Oh... Finland, right. So here's a tip for you: don't take a 10 month old on a 13 hour flight plus layovers. You're welcome. If you are holding a baby and you feel like reading on the airplane, you can't. If you feel like sleeping, you can't. You can only sit there holding the baby trying your hardest to keep a flailing baby hand from going into your neighbor's space grabbing at the stranger's airplane meal or trying to let a baby sleep while keeping his feet or head from going outside of your space.
Really, I'm very glad that I took Will with me so I could introduce at least one of my kids to my cousins. And now 6 months later, I can actually think about the travel part without breaking out into cold sweats. Will was a good little baby on the flight, but even with a good baby it was still hard. And thank heavens my sisters and mom were on the same flight. They helped a lot.
I went with my mom and my sister Sinika and her family and my step-sister Jackie. My brother Ari met us in Helsinki and my brother Eric and his wife Tagen came later. It was a lot of people! My mom is Finnish and she is the only one in her family who left Finland. Her two brothers and sister still live there along with all of their kids and grandkids.
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Will sleeping on the Chicago airport floor on the way out. A little bit gross.
I'm pretty sure that no one has ever thrown up in that very spot though.
Also, that cute little car blanket was lost on the final flight home back to Utah.
Poor little lost blankie. |
This was the yard my mom grew up in. The red building is a sauna in one side and a storage shed in the other.
This is the view she saw every day! Amazing! Can you believe people actually live here?
Sinika, Adam and their boys soaking up the beauty.
Will sitting on the curved stairway that leads up to my mom's childhood room.
The house that my grandpa Matti Hyypia built. My uncle currently lives here and has added on a few rooms.
Will sitting in a lake that is partly in Finland and partly in Russia.
Mmmm! Karelianpirakka (I hope I spelled that right) on the top left is so delicious. It is thin rye bread with a rice mixture in the middle. You put butter and meat and cheese (just imagine the best tasting cheese you've ever had in your life and that is what the cheese on the right tastes like) and you top it off with tomatoes and cucumbers. It
might be my favorite Finnish food.
This is the biggest kid in the world, my oldest brother Ari. He's a big kid in that he is so excited about life and he loves to create and experiment. I admire him so much.
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| Ari on the zip line. |
This is the Olavinlinna Castle in Savonlinna. Named after, and built under, a Swedish king named Olaf. Sweden and Russia fought over this castle over the years and each owned it for a time. Now it is owned by Finland. That little thing hanging off of the left side of the tower is a toilet hole. Yep, everything just fell right into the water below in the old days.
Aww. Look at that little chubby hand holding on for dear life.
Then we went to another aunt and uncle's summer home and cabin.
These are my nephews Elliott and Oliver looking off the deck into the water. I think they were also looking at the spider webs underneath.
Will checking out the plant life.
Lincoln, Elliott and Ollie.
The cabin sauna. You have to pronounce it 'SOW-na' if you are in Finland. You get super hot in here, whip your back and legs with birch leaves to open up your pores, then run and jump into the cold lake. Then back into the hot again. Seriously, my skin never felt so good.
The floppy pool. It never got higher than the 80s, temperature wise. It was perfect. It got a little humid just before storms but still nice. That typical Finnish swing in the background is so fun. Two benches face each other, when you push your feet gently on the floor it swings. It fits 4 to 6 people.
A picture of a rainy Finland.
My sister Sinika, me, my brothers Eric and Ari, and 3 of my cousins: Jaakko, Maija, and Marika. Man I'm a shorty!
We took a side trip to Stockholm, Sweden. We got on a ship in the afternoon, slept in our rooms and when we woke up, we saw all the archipelagos of Sweden. We bought a boat pass that took us to all the must-see spots of Stockholm. (Stockholm is made up of islands.)
We went to the Vasa Museum. It is a building that was built around a huge warship that sunk on it's maiden
voyage in 1628. (It was too top-heavy.) It stayed under water until the 1961! They knew they couldn't just pull it up and let it dry, it would be destroyed. So when they pulled it out they continuously sprayed it with water and a type of wax to help preserve it. It is the most preserved 17th century ship ever salvaged. It was a very cool thing to see.
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| A picture of the outside of the Vasa Museum. Those masts are the height of the original ship masts. |
Here is the ornately detailed back of the ship. So pretty!
One of the old town streets of Stockholm. We spent one day in Stockholm then got back on the ship to sleep. When we woke up we were in Helsinki again. We spent the day seeing a few sights like the Museum of Finland and old churches etc.
Sleepy boys:
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| Will |
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| Lincoln |
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| Ollie, Will and Lincoln |
I'm so glad I got to go and see Finland again. We got to hang out with amazing family and also do the touristy thing and see some amazing places.
