GOODBYES and HELLOS

This was our last week in the US (for a while). First, we said goodbye to the BU campus, this giant place that has become our "work home" more than we sometimes realized. 

The saddest part was saying goodbye to the School of Education and its wonderful colleagues. 

This was followed by the farewell parties at Samu's and Sofia's school. They had both prepared posters about their upcoming move and presented them proudly.

 Goodbye To Zhenya, Sofia's first daycare teacher in the infant room, who adored her. 

Goodbye to Sofia's teacher in the toddler room, Kamelah.

Sofia got a photo book as a farewell gift.

 Samu celebrated with all the preschool and pre-K children -- and Sofia.

 Goodbye Samu's first classroom!

 Samu's main teacher Irene had left to her home in Brazil a few weeks earlier, but teacher Debbie was an important part of his life as well. Goodbye! 

 The next goodbye followed the next day: Goodbye house, goodbye Pine Hill Road!

The last night in our house.

 

Sooner than we thought everything was all packed up.

Goodbye park right next to our house and all its animals!

 

We moved to our friends Matt's and Kate's house (thank you!!) for the last two nights. This is also where we sold our car to our favorite French family. Good-bye Ford Escape!

 Goodbye lovely friends!

The whole moving out process had gone surprisingly well. With the exception of our shipping company, who needed three attempts to finally pick up our boxes on the correct day, everything went extremely smoothly. And before we knew it, we found ourselves at the airport...

 Goodbye Boston, goodbye US! For now. You will always be a big part of us.

The before and after pictures with 7 years in between them. Wow!



For some of us, saying goodbye was easier than for others ...

We decided to take a break from moving and just be happily "homeless" for a while. The best place to enjoy our in-between life was in between the US and Europe => in Iceland. Except for one trip to the Geysir, we mostly slept and went swimming in thermal pools, which turned out to be the perfect program for us.

 Goodbye Iceland!

 HELLO FINLAND!

 Hello beautiful new car! And a big THANK YOU to Anneli and Antero for this.

This is where we are now, enjoying the beauty of Lieksa and the company of Mummi and Ukki and where we are gathering strength for our upcoming move to Mikkeli.