Paula & Iines & Vilma & Otso: October 2010

August - Summer keeps going

As promised the blog rush continues. In August the family holiday was over but the summer still kept going strong. The big event naturally was Vilma's baptism ceremony which took place at Mami's. Godparents are two fine young men, Tuomas and my cousin Mikko. Vilma wasn't quite as chilled as Iines was during her ceremony few years back. It must have been the heat or something. Anyways the event was very nice and cozy.

Otherwise it seems that we spent lot of time in southern Helsinki at least when looking at the photos. Well at that time we didn't have a clue that we would be living there few months later.

The big moment (Copyright M.Tiili)

Tuomas, Otso, Mikko and Virpi-Mami (Copyright M.Tiili)

(Copyright M.Tiili)

Heta's new new atelje at Tehtaankatu 18

Dinner in Viiskulma.

Picnic at Kaivopuisto with the local hipsters.

Vilma seems thrilled by the flash.

I'm shaving what are you looking at...?

July - Holiday in Russia

At the end of our summer holidays we enjoyed an extended weekend in St. Petersburg. It was about time for Vilma to have her first trip abroad. Also I think Paula was looking forward to her first visit to our great eastern neighbor. It's bit strange how little Finnish people visit this metropole which has ~same population than Finland in total and is only 4 hour train journey from Helsinki.

I guess we all were thrilled too see how traveling with 2 kids would go. And it went well. Of course we had to adjust the pace a little and keep our eyes open to make sure the playground was there when needed. Instead of hotel we rented a flat. It gave us bit more space for the early mornings and early nights that were obvious. The flat was booked through STN which worked out really well and also was reasonable price. Our place was located just around the corner from Nevskiy Prospekt on walking street full of restaurants.

The thing that didn't work out very well was my camera, its battery to be more precise. In order to minimize the amount of stuff that we were carrying I decided to leave the charger at home and just charge it before the trip. Well it seems that it didn't charge at all. Therefore all photos are taken with my old mobile and that can be seen, my apologies.

There was even a small playground outside our flat.

The famous State Hermitage museum, the queue was just too long so we didn't bother.

One of our long walks across several bridges.

On the beach along Neva river.

Another bridge

Iines hanging around with local lads.

In the market buying some honey.

Vilma and Nevskiy Prospekt

Canal cruising

You have to be creative sometimes, play mat Russian style.

Iines and the Great Russian Bear

I like to travel light....

July - Holiday in Finland

Ok, the plan is to fastforward this blog to up-to-date. It propably will take four to five entries as few things have happened on the way. This first one will cover our summer holiday in July except our trip to St. Petersburg which will be the next entry. It really looks like this summer was pretty wonderful. You should expect more updates in a coming days, I'm enjoying my parent leave at the mo.

Beni's summer place at Lohja

An excellent way to start countryside hopping was to spend few days with the lads.

Lazy morning after a big meal and watching world cup.