Liina 4 years old

4 years ago Liina came to the world...how the years go quickly by! It seems like yesterday she crawled around the house and I ran around the house picking up everything she might put in her mouth...I´m still running around the house picking up, but nowdays it is all the toys left behind !

We have also entered the question period, Liina is very curious and the other day she asked if dogs cry and who is God...big questions so I better have good answers:)

Today on her 4th birthday the girls both woke up in our bed,they love to come to us during the night so it gets a bit crowded, at 7am it was wake up call, singing and presents( Viivi also got a few)! Here is a few pictures:

I will put more pictures tonight from her birthday:)

I also booked our tickets to SA yesterday, date is set and we are leaving on the 1st of November, it will be the first time I fly Virgin Atlantic. Looking forward to the sunshine and warm weather in SA!

Enjoy your day!

Jannika

Frost!

It is getting colder quickly, over the weekend we have had frost in the mornings, and this morning I put winter jackets on the girls for the first time. It is a sunny crisp morning, just above zero, it actually reminds me of when going on a morning safaridrive in South Africa in early spring when the sun just has come up, you feel the fresh, crips air in your face and the sun slowly warms up your skin. Fall is here, colours are changing quickly, and leaves falling down.

Last night I had difficulty sleeping, so many thoughts in my head of everything that needs to be done before we go, calculating, planning...almost had to get up and start doing something:) Feels like my list of `To Do´ is getting longer and longer everyday.

Over the weekend the girls had their activities( Ballet and kiddies class) and yesterday we went to Tropiclandia, an indoor waterpark here in Vasa. The girls loves it there, the water is a bit heated, they have slides, and a kiddies section, and we also took them in the the big slide. It was a nice relaxed sunday activity for the whole family. As the week had been so busy it was nice to do something together.

And my new website is soon ready!

Have a good start to this new week.

Jannika

6 weeks...

..and we are in South Africa again. This weekend when I checked in the calendar and counted the weeks, just to make sure I had time to prepare everything before we leave, I could hardly believe it, only 6 weeks!

Last week I got a new camera from my dear husband( he works to be able to buy me presents..

no,I´m not that demanding:) It is a Canon 550D, it can take beautiful pictures, therefore I´m starting to look around for photo workshops in Cape Town while we are there, I just want to learn the camera and to take great pictures, especially landscape, people and animals, to be able to use nice pictures on my website. By the way, my new website is coming up soon, in a few weeks, I will inform here when it is ready. A friend of mine is doing it , Lena, she just is so brilliant in creating websites,I´m so happy she had time to help me....soon you will all see the results:)

This weekend was quite a busy one, as most fridays my dad comes over in the evening to have dinner with us, I tried to watch my Idol program on tv while girls where trying to break the sound record! Nico finally gave me the headphones, and finally i could hear something!

On saturday Liina went for ballet classes, and Viivi got to try a kiddies activity class, first she was actually a bit shy, but you should have seen how involved she was by the time I came to pick her up, she was running and laughing like she had the time of her life:) so that will be on next saturday again. On saturday my dad came over and he & Nico cut down some trees,and I helped the girls to bake the hungry men a cake, we try to bake something every saturday:

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...and in the evening we went to visit our south african/finnish friends Heli& Frantz, they have recently moved to a new house and I had not been there before. We had a great evening,Kira& Jukka also came,men outside braaing and we girls in the kitchen sipping sparkling wine:) thanks all of you, we had some good laughters!

Our sunday project was to put up the new star wallpaper in the girls rooms, they have chosen it themselves:) I have put a few pictures here to show what it looks like, I love it! And so does the girls! Stars stars on the wall:)

Viivis room

Liinas room

Here the girls are playing on the carpet on friday evening, and if you lye down you can be so sure to have them both climbing over you, Nico is the victim hereTime for me to start planning more text for my website, I have to have everything ready by saturday.

Hugs to all of you,

Jannika

A new day

It is a wonderful, sunny morning, no wind, just a clear sky. Took this picture from our street this morning when I took Liina&Viivi to dagis. Sundom is a wonderful place where to live, and on our hill lives only families with young children. This is where we stay when we are in Finland, a nice balance to the city life we live in South Africa. Liina& Viivi outside dagis, Viivi has a toy day today so she is allowed to take with her a toy from home.
And Liina:)
This morning when Liina was packing in and out her bag, she started talking about taking with her facebook to dagis..and I wondered what and where has she heard that? I asked her what she meant and then she showed her wallet and called it her facebook, with all clips and pins in :)

Workwise I have two busy days behind, managed to finalize two tours. One is for a couple going to celebrate an anniversary,a great way to do that is to do part of your trip by train with Rovos Rail, you will be pampered and taken back in time, http://www.rovos.com/

and then to see the Big Five on safari, here is a great safari lodge: http://www.honeyguidecamp.com/

Will be going there next season with many guests. I like the feeling of sleeping in a canvas tent, keep in mind this is not a normal tent, it is both comfortable and luxurious, and the sound of the bush carries trough the canvas, it feels like you are sleeping outside:) Cant wait to be on the road again! But lots of work ahead before that still.....

Have a wonderfulday!

Jannika

This and that

My cousin Mats taking care of the braai, but look at the view, I could live here, luckily I have a cousin that I can visit here, so peaceful:) Girls doing their latest moves:)

As you can guess we visited Juni Backen during our Stockholm holiday in July

Juni backen fun!

And back to my cousin and the nice view ... such a wonderful evening we had!

Liina&Viivi

Some sunny days by the water

Liina& Viivi

Liina picking blueberries on our backyardViivi eating blueberries, there is a bucket next to her but it stayed empty:)
Look at those moves, especially feet position...a future ballerina:)
Liina dancing, Viivi falling off the bed:)
And more ballet moves, they are so sweet when they dance!

Tuesday morning

Nico got up early and we girls got up a bit after, I think the girls where eager to get to ´dagis´ because today they have a harvesting party:) They have made hats and decorations for this occasion:) and as their daycares are next to each other they invite each other when there is certain occasions, so today Liinas dagis are going over to Viivis dagis. It was so nice to see the smiles on Liinas& Viivis faces this morning, that made my day:) After taking them to daycare I started ticking off my list of`TO DO´s`, been sitting in front of the compute a few hours planning tours as I have two new client requests for tours to South Africa,Cape Town and safari, seems to be the most popular combination , I have forgotten breakfast,that is the dangerous thing starting to work before eating, one forgets about time! After a breakfast bite, and bit more work Im going jogging, to get some fresh air and clear my mind , and do the healthy part of todays activities. As I sit so much in front of the computer, my eyes really work overtime, so last week I booked an appointment to check my eye sight, that is also today. I know I need to wear glasses when I drive, watch tv, but I have kind of forgotten that after my glasses where in the bag that was stolen in January at Johannesburg airport, now 8 months later I finally realize I have to get new ones! Why is it that one puts certain things aside until it almost becomes urgent.

It is still grey in Vasa, fall is in the air, leaves are falling down and making a carpet on the ground. I like the smell of fall, even if I´m not a fan of fall, but I suppose all seasons have something good in them, I know many of my friends loves fall because they can do a lot of shopping:)Put the summer clothes aside and get all new for the season. Also enjoying a good glas of redwine is part of fall( I think that actually goes with every season, but especially with fall).

Back to work for me, then jogging, take care all of you.

Jannika

september rain

Hej to all of you,
Time to write a line again!
It is sunday and raining, typical weather for this time of year in Finland, one never knows when the sun is going to show itself again, it is a constant grey layer on the sky, water is dripping down, and we sit inside, nobody seems to want to go outside on days like this. But we did have a lovely sunny week, so a few days of rain is ok, if it stays at that:) and of course,we do not have too many weeks left until we close the doors here and move south to South Africa again. Only 7 more weeks. We are looking forward to that, and I think we are quite organized this year, house rented in Cape town for the whole stay, so that will be our address if you want to come for as visit:)
Before we leave I have quite a bit of planning to do still, small details for the tours, as there will be 7 of them, good planning means half the job done. It will be a hectic season but what can I say, I LOVE IT!!
Sometimes I think of all the decisions and routes chosen that has taken me to this, a life and job that gives me so much and is just perfect as it is, I can still handle all work on my own, just as I wanted from start, I never wanted a big impersonal business , I just wanted to be able to help people in a personal way and therefore Im happy as long as the business stays in the limit of what I can handle. And also as a family, having the possibility to live in both countries, for Nico to see family, and for the girls, to know their family in both countries and to learn and see differences, values.
This is my thoughts this rainy sunday:)
Last week was busy, I went on a cruise to Tallin on wednesday organized by the finnish travel agency, me representing South africa, as I guide their SA tours. It was nice to meet other people in the industry and answering questions about SA.
I also made the decision to take part in MATKA 2011 in Helsinki, a travel show, even if I can´t be there myself, but Lena& Simon will help me out again :) Thanks,it means a lot!
Summer went so quick, in July we went to Stockholm, by car+ Silja Line. First we drove to Helsinki, stayed 1 night and took the boat over to Stockholm, did all the kiddies things, Gröna Lund, Juni backen, Skansen, and stayed at Hasselbacken, what a good choise as all activities where on the door step. And then we visited my cousin Malin & husband Janne+ boys Phillip and Hugo, in Eckerö, my cousin Mats came also over with son Albin,we had such a lovely stay, nice summer evening,good food and the best view on the island! Will try to put a picture in. Thank you for a lovely evening Malin&Janne, we will do it again next summer!
In beginning on summer, June 22, Nico turned 40 years old!..and yes,as the age gets higher the parties get bigger...we did have a party for him, and even if it was rainy, we had a great time and partied late. One gift he got was 2 tickets to the U2 concert in Helsinki in end of August. A child free weekend, not too often that happens as our girls are part of our luggage wherever we go:)My dear mom looked after Liina& Viivi( which she does with a smile)as we started our journey to Helsinki for the weekend. What a struggle to get a hotel,as I only started looking for hotels a week in advance. Luckily I got trough booking.com a hotel in the middle of the city that somehow became available as I search the site constantly, getting a bit desperate:) But we where lucky. Friday night sorted, but no chance finding anything for saturday, but that was fine,change of plan, we went on a daycruise to Tallin on saturday and drove trough to Tampere in the evening instead. But,back to the concert, it was amazing! it was a sunny day-evening and when U2 started playing, the moon was in the background. What I like about U2, the stage appareance,their old songs and the message delivered. A great show!
On saturday morning we where off to Tallin, but missed the first boat:) Not that we overslept, but because we drove to the wrong terminal, lesson learned, read carefully all details on the ticket! So, we decided we take the next boat that goes, instead of waiting for 2 hours for next Silja Line departure, we got onboard this other old boat leaving 30min later, once onboard we thought it might be a good idea to check how long this journey will take...3 hours, 1 hour longer than the other,so at the end we scored 30min!Anyway, we made it to Tallin, spent the day there relaxing in oldtown, walking up and down the streets, enjoying a huge lunch and some hot chocolate at the chocolate shop, a nice day. On the way back to the terminal we decided to check the shopping center by the harbour, and almost got lost between the Hello Kitty, Ape-shirts hanging on your left,right and above, same things allover!
Summer went too quick but that seems to be pace these days, you wait for something long, it comes and is gone before you know.

I will try to write a few times more before we are changíng continent, get my writing habit back:)
Next event to plan at home is Liinas 4th brithday on the 30.09!
Pictures of this and that , summer 2010,will also come up any day soon.

Hugs,

Jannika