Travelling with a baby is a kind of an extreme sport in any case. Add to the mix that there are two babies, who have just learned to walk and you have been away for three months and have six big suitcases to carry, and oh did I mention that we were going to meet our au pair for the first time at the airport? Well let’s just say that the stress levels were soaring.

In order to lower the stress levels we decided to stay the night at an airport hotel to give us all a break after the three hour drive from the summer house and take the first flight in the morning.

The Hilton hotel at the airport was really great. Big, nice rooms and very friendly staff (not always to be expected in hospitality establishments in Finland). The boys felt instantly “at home” and started moving all furniture around before taking a lovely bath.

The hotel provided two travel cots at no extra cost and the two rooms that we had booked were next to each other with an adjoining door.

This meant that when boys went to bed, our au pair stayed in the other room, looked after the boys (and ordered some room service)  and we went downstairs and enjoyed a lovely dinner. What a great way to end your time in Finland, a super yummy Nordic tasting menu along with a glass of ice cold New Zealand white wine.

The hotel started serving breakfast at six which left us just enough time to get ready, pack our bags, have breakfast and then walk five minutes to the terminal building to catch our flight to London.

The flight went surprisingly well as the boys slept the most of it, but they were awake long enough to make us cancel our plans to take them to New Zealand next year (to meet that side of the family). A three hour flight is bearable, but two twelve hour flights to Auckland is a different ball game, a game that we dont want to participate in just yet.

Yes, we were all a little bit tired and weary, but we were home.

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Finnish Summer Ends

…relatively early. As the rest of Europe start their summer holidays in August, in Finland children are back to school and adults back to work.

And the Finnish summer ends for us as well. On our last day at the summer house I wanted to immerse the boys in all things Finnish in the hope that some of it would perhaps stay with them….? A smell, a taste, a feeling?

We went to see the Moo-Cows one last time and then went blueberry picking.

Boys were picking and eating blueberries, sitting on moss and blueberry bushes and I holding back the tears. My little Finnish boys…when will we be back?

The one positive thing about a cold, rainy summer is that the berries and mushrooms are everywhere! The blueberries, wild strawberries and raspberries are big and tasty.

It was easy to pick a cup full for the evening porridge.

We also found some chanterelles and made a lovely creamy chanterelle pasta for lunch. Everyone loved it, including the boys.

In the evening we celebrated the “Ultima Noche” with some champagne and crayfish.

We have been together with grandpa and grandma for so long now….

How will we manage to be apart? Tomorrow we travel back home.

Christening

And so came the time to christen our boys. Usually in Finland babies get christened when they are two months old, but in our case the chaps didn’t even have passports at that age and I couldn’t consider organising this celebration anywhere else than at our beloved summer house. That is where we got married four years ago.

Following the pattern of this summer, the day before and the day after the christening the weather was stunning, but on the day itself it was rainy and quite cold. But that didn’t matter as somebody suggested the great idea of taking the family portrait the day before and on the day itself we spent majority of the time inside.

To organise anything with two little ones in tow can be quite challenging, so the stress levels were soaring as we were hosting 30 people for the party, 20 people stayed over and I had the fabulous idea of baking and preparing all food by myself.

But it was a true family effort, all our loved ones (friends and family) did so much to help by organising, cleaning, baking, taking care of the boys, getting our Dadda from the airport in the middle of the night, taking photographs and much much more.

So despite the stress, tiredness and craziness, it was a wonderful celebration and such a happy day. I was so proud of my little chaps and our little family.

I think there aren’t enough parties and happy celebrations in life and that’s simply why we should go through the trouble of organising them sometimes. How wonderful it is to get the whole family together, pause for a minute, catch up and just feel grateful and happy.

I read a poem to the boys at the christening:

“…that you would trustingly go and find what for you is good and beautiful and right…

…It is ok to make mistakes and try again, to change direction and opinion…

Always believe in dreams and hope for the impossible….” (Irja Askola) 

Midsummer Magic

This is the first time in ten years that I’ve been able to spend the whole summer in Finland thanks to my maternity leave. Of course the summer turned out to be the coldest in 100 years. Isn’t that ironic?

But bad weather is somewhat mandatory for midsummer. I can’t remember any midsummer from my childhood or youth with good weather. Cold temperature, rain and a cloudy sky only add to the magic of midsummer. The nature is green and fresh and incredibly beautiful.

Although the name suggests that it is middle of summer, us Finns consider the summer to start from midsummer.

When living abroad midsummer is the time of year that I miss home the most. So this year I was really going to enjoy this holiday. Bring on the rain, thunder and stormy weather, who cares!

So what is it exactly that happens at midsummer? Well not much. As with all Finnish holidays, it usually involves alcohol in some shape or form. For us it meant cooking some lovely summer food with new potatoes and fish, having a drink of champagne and celebrating the nightless night.

We went for a walk and picked some wild flowers. For the boys it was of course their first midsummer and probably the only one spent in Finland for a long time.

We looked back on the year we’ve had and felt really grateful. Little chaps are almost one year old. A friend of ours said that with little kids you feel that the days are very long but the years are short, how very true!

And then what happened next?

H&M Spring

I’m loving H&M’s new spring line for babies. It’s a bit “Petit Bateau” in style, but fraction of the price, happy days! I wonder if they have been seeing Lindex’ (who is by the way entering UK market, yay!) success with baby clothes and have decided to go after that market…? Whatever the reason, I think I have to grab some of these beauties for my boys…