It's been awhile since our last post & a whole lot has happened. We have been rather busy & this post will be a mix of everything we've been doing for the last month. We have been trying to get use to the darkness among us. The days have gotten shorter and shorter. The sun hardly ever comes out and when it does, it's only for a short period of time. The weather has gotten colder but at times has warmed up a little here and there. To us we've actually gotten use to the cold. It's not too bad. For the Finns, this is "warm" as they put it. It has been in the 30's lately for the last month or so and it got up into the 40's a couple of times. Other than that, we've been doing really good. October came quickly & now November is doing the same thing.
Troy and I celebrated our 9 year anniversary at the beginning of November. We took the opportunity to get out just the two of us since we moved to Helsinki. I found a babysitter through a website we were told about. The girl I found, contacted and communicated with her via emails, came by first to meet us the week of our planned date. It was so nice to see the children's reaction to meeting her. They loved her from the minute she walked into our door. Troy Jr was all over her just smiling and watching her speak to us. It was too cute. Troy and I were very happy about that and it was on for Saturday night. We went to a Russian restaurant that I had made reservations and wanted to surprise Troy with and I'm glad that I did because it was a nice place and we really enjoyed our dinner. Afterwards, we went to a local pub and had a few drinks before heading home. Ended up being a great anniversary.
Since the beginning of October, we've been planning a trip up north to Lapland/Rovaniemi for the Thanksgiving holidays. We ended up taking the autotrain. It's not something that I would recommend to anyone with children under the age of 4. Troy Jr was not very happy about his sleeping arrangements and in the close quarters we were in, he really didn't have much choice. There wasn't much sleep that occurred. We got to Rovaniemi the next morning and went to our cabin to check in so that we could nap before heading out to experience what Rovaniemi had to offer. We had to make our first stop at the northernmost McDonald's in the World. It was nice, nothing special, looks just like any McD's that we've all seen. Just so that we can say we were there is all. Then afterwards we went to the Arktikum Museum. A place of history on the people of the north. All about the northern lights, Lapland, Rovaniemi and all the surrounding areas. It was really neat and we had a great time. We enjoyed the Aurora Borealis show that is inside a dark black room that you lay on your back and look up like you are looking in the sky at the stars. It was nice learning all about the history of the lights. We really had a great time. Afterwards we found the local mall and just walked around. We had dinner and then got back to the cabin to go to sleep and prepare for our long day the next day.
We got up went to breakfast, and headed out for our trip to Santa Village. We were so excited to surprise Chloe with a trip to see Santa Claus. She had no idea and knew she had a surprise coming to her. We got there and took her to his Post Office first and she started to figure it out but still had no clue about the meeting she was about to have. We finished up there because they were about to close and we didn't want to miss seeing him. We got there and luckily they only had a few others in front of us, so the line wasn't long at all. When Chloe saw the "Big Man", she was in awe!! It actually made me tear up seeing her reaction but also my own as well. If you believe, and you love Christmas as I do, then you'd have been in heaven. It was a great meeting and Chloe got to tell Santa exactly what she wanted him to bring her. We got our picture and headed to the souvenir shop to buy a few more things before heading out.
We had a safari tour planned for the next day on Friday but we had to cancel the snowmobiling part of it because there wasn't any snow, so the guide picked us up later than originally planned. We went to the Santa Village that we had gone to the day before not knowing this is where they were bringing us on our tour. We thought it was a different type of tour involving Santa because we were also doing a reindeer farm tour after lunch as well. We probably wouldn't have gone the day before on our own and just waited but the more that Troy and I talked about it, we were glad that we had gone and we're happy that we got to do it again. Chloe certainly was and there definitely wasn't any complaining on her part. It was fine with us because we were going to receive a certificate of our Arctic Circle crossing as well. We didn't have a long line to wait in and were in and out pretty quickly. We went into the village to do a little window shopping and while there, it started snowing. Chloe was super excited and she wanted to instantly start playing in it. We had to explain to her that it wasn't thick enough to play in. She was fine with it and just wanted to touch it. We headed to the restaurant for the typical Santa lunch. The menu, Lappish style, consisted of mushroom soup, Salmon with potatoes that had vegetables mixed in it and for dessert, chocolate ice cream. Of course the children didn't eat any of it but the dessert. We did find them something off of the buffet that they liked. We enjoyed our meal and then it was off to the Reindeer farm. It was great that it did snow because now we could really enjoy our sleigh ride with the reindeer. Chloe loved seeing the reindeer and enjoyed petting and feeding them. Before our ride we spent a little time in a traditional Lappish tepee around an open fire, while a Lapland native told us the story of the 4 winds of Lapland and the way of life in the North. Then we were off for our reindeer ride, where we were able to receive our international reindeer driver's license afterwards. It was great and everyone enjoyed it. We had a good day!!
On Saturday we took the children to Santa Park (http://www.santapark.com/index.php?la=en) It was another way of meeting Santa again and I knew no matter what, Chloe would still get very excited. She didn't know where we were going so it was great and we knew it would still be another great surprise. It was Santa Park's opening day of the season so we knew it was going to be exciting for all of us. Everyone waiting at the door was greeted by Santa Claus opening the doors for their first day. It was great and all the children were so excited to see him. Inside you walk through a tunnel that literally takes you under the arctic circle. It has the atmosphere of Christmas and the Elves are definitely all over the place working hard for the Big Man. Tons of activities for the children to do. It was great for Chloe. She got to attend Elf school, graduate & get a certificate for it, make an elf, reindeer, a gingerbread heart, ride on the sleigh/train through Santa's workshop, go through the ice sculpture exhibit, and see Santa again for the third time. It was definitely a fun-filled day for a 4 yr old. Boy, I'm just tired describing the day. LOL!!
We had a pretty good vacation and are so glad to have made the lasting memories we did. Leaving on Sunday, we had some more time to kill, because the train wasn't leaving until the late afternoon. Troy looking for something to do, found a very interesting place out in the wilderness they call, "Devil's Churn". Rautiosaari tradition landscape between old log cabins, where there are big potholes in the ground left by glaciers. All formed during the ice age about 10,000 years ago. The history we read was pretty interesting. They have 14 devil's churns on the slope of Sukulanrakka at Rautiosaari south of Rovaniemi. Three of them are large and one of the largest in Finland. The largest churn, the one we saw, is lying at the foot of the rocky hill and it's partly collapsed. It's diameter is 26ft and depth of over 49ft. The two others they say are 32 & 29ft deep. Glad that we made the trip there to see it and read about it.
Now the fun begins, our trip back home to Helsinki. The train ride, yes something that Troy and I were dreading a whole lot knowing that our precious little boy was not going to do too well with it. To make matters worse, Troy had to go and get the car loaded onto the train. While there, he and one of the workers were talking and Troy turned our interior light on to look at something and before he knew it, the car was already loaded onto the train and there was nothing the worker could do about taking it off once the car was on because of some power lines up above. It was nerve-racking to think 12 hrs later we'd have to be getting our car battery jumped from on top of a train. The beginning of this journey, to say the least was not a good one, but to our surprise Troy Jr helped it a little when he fell asleep pretty quickly once we got settled and slept for two hours with me. Of course that didn't last long. He was really restless and would just roll and roll, whining in his sleep. He just couldn't get comfortable and wouldn't give it up for nothing, so Troy took him and he cried for a while until he just passed out. He ended up making his way down to his daddy's feet and sleeping there for the last three hours of our 12 hr trip back home. Of course Chloe slept through it all and whenever we had to get up to get off of the train in time, Troy & I had to wake up Troy Jr. It was an adventure, that's no lie. LOL!!
We arrived in Helsinki early Monday morning, so worried about the car. Troy headed to the spot to pick it up and the children and I stayed in the train station to wait for him. He would call me if the car didn't start and the children and I would have to take other means to get back home. We waited for a while but he called me to say he was out in the front of the station to pick us up. We were very lucky and fortunate that the car light shut itself off. Truly blessed and so happy for the ending of our family vacation to be a success. We can say that all is well here in Helsinki. Getting ready for the holidays and having a great time doing it. Until next blog, take care.
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