Finland : We're here!

We borrowed t-shirts for sleeping in and got everyone settled in their beds. After a few hours of sleep Millie thought it was time to start the day. She and I stayed in the sun room and tried to keep quiet so the others could sleep. She went back to bed around 7.30 and slept late into the afternoon. All the other kids except Helena woke up around 6 and had some yogurt and cereal as an early breakfast. I had a spare set of clothing for everyone is our carry-on luggage. We had to wake Helena up. We had bread and cheese and tomatoes and cucumbers and coffee all together at about 10 .

Then we spent some time trying to figure out internet access and inquiring after our luggage. It was possibly on our way to us that evening. Midsummer is a national holiday and the stores would close at noon that day and not be open the next day so Anja and I went with Raija to the local market and picked up some fun food to supplement what they had. You know, essentials like candy, chocolate, and ice cream.

While we were gone the kids went to the summer cabin to start collecting wood for the bonfire and they cleaned reeds off the lake shore.

I have been coming here since I was younger than Nora is now.

We had potatoes, and chicken, broccoli and onion herring for lunch at the house.
Anja, Nora, and Helena went out to pick wildflowers to decorate our front porch. It's a family tradition to pick flowers for Midsummer.

After lunch we went back over to the cabin and the big kids went swimming with Anja and I while Penny had a nap.

Then we had our afternoon coffee outside complete with ice cream cones we bought that morning. We had a variety of flavors (vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, pear, and black licorice) to try in our quest for favorites.

We put these girls to work washing the coffee dishes.

The kids went back to splash in the lake while the sauna was warming up. Everyone had a chance to get washed up and Millie had a great time splashing all the water out of the yellow basin she was sitting in.
We cooked three different kinds of sausages and Evert is the current favorite.

We lit our midsummer bonfire early since people were pretty tired.

Millie fell asleep at about 8.30 and was carried to bed and everyone else followed soon after. According to the airline our luggage was still in Amsterdam.