Juhannus

Minä olen nyt junalla Helsinkiin. Sitten matkusta lentokoneella Lontoon iltapäivällä. Minulla on minun läppäri ja netti, siksi minä kirjoitan blogiin.

This is me practicing my Finnish. What I said above is "I am now on a train to Helsinki. Then I travel by plane to London. I have my laptop and internet, so I write to the blog."

Sounds a bit odd in direct translation, but you get the idea ;)

With the free two hours I have on this train, I thought it was a good time to make a post here.
This past weekend was Juhannus, or midsummer. It's a big holiday here in Finland, so most people went out to their summer cottages to celebrate the 'yöton yö', or nightless night. We stayed home for the weekend, so on Friday night, I had lots of coffee and stayed up late to watch the sun. It was quite a cloudy night, so most of the sky was obscured, but it was still quite bright. I know in Northern Finland, the sun doesn't set at all, but since we are in the southern part, I thought it would get dark for a little while. Turns out it just looks like dusk for a few hours, which was amazing to see.


This picture was taking at midnight, 12:00, from the roof of my building.

This one was at 2:00am

And this one at 3am, when the sun was rising again.

Kesä!

We have been quite busy since the new year has begun! I'm now in a full time Finnish course, so my learning has greatly improved! I still know very little comparatively, but learning more every day.

Amy has completed second grade and is now on her summer vacation! She did very well in school and we are quite proud of her. She already misses her brother during the day though as he still goes to daycare. We love how well they get along and how much they seem to still love each other. We know it won't last forever, so we try to enjoy and encourage it now :)

Finland has had amazing summer weather so far! It was sunny and warm for the entire month of May, so we tried to spend as much of it outdoors as we could. We went to parks and lakes and just played in the yard as well. The sun stays up late and wakes up early, so it's hard not to enjoy it.

The summer (kesä) is already unfolding and it's exciting! Toward the end of June, I will be going to England with some friends of ours. I've never visited England, so I'm quite excited to explore it. I will be mostly in Cheddar, with some time in Bristol and London as well.
Then in July, my niece is coming to visit and we have some fun things planned, including going to a mökki, which is a summer cottage here in Finland, and a trip to Tallinn, Estonia. We will also spend a few days in Helsinki to explore there. Then there is also a trip to Turku and possibly another to Stockholm later in the summer. It will be quite the traveling time!

We don't yet have plans to go back to the US, but hopefully it won't be long. We do have some family coming to visit in December, so we're already very excited for that!! I can't wait to show everyone around our new city and spend time with them here.

As it's been almost a year since we moved here, I've been doing a lot of reflecting. It's been a great year and I'm happy to be where we are. It's hard to miss so many people, but it's been such a great experience and there still seems to be so much to look forward to!