NEW CAR!

We are excited to report on our latest purchase: a car. It was a pretty spontaneous decision, a good deal and all in all a very pleasant shopping experience. And, while we liked our sporty Mazda, the much bigger Ford makes our life a lot more comfortable. 

We love our new car, but will it pass the Samu test? Let's see, he got a balloon from the dealer - good start.

 He is sitting much higher up, thus able to comment on everything. Seriously, everything.

 And when he had nothing else to say (literally), he slept very comfortably. Pass!

COLD makes COZY and CREATIVE

With the coldest days in years and low temperatures around - 20 C, we have not been able to spend as much time outside as we would like to. However, the extreme weather motivated us to create a new play corner for Samu, who loves to draw, play the piano and build lego towers there. Success!

Who says what?

Dear readers,

We have been without internet for a while, and even though the problem seems to be solved, we still have to catch up on posting new pictures. Until then, please be patient and enjoy Samu knowing all kinds of sounds animals and machines make:

For non-German speakers: 1. cat, 2. dog, 3. lion, 4. chick, 5. rocket, 6. dinosaur, 7. donkey, 8. fish, 9. elephant, 10. digger, 11. airplane


And here is another one for those of you who would like to learn some Finnish:

äiti = mum

varovasti = carefully

kiitos = thank you 

ole hyvä = here you are

FLORIDA - PART 2

With the most beautiful sunset of our lives (see last post), the year 2012 ended in a memorable way. And 2013 started just as you would expect it to: The ball was dropped, fireworks were set off, kisses were exchanged, glasses were raised, waltz was danced. Good!

 Day 1 of 2013: another beach (Honeymoon Island). What a good way to start a year.

 Maybe our favorite part of the trip: The amazingly pretty city of St. Petersburg.

Playground hopping in St. Petersburg: No playground without ocean view!

We truly had a good time and brought home a suitcase full of sunny memories, tons of sandy clothes and a pretty decent tan. Samu also learned so many words, we could not keep up. "Meer", "Wewe" (Welle), "Pame" (Palme) and "aiva" (laiva) are only a few examples.

 Thank you, my favorite men, for this wonderful vacation!

FLORIDA PART 1

We SO deserved a vacation! Actually, we realized that our trip to Tampa Bay was the first vacation we spent as a family since Samu's birth. It was wonderful and just what we needed! From now on, we plan to do this every year.

When we arrived, it was warm but rainy. We didn't mind and started to explore the surroundings of the hotel in Downtown Tampa.

In front of the University of Tampa (!)

View from our balcony

The next day was planned around Samu. We wanted to offer him something special, so we took him to the nearby Children's Museum. On two floors, children were invited to be cityplanners, pilots, chefs, contractors, vets, diner owners, shop assistants, scientists, artists, actors/actresses, technicians, filmmakers, TV hosts and much, much more - or just climb around and play with endless amounts of sand and water in all shapes. It was almost a bit overwhelming for Samu, so we picked a few activities for him that he could focus on.

City planning

Fireman Samu to the rescue!

Without a doubt, the Children's Museum was a highlight, but we needed some adult program afterwards. Marko headed out to explore Ybor City, the center of cigar manufacturers that was founded by immigrants from Cuba, Spain and Italy.

And Hanna spent a lot of time reading (e.g. by the hotel pool) - for pleasure!

Of course we did some animal watching as well, since that's something all of us enjoy.

By then summer temperatures had arrived and we drove to our first beach: Clearwater.

It was just a perfect day - and the last day of 2012.

We were so excited to see a beautiful sunset ... and we thought this was great:

We had no idea what was about to come. The sunset we saw left us breathless. These pictures need no words.