Thankyou

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Introducing Baby Viking

Here she is, the Baby Vviking herself. How beautiful.

I am currently sitting opposite a very tired, but very proud Daddy Viking.




You can see more photos on her very own Baby Viking blog.

Baby Viking

Baby Viking arrived safe and sound this morning at 10am, weighing in at just over 3200grams. Minna and Ville are very excited, and we will hopefully get to meet this little treasure tomorrow. If so we will post some photos and maybe she will be known as something other than Baby Viking.

Baby Viking has her very own blogspot as well, although it is in Finnish, you can still see some photos.

Congratulations Minna and Ville. Welcome to the world Baby Viking.

Sunday

Its sunday and theres not a lot to say. Behaved for midsummer and didnt drink much. Had a great time at Laura and Asseri's party.

Stayed up late and finished reading Paranoia, a book by Joseph Finder. A black comedy about a young guy caught up in the world of corporate spying. One scene involves bringing in Bain consulting and cutting heads. You can read about the details...

Time to go have breakfast and to make some free internet phone calls with skype.
Sambo.

Hyva Juhunusta

Happy midsummer.

The vibe here is a bit like Christmas. We are off to Asse and Laura's party this afternoon, but first to the sauna at Minna and Ville's house.

This morning we made Vittas with Minna's grandfather, which are the bunches of branches you cut from Silver Birch trees. We must take them with us this afternoon and lay them on the hot rocks in the sauna. They have a nice peppery sort of smell.

A few beers, a barbecue and a jump or two in the lake and that's midsummer. Oh, and the allnight sun of course!

Sambo.

Minna and Marjut.

VIlle the Architect analog.

Dinner with Minna's family at Helsinki harbour

A little gender confused...

Me Tarzan, you Jane!

Big kids goofing off at the Lego show in Helsinki

F1 lego racer

Lego show in Helsinki - I think we're being followed

Minna and Ville.

Photos for Kris......more of the tummy like you asked.

Photo for Fliss and Brian. This plant was gorgeous, it is a type of clover.

Sam, always the manager

Ville's Mower. Can you see Sam's addition?

Ahti eating dessert. Blueberry pie with strawberry cream.

Sam's geography lesson for Ahti.........

The Viking helping with the lawn mowing. Needs to be done twice a week at this time of year.

Espoo Relaxing

We are still with our friends Minna and Ville in Espoo, Finland. The weather has been fantastic mid 20s with about 20 hours of daylight each day. Minna and Ville are about to start rebuilding their house and are making the most of all the daylight. Ville was still on the earth mover at about 10.30pm last night.

Went to Helsinki shopping on Saturday, added yet another bag to my collection, no shoes this time though.

Will look at heading north after the 28th June, the stork is visiting Minna and Ville on the 27th, we will stay to meet the Baby Viking and then give the new family some space.

My sister Toni will hopefully be here next week, be good to catch up with her.

Thanks for all the emails - remember to keep us posted on all gossip :)

Moi Moi
Sam and Paula

Fiskars village

Paula and I went to Fiskars village today (as in knives, secateurs and scissors etc).

There was so much great art and craft here, and the buildings are beautiful, dating from the early 1800's.

I've posted a few pics below.

Cheers,
Sam.

Fiskars village.

Dog bowls and bed in Fiskars - sorry kelbs, its nice but 350 euros!

Fiskars village

Motorbike ride to Tommi's cabin

Ville and I took a ride with his brother and two friends (Asse and Tommi) to Tommi's cabin. After taking a few back roads we got there a bit late, so we didnt get a chance to take a sauna and go jump in the lake. But we had a barbecue instead, which was great.

Sam.

Nice night for a ride.

The view from Tommi's cabin.

Ville at Tommi's cabin.

We are having the nicest time!

I've put up a few more pictures from the last few days, including two from last friday night when we drank a beer or two with Marjut by the river - nice spot indeed.

This arvo I'm going for a motorbike riding with Ville's friends to an old castle about 50kms away. And maybe a sauna and some barbecue too. Tops.

Have been helping Minna and Ville set up a blog for the baby - will post some details when it is done.

Moi Moi,
Sambo.

Helsinki square last sunday afternoon. You can watch concerts from the steps...

Dont ever make a joke and ask Ville for a piece of wood 'about this big'. You'll get it, and quick.

Asse's not just a top bloke to talk to. This is his handy work outside the sauna with some blutack modelling. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle!

Ville is peeling potatoes in the background.

I liked this a lot. You take your beer bottles and cans back to the shopping centre where you bought them, and feed them in the hole. Then you get a voucher that is redeemable at the supermarket for cash (and quite a bit I might add). Sambo.

Beers by the river last friday night

Beers by the river last friday night

Sunday, 1pm

Last night we had a great party, but a little tired today. There are some photos here.

Also managed to work out Skype yesterday, which is a piece of software that lets us use the Internet and our laptop as a phone. We talked to Australia for almost one hour yesterday for about 1 dollar! But I cant get it to work with Australian mobiles,so I couldn't call my brother :(

Anyway, better go for a rest.
CIAO!
Sambo.

Croquet. Much better in crazy hats...

Ville! Come down from the roof!

Making the sauna ready

Crazy Vikings. Beware!

Hello Vikings!

We are at Minna and Ville's house and it is so nice. The weather is great at about 20 degrees. I have put on some new pcitures of the boat trip and bridges across Scandinavia.

Must go to lunch, but it also nice that we can get wireless internet access here on the lawn, so keep an eye out for us on MSN messenger, or send us an email!!!

CIAO!
S&P.

Espoo, Helsinki, Finland.

Paulas ankle - still swollen but getting better

A gift from Ville - now we know hoe hot it is inside and outside

My driver's seat in the van makes me look like a driving Viking..

Camper at MInna and Ville's house

A very nice place to be here in Espoo

Paula's new shoes - a pic for Krispy..

Driving the van out of the belly of the boat

The boat from Stockholm (Sweden) to Helsinki (Finland) was huge. Spent most of the time in our room reading to avoid feeling sick!

We saw this tiny sulky in Copenhagen. Our dog could probably power one of these! Fun for kids i think..

The Oresund bridge in Denmark connects 17km of water - a total length of 21km for the bridge. But about $100 to get across!

This morning it was raining in Copenhagen (Denmark) when we got up, and Paula sprained her ankle at about 9am, so we decided to drive for the whole day. We were hoping to make it all the way to Stockholm to catch up with Paula's uncle Mike but it was just too far. But our luck has changed because the sun has come out this evening - it's the nicest it's been in over a week. Hopefully a picture of what's to come!

So now we are in Jonkoping (pronounced 'Yun-shurping') in Sweden (about 300km's from Stockholm). Tomorrow we'll try to organise for a ferry from Stockholm to Finland, to finally see our Finnish friends. We are so excited!

We had the nicest time in Copenhagen, visiting the coffee shop of a friend of (Paula's) Auntie Robyn. Rune (pronounced 'roonner' i think) has the coolest coffee shop in all of Denmark, he even roasts his own on site and stocks some beans from the North of Australia too amongst his varieties. I even picked up a Ristoriet tshirt to wear back home. Our visit was just in time too, because after our Barista's course back home and 6 weeks in Italy we were becoming coffee snobs. It's disgusting what we've come across in the last few weeks on highway stations that passes as coffee!

It's 10pm and the sun outside looks like it might even go down soon - we'd forgotten just what the midsummer nights were like! It must be so hard getting little kids to bed here of a night!
On another note - we're not really missing TV that much, which is a bit of a surprise. How i wish all the time I'd spent viewing in the past I'd put into learning languages instead!
Also bought a little travel guitar (normal neck, very small body) back in Bologna so I've been re-learning my old lessons from my childhood. But no Kumbaya just yet. Spose I better go practice!
Sambo.

This morning it was raining in Copenhagen (Denmark) when we got up, and Paula sprained her ankle at about 9am, so we decided to drive for the whole day. We were hoping to make it all the way to Stockholm to catch up with Paula's uncle Mike but it was just too far. But our luck has changed because the sun has come out this evening - it's the nicest it's been in over a week. Hopefully a picture of what's to come!

So now we are in Jonkoping (pronounced 'Yun-shurping') in Sweden (about 300km's from Stockholm). Tomorrow we'll try to organise for a ferry from Stockholm to Finland, to finally see our Finnish friends. We are so excited!

We had the nicest time in Copenhagen, visiting the coffee shop of a friend of (Paula's) Auntie Robyn. Rune (pronounced 'roonner' i think) has the coolest coffee shop in all of Denmark, he even roasts his own on site and stocks some beans from the North of Australia too amongst his varieties. I even picked up a Ristoriet tshirt to wear back home. Our visit was just in time too, because after our Barista's course back home and 6 weeks in Italy we were becoming coffee snobs. It's disgusting what we've come across in the last few weeks on highway stations that passes as coffee!

It's 10pm and the sun outside looks like it might even go down soon - we'd forgotten just what the midsummer nights were like! It must be so hard getting little kids to bed here of a night!
On another note - we're not really missing TV that much, which is a bit of a surprise. How i wish all the time I'd spent viewing in the past I'd put into learning languages instead!
Also bought a little travel guitar (normal neck, very small body) back in Bologna so I've been re-learning my old lessons from my childhood. But no Kumbaya just yet. Spose I better go practice!
Sambo.

Legoland rocks!

It rained all day, and we missed the Ferrari exhibit at Legoland by a day, but it was still a great day! Legoland rocks!

Perhaps it was some sort of compensation, but a Ferrari 360 modena pulled up at the camping ground this afternoon when we got home. Its awfully expensive to stay here as part of the legoland park - now we feel rather prestigious with company like that.

I'm off to check the koenigsegg webpage to see if we can squeeze in a visit in Sweden.

Love from S&P.

Legoland rocks!!!