Plättkalas

Tonight we had a plätt kalas, just as we did last summer.

Hampus gets the first one:

Jopi and Janina:

Tiina, Edgar, and Sofie:

Even Momo came!

The kids loved the plätts (basically Finnish crepes):

Serious discussion:

A little silly? Jå!

Grill night

Friday night the gang got together for a grill night at a neat little forrest area:

Hannes is enjoying himself:

The boxes

Kristina's parents very generously bought us an extremely nice Emmaljunga pram and some baby clothes. The question was, though, how to get them back to the U.S. We decided to have them shipped, and made two boxes for the units. In the background is the "Boat Box" and in the foreground is the "Tank Box". We just made the weight limitation on the Tank by 220 GRAMS. They're now in the hands of the Finnish postal service, and we're tracking their progress.

Bostadsmässan

Last Wednesday, Kristina and I went to the yearly tradition in Finland known as bostadsmässan. It's a sort of builder's expo that changes cities every year and allows you to walk around and look at new building techniques, furniture designs, materials, etc. This year there were over 40 houses and apartments to view. It took all day.

Here is a view of the whole expo. It's a little different than in the U.S. in that all of these homes and apartments will actually be lived in and, in fact, most of them are already spoken for:

Interesting kitchen / living room:

Boy's room with neat bookshelf idea:

Apartment building:

Really neat table and chairs made out of raw wood:

Nice little grill:

This little girl's room had a wooden tea set that was amazing:

Noah's Ark:

Very comfortable looking chair:

Outdoor sauna with grass on top:

Another great chair:

One of our favorite houses:

Probably the neatest kid's room we saw:

Visit to Lufolkan

Last week we were very happy to visit with Kristina's cousins Mia and Hassi, who are the proud, hardworking couple that have been working on remodelling Lufolkan for the past couple of years. Take the time to check out their blog.

Here we are discussing good Lutheran theology:

The exterior of Lufolkan with newly laid paths and landscaping. Mia works for a florist in Jakobstad, so we imagine it will be beautiful:

On the left is what will be an outside sauna, with a storage shed on the right:

Here is the remodeled kitchen with a fireplace and woodburning over. There is a "modern" oven as well…they're not that hardcore.

They've started laying beautiful spruce throughout.

Homemade "saft"

Making black current juice is a yearly tradition in this part of Finland, and probably all over the country. The first order of business is to pick fresh black currents from the backyard:

Next you sort of steam the currents and drain off the juice:

The resulting product is a little bitter, but really great and is packed with vitamins to help you survive the hars Finnish winters: