We made it!

We arrived in Tampere two nights ago, and are mostly relaxing and enjoying our time so far. The time change is difficult to adjust to, so sleep (especially for the kids) has been a bit of a challenge. Our first night here, they slept 17 hours, then last night decided to wake up for the day at 2:30. We're crossing our fingers for a normal night tonight!

We're currently at the studio Brandon has been renting, and will be staying at one more temporary place before our apartment is ready late next week. Once we get these keys, we have so much shopping to do since we are starting with practically nothing.

It's been fun walking around the city so far. We had a parents meeting at Cole's new school and we're able to meet the woman who runs it (she is actually from the US as well), and I'm excited for him to go there. It seems like a great place. Next week we have a meeting at Amy's school to hopefully learn more about that.

Brandon took off work for a few weeks so that we can all get settled in together, which has been great. These are very exciting first steps and I know we'll only continue to learn more!

Here is a view from our current apartment window.

Home stretch and Italy

We've been so busy with everything lately that I've barely had time to get on the computer, which also leaves no time for posting here.

Quick updates. We sold our house, I left my job, we moved in with friends, kids finished school, we went on vacation, and then we went to Texas to visit everyone there.

Vacation was great. We traveled around Italy and saw so many beautiful things. It was a nice country and we would love to go back one day. I took so many pictures, but here are a few of my favorite.

As for everything else, we move to Finland in less than two weeks!! While I'm sad to leave everything and almost everyone I know behind, I'm very excited to be there, see Brandon and have everything settled. To not live out of a suitcase and to have our own space. We have an apartment and we'll move in shortly after the kids and I arrive. It's very close to their school, which was a high priority for us. So everything is falling into place and finally happening!