Dude's first 10km race

Just stopped by to tell that our dude finished his first 10km race last Friday. We participated in Keuruu's night run and ran a 1/4 marathon. So actually he ran 10.55km but who's counting..! (To tell you the truth I'm because I counted that he ran 24km all together during this week).

I have to say that I'm super proud of him. It wasn't easy run but he fought himself through the finish line. He was the fastest nine year old but at the same time the only nine year old participant. So now he's set the record time to beat next summer...or even earlier. Who knows what kind of races we'll find in the Bay Area this fall..😉

My "beib" is eight

My baby is now eight years old. She is funny and smart. She is cute and creative. She has amazing skills to find the easiest ways to get things done. For example I find it very amusing how she uses more time to figure out how she could do her homework in the easiest possible way rather than just doing it. During the last school year she had to write ten sentences using ten different spelling words every Monday. Of course she was very pissed about that because it meant a lot of work for her. Then one day she realized that she could write less if only she could fit all the words into fewer sentences. So every Monday I had good time watching her writing and thinking it would probably take her less time to just write those ten sentences in order to finish her homework faster.

She is "mini me" in so many ways. I've taught her how to use a sewing machine ever since she was a little girl. Now it's paying back. One morning I woke up to the sound of my sewing machine and of course it was my girl sewing some fluffy animals and sheets for her doll's bed. Did this surprise me? No. But did it make me happy? Yes, very! I've taught sewing to many kids but she is my number one student! She is very motivated and talented.

I always say that I learn most about my children's school progress by observing how they do their homework. But I sure was proud of my girl when she brought home her report card at the end of the school year and I noticed that she got excellent grade in "Demonstrates effort, actively participates in art". That's my girl!

She is the sparkle of my days and there's nothing I wouldn't do for her. I don't buy her lots of things but when she asks me to do something for her or with her I usually say "yes". So when she asked me to arrange birthday party for her before we went to Finland of course I agreed to do that. 

When living in California we always end up organizing her birthday party before the end of the school year. The main reason for that is our upcoming Finnish vacation. These days she loves My little pony so the theme for her party wasn't difficult to decide. I'm very glad that someone once introduced me to Pinterest. We found lots and lots of good and useful ideas from there. Ok, let the pictures once again speak for themselves. 

I made "Apple Jack" piñata for her party. The idea was to simply weave plenty of strings inside a box and tie one of those strings so that when you'd pull that specific string, it would open the box. This piñata was based on who ever gets luckiest would open the hatch. 

She made some currency notes inside the piñata. The idea was that kids could use those bills to buy candy from a candy store she had in her party. 

At her party I got a chance to "play" teacher again when I organized game called "who's afraid of a tiger?". It's a running game where a child in the middle field tries to catch other children by touching them. When "tiger child" in the middle catches someone that someone has to freeze and start helping the "tiger child". Children loved this game and they kept playing it for a long time. 

Of course all the food items were My little pony themed as well.

The culmination of her party was the candy store. Kids got to use their piñata money to buy some candy from her store. The line was long but kids waited patiently to get their bag of candy. 

For take a home gift I made every girl a purple bow (her favorite color is purple) and for the boys we simply bought hot wheels cars. Nothing fancy but something little. 

Her actual birthday is in July so she got another chance to celebrate her special day with friends and family in our summer house. My sister is really talented baker so she made an awesome cake for her, of course again with my little pony theme. The cake didn't just look amazing but it also was delicious. 

The celebration was overall very successful and of course the main thing is that she was very happy after her parties. Right now she is waiting for her name day to come (that's something we celebrate in Finland) but that's an another story... :)

What's the name of the game...

Baseball!
I wanted to write a little blog post about baseball because it has become such a big part of our dude's life. Also at the same time I have fallen in love with this sport, at least on the little league level. ;)

I always say that we don't play baseball in Finland but that's actually a lie. We do have game called baseball but it's very different from the American version. I'm not going to bore you with Finnish baseball rules but I can tell you that it's not a very popular sport in Finland. When living in Finland it didn't come to mind to send our boy to play baseball. I don't even know if they have baseball league or teams in the Capital city area where we used to live. Funny though I used to love teaching Finnish baseball to my students and they (especially boys) liked to play the game. We even had teachers against students game at the end of the school year event.

Dude's baseball career started a little over a year ago when we lived in Los Angeles. One morning in their Friday assembly local baseball little league was advertising their activities. Later that day I asked dude if that would be something he could be interested in and surprisingly he said yes!

Before entering the league he had to go through the evaluation where they tested candidates' skills to found right teams for them. Before testing I told coaches that this boy has never played or even hold a glove or a bat in his hands. When they heard that they let me know that he wouldn't even have to try, they would automatically put him to a beginner's group called "farm". I was kind of relieved and told him "ok, let's go. You don't have to do this. They all ready decided team for you". But he didn't settle for this. He wanted to try anyway. I was amazed and very happy. When did he grow up to be so brave?!?  
His evaluation went better than I ever could have imagined but of course his place was in farm level.

And what a fun spring it was! They had practices and games all spring long and he was really enjoying himself playing baseball. He learned so much and I was super proud how he grew to be part of the team and learned all the rules of baseball. But he wasn't the only one from our family that learned to love baseball. We really enjoyed watching their games and cheering for their team. And as I was watching the boys playing I truly realized how many-sided game baseball really is. You need to learn several skills to be able to play this game. At the same time it's mentally very challenging Game. At the outfield you need to stay focused and be ready to move to a right position very quickly. All the time you need to think a little ahead of yourself for example where to throw the ball if it ends up coming your way. 

So obviously when we moved to Northern California it was important for him to find a league where he could continue playing baseball. We were lucky to find out that our home town actually had great little league that welcomed him to play his favorite sport. I really feel that during this season he caught up other boys in their baseball skills and I can honestly claim that he is an equal part of their team. Of course he has been practicing a lot with his team but also with his dad. Part of his summer plans is really refine his pitching skills. Being a pitcher was one of his favorite positions to be on the field and I'm truly grateful to Foster City Little League how they let every boy play in every position. Now that the spring season is over we can't wait the fall ball to begin.

Baseball, another great thing that happened us here in America!  

Rafting along American River

During Memorial weekend we decided to pack our bags and drive to Sacramento, the capital city of California. I've wanted to see that place ever since we moved to the Bay Area so I was happy finally being able to do that. Many people say that there is not too much to do or see in Sacramento so we thought that one day should be enough to see the city and the other day we could go rafting along American River. The weather was supposed to be hot and sunny so what would be better way to spend your day.There are several companies that organize rafting near Sacramento so we chose one that offered a little more challenging rapids. Our rafting trip was 12 miles long in total. The first half of our trip was easier warm up. We rafted a couple of hours and stopped to have some lunch. After lunch the fun really began! Our guide told us that rapids are rated on a scale of one to five. After lunch we rafted rapids that were rated three. The ride was awesome! It took us seven hours to reach the finish line. On the way we saw beautiful views and enjoyed fresh air that reminded me a lot of our summer cottage by the lake. I'm sure we'll go back one day. We had so much Fun!

In these pictures our rafting experience looks like a calm and nice Sunday ride but obviously I was too busy trying to stay in the boat during those wildest rapids that I didn't have time to take any pictures ;)

On Monday it was time to drive back home. We decided to drive through Napa Valley because I've never been there. The area was full of small and a little bigger wineries, boutiques and cafeterias. We stopped at one of my husband's favorite wineries to do some wine tasting. Kids were having fun outside playing in the nice grassy area and we had fun tasting some really good wines. I'm lucky to go back in Napa area less than a month when I get to participate to my friend's bachelorette party.

In all we had a very successful weekend. Definitely one of the best parts of living in the Bay Area is that there is always a lot of fun and exiting things to do not too far away your home town. :)    

Viva Las Vegas

You may have noticed that I've started blogging in English. I decided that if my kids could learn to speak, read and write in English I better start improving my English too. Dude had open house in his class room before Easter and he had written three awesome books with several pages. And trust me those books weren't nonsense because the students had pretty strict orders on how to form their stories. My favorite one was his book about Anakin Skywalker. I actually learnt a few things about Anakin's rough life.

But now let's talk about Las Vegas...

This was my first time in this weirdly wonderful city. Kids stayed home with my mom who is visiting us so we got the chance to explore this place just the two of us; me and my hubby.

It's so funny how there can be one street with several huge and different kinds of hotels in the middle of the desert. When we were walking on the strip (the main hotel street in Vegas) it felt like I was visiting Paris, Egypt, New York and Italy at the same time. If you've never been there you'll understand when I'll post some pictures.

We were staying in a hotel called Venetian. It was one of the most gorgeous and definitely the biggest hotel I've ever stayed. There were a shopping center, a casino, several restaurants, pools and of course a Venetian canal inside the hotel. We actually took a gondola ride inside our hotel!

This is actually a inside photo from our hotel. The sealing was amazing!

One of the best parts in Vegas are those never ending show opportunities. You can see everything from acrobat performances to magic and so on. We saw two awesome shows during our weekend. First show was called Absinthe. It was acrobat show that was spiced up with good stand up humor. We really got good laughs and saw some pretty skilled performances. Second night we went to see Penn&Teller Magic Show. It was so much fun. Those guys did some pretty amazing tricks and at the same time they were so funny. We were laughing our eyes out! After the show they came to meet the audience and to me that was very thoughtful thing to do. They actually took time to take picture with every member of the audience. So from this on if/when someone asks me "Have you met any celebrities while living in USA?" I'll tell them that I met Penn&Teller; I can even show some pictures of me with them! 

BTW I once met one doctor from Grey's Anatomy when I was visiting Alcatraz but that's a different story. 

I'm not going to write very many words about gambling. It turns out that I'm not very good in that. I played  $10 and lost every penny. Later in the airport I decided to spend one dollar more and I won $5! So that was the story about my gambling experience.

Grand Canyon is actually quite close to Las Vegas so on Sunday my hubby arranged us a helicopter trip to see the Grand Canyon. It took us about an hour to fly there and we landed on the bottom of the Canyon. There we had half an hour to admire the scenery, eat lunch and take some pictures. The scene was truly amazing! I always wanted to see Grand Canyon so I was very happy I was able to do that now!  

My tip to all our friends from Finland who want to visit us here in California: leave the kids with us and fly to Las Vegas. It's a 1.5 hour flight and you only need a couple of days to experience that place. If you go I promise you won't be disappointed!