Helsinki

Just stay awake.  Just stay awake.  It was not easy for any of us because of the jetlag but I knew that it would be so much better if we could just hold out until bed time.  We drove to the temple, and while some of us walked around the perimeter enjoying the grounds, some of us found benches and tried to catch a quick nap.  I admit, that looked very tempting.

We had just a couple more hours to kill before we could check in so we stopped by the Sibelius Monument.  The sculpture was a lot bigger and more interesting than I had really expected.  I was glad that we stopped.  The boys were so tired though they didn't even finish walking up to the sculpture before finding another place to lie down.  

I barely talked them into a few pictures before they just didn't cooperate any more.  But look how cool it is we are in Helsinki kids!!

Our hotel was definitely built for the European backpacker in mind.  We had a hard time getting the right check-in instructions but we finally made it to our rooms.  The boys shared with Jeremy and I and the girls shared with my mom.  We retrieved some pizza from the shop downstairs and ate way more than I thought we would be able to.  We tried gyro pizza for the first time, which is apparently popular in Finland.  It was either really good or I was just really hungry from traveling, but I ate four huge slices.  

After dinner Jeremy and the girls wanted to sleep but my mom and the boys wanted to go exploring.  We found this awesome sculpture that we challenged the boys to climb up.  Watching them problem solve to get on top was incredibly humorous.  They finally did it!  I just love how incredibly European all of surrounding buildings look.  And the sun set lighting?  It was spectacular.  

We had a lot of twilight because of Finland's location on the globe and so we kept exploring.  We found a public garden and more sculptures before it was time for all of us to call it a night.  I couldn't wait to sleep in a bed!  (A weird, flat backpacking bed, but a bed).

Nuuksio Reindeer Park

Being able to visit the Nuuksio Reindeer park was fortuitous as they are only open for a few hours on Sundays.  Reindeer are very much a part of Finnish culture.  Some herds roam free.  Some reindeer are used for meat.  This herd is protected at this reserve.  I think that they are beautiful creatures.  

I didn't know exactly what to expect when we visited but they gave us a bucket full of lichen so we could feed them.  Yay!  Lichen is one of the main staples in the reindeer diet and it grows incredibly slowly.  It is found it in the wild but it is illegal to harvest it.  The lichen we used is shipped in specifically for these reindeer.  It comes in blocks that we just broke apart to feed them.  They don't have top teeth so you don't have to worry about them nibbling fingers.  I wish there had been a way for me to capture the magic and joy in my kids' faces as they fed the reindeer.  It was special.  

Daxton and Kelton could not get enough of it and once our bucket was empty they scrounged for leftover chunks that had fallen on the ground.  Once we were out of lichen we went to the campfire to bake some rolls.  It wasn't a fussy affair (I learned that most things in Finland are not fussy).  We were given sharpened sticks and some dough.  We wrapped the dough around the stick in whatever way would hold steady and baked it over a fire.  We then grabbed cups of strawberry jam to dip the rolls into.  It was our first taste of Finnish bread.  They love cardamon and used it to season almost every baked bread item we ate while we were there.  I cannot wait to experiment with that at home.  The kids were kind of on the fence about the flavor, but the adults really liked it.  

The park wasn't big so we didn't spend more than an hour or so visiting, but I wish we could have lingered longer.  It was just a pleasant place to be.

Hei Hei

Finland 70.3 World Championship has been on our calendar since Covid shock everything up.  Because it's been on our calendar for so long it was almost normal, which is weird because nothing about going to Finland is normal.  

Our flights weren't bad with only one short layover in Dallas where we picked up my mom.  Traveling with kids makes everything an adventure which is why I love it.  Train surfing!

We landed in the morning in Helsinki which meant we had a whole day of exploring to do before we could check into our (very interesting) hotel and sleep like we desperately wanted to.  As soon as we left the airport we were on the hunt for food.  But let's set the scene a little bit.  Car rentals for a seven person crew were ridiculously expensive, so we decided to squeeze into a station wagon just like in the '70s.  The trunk was loaded with our suitcases and the front was loaded with people.  The boys sat on the floor under our feet.  Daxton was Cambrie's floor gremlin.  We didn't have service for any map updates.  We were tired.  And we don't speak Finnish.  We ultimately just decided to stop at a grocery store and pick up pieces of lunch there.  The first lesson we learned was that the Finnish are quiet people in public.  Our loud, American family did not blend in very well.  I think it was at that moment Cambrie decided to disassociate herself from us the rest of the trip.  (More on that to come!)

We found some pastries, fruit and juice and looked for a picnic spot to eat.  We found a small lake (which isn't hard to do in Finland) and ate up.  The boys were able to get their wiggles out and we were ready to start our adventure!

Back to School

Hello school!  We are hoping that it is going to be a great school year.  

Daxton has Mrs. Raney, which was really exciting for him.  Kelton has Mrs. Schermerhorn which I think will be a great fit.  

McKenzie really likes her teachers and she has Shaila in every single class.  It is going to be a crazy year for those two.  (Side note-who is this girl with so much style? She became a teenager over night and it's wild.)

Cambrie is pretty disappointed about her schedule and how it works out with her friends.  She only has Nadia in AP Lang and Matthew in French and at lunch. I am still hoping she'll find some positives and it will be a great year.  She's a junior this year which means AP classes, SAT tests, and college applications.  Holy smokes it's going to be insane!

Last moments of summer

Summer is ending.  Why?  This was a fabulous summer full of camping, hiking, and plenty of family chill time.  Kelton got monkey bars for his birthday and we finally installed them.  These boys have an incredible bedroom.  I'm a little jealous.

Jeremy and I had a long bike ride up to Ward, but Jeremy wanted to take me somewhere new and we ended up at Hidden Lake.  He had been up there before with the guys but I never had.  I'm glad he made me keep going it was really pretty.

We have had some adventures with Baymax this summer.  While on her way to the Cavetown concert, Baymax overheated in rush hour traffic.  It was hours before we could get a tow truck, she had to still make it to the concert, it was raining, she had friends waiting...it was a whole thing.  Once Baymax made it back home Cambrie tried diagnosing the problem.  We started by adding more coolant and then waited for more data.  She stopped using the AC, avoided traffic, and watched her temperature gauge regularly but it wasn't enough.  The next time Baymax overheated it was at 9:00 at night in downtown Denver, and Cambrie's phone was dead.  She slept for three hours in a parking lot waiting for the car to cool down but couldn't do anything else.  At that point we decided to take the car in to have it looked at.  The radiator fan needed to be replaced, and we are hoping that Baymax is good to go!

McKenzie had a definite vision of what she wanted her back-to-school hair to look like.  Luckily Stacey has the skills to make that happen.  McKenzie had her haired highlighted and now has curtain bangs.  She suddenly looks like a teenager!  She was smiling ear to ear when she walked out of the salon and I love that she loves how she looks.

Probably the most disappointing way to end a summer is with surgery.  We opted to have Kelton's tonsils removed because they were oversized and we think they were causing him sleep issues.  In preparation I stocked the fridge with lots of soft cold things.  Daxton was incredibly jealous of all of the good things Kelton got to eat, and Kelton was just relieved there was something he could eat that didn't cause him pain.

The actual surgery was no fun for Kelton.  There were no complications but s when he started waking up you could see just how much pain he was in.  He was a little loopy but still his sweet self. They had warned up that recovery would take ten days.  I thought that was a little on the generous side but it turns out that ten days is pretty standard.  Poor guy was not feeling well at all.  There was a lot of sleeping, a lot of popsicles and some extra screen time.  He was barely ready for school to start, but he made it.

Summer in moments

Summer moments, here we go!

3v3 soccer games.  Super low-key, no stress, no refs, no coaches type of playing.  It was fun to play for fun.

Cambrie was bored.  And decided that clinging to my leg while I made dinner was the best way she could feel better.

Selfies at jiu jitsu.

Scripture time!  Look at my amazing kids. Please stop growing up.

Moki helping me with the block placement of my quilt.  He was "super helpful."

Wherever Moki is in the house there is a trail of stuffing behind him.  Cambrie mapped out this like a murder scene.  Poor dinosaur has been gutted.

Apparently this genre of music is called goblin core.  The things you learn when you have a teenager.

These smiles melt my heart.

Summer mornings are the best times to be our riding a bike.  My camera can't do these views justice.

The best thing we did this summer was sign up for the summer reading program.  I see this view a lot know.  I hope their teachers appreciate it!

You know, just the standard "lock your brother out of the house" move.

The kids found every random instrument in the house and decided to write and perform a song.  It was...entertaining, interesting, exciting...indescribable.

McKenzie preparing for the snorkeling component on her Disney cruise.  Looking good!

Summer walks with Moki.

This walk ended with a run through the mud, even better!