Road trip to Idaho

We were there for Halloween so there was lots of dressing up in Grandma's costume collection. These were both made by Aunt Cindy for her cousins. 

One of our audiobooks this trip was Where the Red Fern Grows. "It wasn't impossible even though it was a long way from the Snake River Valley in Idaho," the narrator read as we drove through the Snake River Valley. There is a statue of Billy, Old Dan, and Little Ann in front of the Idaho Falls library because Wilson Rawls lived here for a time. We stopped by after the library trick-or-treat for a photo.

With cousin John and cousin Abby (and Billy and the dogs).

There was pumpkin carving at the house and a harvest festival at the church (Penny loved the bounce house) and lots of candy.

This little ladybug took some unassisted steps while we were there.

We got to press some cider with Mark's aunt and uncle and some of the cousins using his Grandma's cider press.

A fun-filled visit for sure!

Finland : Homeward bound

We woke up and had an early-bird breakfast at the hotel. The regular continental breakfast doesn't start until 6.

These people are full of energy.

It was so nice not to have to drag all of our luggage back and forth between the airport and hotel.We checked our last bag and the stroller since they said we couldn't check it at the gate.

The Helsinki airport has had these floors for as long as I can remember.

Henry has grown since our last trip.

We found our gate and enjoyed our last few moments of freedom. Our first flight was on Finnair with Markimekko-designed napkins and cups.

We had a close connection in Paris and had to run. I was carrying Millie and wished we had tried harder to keep the stroller.  We coached the kids on our bus between terminals about moving quickly and staying near an adult. The flight was delayed slightly so we had some time once we found the gate.

Back in Seattle, just missing one bag.

The flight went pretty smoothly. One kid vomited as we were landing. And again in passport control. That was miserable. It was hot and they were understaffed so we waited for about an hour. Once we collected our luggage and loaded the cars we decided to drive home. We had considered spending the night in Seattle to recover a little, but we wanted to be done traveling. The kids were all asleep before we left the city.

Finland : Helsinki

Our flight leaves tomorrow morning early so we are spending the night at the airport hotel in Helsinki. We left this morning so that we could spend the day in the city. Liisa and Dad came with us.

We took the bus from Lahti to the airport. They let us check most of our bags, so that's one thing we won't have to do in the morning. We left our carry-on luggage at the hotel before we headed into town to do some shopping. We are still under our luggage weight limit. We walked down the Esplanadi popping in to different favorite stores (Marimekko, Aarikka) on our way to the market.

We looked at souvenirs for sale and bought peas to snack on. We ate them while listening to some young girls playing violins.

 We had coffee at the Karl Fazer Cafe, sharing different fancy desserts.

We had dinner at the same restaurant on the top floor of Stockmann's that we did last time, but it wasn't as good as I remembered.

High chair design is still great.

We went back to the hotel to try to get a little sleep before our long day.

Finland : Jet Lag

Millie woke at midnight and had a banana and some milk and played until 1.30 or so when she seemed tired and went back to bed. The kids were a little more restless in the night and everyone felt the effects of jet lag a bit, now that we weren't quite so exhausted. Helena and Penny were up at 6 and then Penny went back to bed but Helena and Nora spent some time coloring pictures while everyone else slept. We had breakfast inside since it was a little windy and then went to Vaaksy to see the canal and locks.

A boat came just after we arrived and we saw the lock fill up and then got to see it empty as a boat came from the other direction as well. We walked down to where the canal meets the lake and the kids got to throw rocks into the water. When we walked back to the car we stopped at a playground for a bit and Anja and I went to the little gift shop there.

We headed home for lunch and then almost everyone had a least a short nap.

Baby with rye bread. We brought this seat over for Nora in 2005.

Penny fell asleep before lunch in an armchair. After lunch we made some calls to try to track down our suitcases. It was frustrating since everyone we talked to had a slightly different take on the situation and no one seemed to know exactly where the bags were and when we might get them. Mark took the kids to the lake for swimming and splashing. We had coffee late at the house and then Anja and I went for a swim before we moved some logs from a tree that had been chopped down. 

Nora came over with the good news that our bags might be on their way.
Lulu made smoked fish for dinner that everyone liked except Penny who didn't try any. We had our second round of ice cream cones (toffee, vanilla, strawberry, chocolate). The kids got to bed around 9 and Anja and I swam again at about 10pm. The lake was beautiful and still and the sun was shining.

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.

Finland : travel day

We had the morning to get last minute tasks taken care of. The bags to be checked were packed the day before so I vacuumed the car and made food and packed snacks to take with us. We left home just before noon and had a pleasant drive to Seattle. There was a little traffic once we were close to the airport but we had built in extra time. Mark dropped off the kids, luggage, and me and went to park the car. Getting four large suitcases along with our carry-ons and a baby in a stroller to check-in was a little slow, but we did it. Anja met us there and we let her use some of our luggage allowance. I had tried to pack lightly so we had two suitcases more that we could check. She decided at the last minute to check one of her carry-on bags.

All the kids were great at following instructions and moving bags. We had to check in at special services because of the infant in lap we had with us. The security lines were very long but moved quickly. We made it to our gate and had Helena and Mark board early with the carry-ons while the rest of us enjoyed a few more minutes of unrestricted movement and filled up water bottles. Having Anja along as was a huge help and fun for everyone.
Once on board we ate some flatbread, cheese, and vegetables that we brought with us. We were all seated in the same row with one stranger in a window seat.

The flight was uneventful. There were individual screens in the back of each seat so the kids watched some movies and slept a little. Our flight was a few minutes late coming in and even though we ran as fast as we could we missed our connection by a few minutes. KLM re-booked us on a flight later that evening. Then we looked up the schedule and asked for a slightly earlier flight on a different airline. After insisting that this was not possible the agent was able to get us on the flight. Some of us took short naps and we ate some of the snacks we had packed.

We arrived in Helsinki about 6 hours later than originally planned to find that our bags were not there. We filed a claim with the airline and caught the bus out of town.

Lulu and Raija picked us up at a roadside stop not far from their home. We got to the house around 1 AM local time, about 27 hours after leaving home.

Passport photos

You are required to have "a neutral expression."

Scenic overlook

We stopped on our way home to admire the view (and feed the baby). Our last visit to this rest stop was eight years ago.

Idaho : Family reunion

This time when we went to Idaho all of Mark's siblings and their kids were there. That's fifteen kids 11 and under and fourteen adults.

Thankfully the weather was good the whole time we were there so we could take advantage of being outdoors.The trampoline and bounce house were popular entertainments.

 We ate lunch and dinner outside,

played lawn games,

munched apples,

 took up archery,

 watched rocket launches,

and enjoyed spending time with each other.

Aunt Cindy has a cool airplane at her house.