Winter without snow

We came to Finland on the 26th and almost half of our holiday here is over already. The children are still hoping to see some snow here, but it doesn't look very promising. It has been above zero degrees and raining a bit and there's absolutely no snow anywhere. We are enjoying our stay here anyway just taking it easy. We have been to the library, seen some good friends, gone shopping, slept until late in the morning and I also went to the cinema with Daniele and Sofia to see the film New Year's Eve. I just miss my horse riding, but maybe we will manage to go here too at least once. Too much eating and too much sitting still is not good!

Merry Christmas to all

Christmas baking

Last Sunday the weather was perfect for staying at home with fire in the fireplace and baking gingerbread cookies. Daniele went to a friend of his, so I baked together with the girls. It was fun and the gingerbread dough was good as always :)

 Gingerbread horses

It was the fourth Sunday of Advent, which means it's Christmas very soon. Help, I still have lots of things to do. I'm late as always...

Christmas tree

In Italy the 8th of December is the day when you decorate the Christmas tree. It actually suits us well as we are going to Finland on the 26th, so in this way we can enjoy our Christmas tree before leaving. So in the morning Armando and Daniele bought the tree and in the evening, when everyone was at home, we put on some christmas music and decorated it. It did end with some arguing and pouting about who got to put the star on top of the tree. In the end we had to take it off and put it back three times, but now it's there and everyone's happy.

Carlotta's first riding competition

Also Carlotta has become a horse girl now. She had her first little club competition at the riding school where she started riding in October. She had such a good time that she would have liked to do do the whole day again. She does something called pony games or mounted games where you do different games together with the pony and compete against another team. I think it's a really good way for small children to start riding. An important part of the lesson is also taking care of the pony and Carlotta loves these sweet ponies with their soft coat and long mane.

Thanks to maybemej for the nice template!

Lovely Week-end in Tuscany

Last year Sofia got a week-end in an agriturismo as her birthday present from me and we had such nice memories from it, so she wanted to do it again this year. So for her 11th birthday she got the same present. This year she wanted to try another place. I had been doing some reserach in the internet and when I saw that the weather forecast for the week-end 12-13 of November was very good, I booked one night for us in an agriturismo in Manciano in Tuscany. Of course this place also had horses and hot thermal springs nearby.

We left early Saturday morning and in about two hours we got to our agriturismo out in the beautiful Tuscan contryside. It was called "Agriturismo Le Macchie Alte". We made a very good choice and I really hope that we can go back there soon again. After all it's not so far away. We got a nice little apartment and the whole place was so beautiful. In summer they even have a little pool. When we arrived there we were welcomed by Maya, the sweetest Maremma dog I have ever met.

For the afternoon we had booked a horse ride. First we went to the thermal springs of Saturnia I had heard about and seen photos of, but had never been there. Lovely, although the water was not as warm as it was last year in Viterbo, but it was very relaxing and the weather was warm, too for November. There were quite a lot of people, but I guess you can't find days with less people there as it's a very popular place. It's free of charge and you have to change your clothes in the car or somewhere outside.

 
After our bath we sat with our bathrobes on our towel, ate some pizza we had with us and just relaxed. All of a sudden I saw an animal under my knees and I soon realised that it was... A RAT!!! This brown rat was walking towards Sofia and I told her to get up fast and when she did it, she put her hands on the ground to get up and the rat bit her in the finger before it disappeared in a hole in the stones. We went back to our agriturismo and looked for someone to ask where to go and what to do and finally we found someone who could tell us where the hospital was. There was a little hospital in Manciano, so we went there and fortunately enough, in this little village, you didn't have to wait long to get examined by a doctor. She said that these rats here in the countryside probably don't live in filthy sewers, but can of course carry diseases, so she gave her antibiotics. The wound also was very small so she told us not to worry, but I must say I had a few sleepless nights after having read in the internet of all the terrible things that rats can transmit.
Anyway after having been to the doctor we managed to relax again and before it got dark we went out for a ride with the horses in the agriturismo. My horse was called Trottolina and Sofia's Yuma. They were quite small maremma-arabian horses. We couldn't canter because they hadn't been ridden for some time so they could get too excited. The ground was very stony and there were lots of steep slopes so you couldn't ride too fast anyway.

In the evening we had a lovely dinner together with the other guests. There was a couple without children from Piemonte and another one with three children from Florence and we had a very nice evening eating good food, drinking some wine and sharing experiences and telling what we have done and seen here. Outside it got really cold in the evening.
Next morning Sofia did her home work in the lobby together with the other children. It was really cozy there with the fireplace. When she was ready we left this beautiful place and went to see the medieval village of Montemerano.

We had booked a riding tour in another agriturismo called Le Vigne. It was nice, but next time we will surely go back to Macchie Alte again. The man who probably was the owner of the riding school wasn't too talkative. The horses were quite skinny and he didn't care to brush them or let us brush them before our riding tour. It was a bit better here anyway, as we got to canter a few times and the scenery was beautiful. I rode a grey horse again called Doje and Sofia Aurora.

Then we went to Manciano to look for something to eat in a bar and in the evening we were back in Rome again.

Mail from Finland :)

This, together with the sunshine really made my day! Tack mamma-mormor!

Witches and sweets

Halloween has become very important for my children and they had all been waiting for the evening when you can go out to get sweets. This time Daniele went to the cinema with his friends and me and my friends went out with the girls. First a friend of Sofia's came to us and they took a little tour to the neighbours with Carlotta. Then we met up with other friends and they continued trick-or-treating and afterwards we went to a cafe where you got free cornettos for Halloween (croissants with different fillings that Italians eat for breakfast with their cappuccino). Very nice. The day after we had to get up early for our riding lesson and Carlotta was really tired after all this excitement, so we didn't stay out too late. We went trick-or-treating in a residential area where all the houses and gates were very nicely dekorated and people were having Halloween parties and there was a nice athmosphere, but we started a bit late, so many houses already had run out of sweets. Anyway, they got quite a lot of sweets and had a nice evening.

September lay-out

Some rain...

What a day we had last thursday. We had so much rain falling in a few hours that we haven't seen anything like that before. It started thundering in the morning and when I took the children to school it was all dark and thundering all the time. Outside the school it also started hailing and looked so threatening so I said to the children that they could stay at home today. Daniele wanted to go anyway because he had a test he didn't want to miss. It rained really hard. As most newer houses here, we have rooms also in the basement and have had dirt water twice already in our bedrooms. I can now say that we are very lucky we had had problems before and therefore had installed pumps and a return valve, because they saved us this time and this time it would have been much, much worse. When I noticed that the rain water soon would get inside, I called Armando, who was at a course this morning and said that he couldn't get home because all the streets were flooded, but he explained me how to use our extra pump. So there I stood out in the rain trying to connect all the hoses, cords and plugs and get this pump to work. Finally it worked and this little pump saved us from getting more than just a few centimeters of rain water in our bedrooms. Carlotta sat on the stairs inside whining because she gets scared when I'm panicking and Sofia helped me with what she could. I was soaked to my underwear.
At two a clock it had stopped raining and I went by car to get Daniele from school because all the streets were full of water. There were lakes outside the school and lots of children hadn't gone to school today or had gone home earlier today. Later I heard that people in all Rome, and especially in our area, had had really terrible problems with dirt water in their houses and a man from Sri Lanka who lived in the basement had drowned in his house. Terrible!
This was our garden after the rain. The danger was over and Carlotta thought it looked funny with all that water.

And this was outside the school.

End of summer barbeque

We had a barbeque in our garden with our friends we hadn't seen for months - last time I think we met them all at Sofia's confirmation in May. Summer is ending also here in Rome, so it was a good occasion to have a barbeque. It was nice to sit out in the sunshine, but in the evening we had to give up and go inside to have a cup of warm tee! We had a nice day. Sofia also had one of her riding friends sleeping over at our place, so she stayed for the barbeque. My friends' husbands are much more handy than mine and my children are very grateful to them as they repaired all their bicycle tires. The boys all went out with the bicycles, the girls played games and we chatted, ate and drank wine out in the garden.

Sofia 11 years

Sofia celebrated her 11th birthday in the best way she could imagine - at the riding school's restaurant with her best riding friends. Us parents often take a separate table at these birthday parties and spend the evening there as well and also this time we had a nice table of rider's parents and another one with noicy riders and their brothers and sisters. They eat and then go out jumping obstacles at the riding field. She got lots of nice horsey presents - horse books, a fleece jacket for horse riding, a bag, etc. After the party she had one of her friends sleeping over.

Summer in review

I have done three layouts that resume our summer. Actually also September can be considered a summer month here in Rome, where we still have almost 30 degress during the day, but as schools start in September, I only included the months of June, July and August. I have used ready templates found on the web, but I can't remember where I found them.

Happy candy eaters

The choice of candy in the Finnish super markets is huge compared to the Italian ones. When we leave Finland after our summer holiday I take the children to a super market to buy candy. I usually never buy candy, only when we have a birthday party. Each of them gets a certain amount of money to spend. Daniele wanted to go to a bigger super market this year with even more choice, but I refused to and said that if he wanted to he could go there by bike and I would give him the money. I thought there was quite enough choice in the one where we went last year with all three children choosing, counting how much money they got left and when I thought they finally were ready they quickly had to leave something to take something else instead and so on, until I was quite exhausted. In the end Daniele decided to come with us. This tradition started when I started buying them a candy box in the aero plane when we left Finland. Last summer, I think it was Daniele who asked me if he could buy his candy in Finland instead so he could choose what he wanted to with the same amount of money. Well, here is a lay out showing my happy children with their sweets in front of them.

Beaches in Sardinia

These are all the beaches we went to on our holiday in Sardinia where we went before school started. Wonderful beaches, lovely weather, lots of swimming - a relaxing and nice holiday, a part from the fact that we were worried about our dog, Milla. Carlotta learnt to swim underwater this summer and got better and better in Sardinia and managed to swim a little bit with her head out of the water, too!

First school day

Sofia and Carlotta on their way to school on the first day. Daniele's school started earlier in the morning, so I didn't get him in the photo. It is still very warm here, about 30 degrees so it's not so easy to be very efficient working or at school.

An exciting and sad day

Today it was an exciting, but also a sad day. Exciting because school started again and it was Carlotta's first day in the real school, the Scuola Elementare and Sofia's first day in a new school, too, the Scuola Media. And a sad day because it was time to decide to put our beloved 15-year-old dog Milla to sleep.
She had begun to get much older in her behaviour already in Finland, but after an epilectic attack that she had before our holiday in Sardinia she just stopped eating. We spent 7 days in Sardinia and as she refused to eat we called the vet. She told us to try with baby food and just put it in her mouth and try if her appetite came back. It seemed to help first, but then she completely stopped eating and only drank lots of water, so on Monday the only thing to do was to take her to the vet while the children were at school. It feels very sad and empty, although we can  be happy because Milla lived a long life and always was very healthy.

The first school day went well and Carlotta said it was great and didn't feel as school. She had been quite worried about the fact that you get to do home work, but as she didn't get any the first day she thought it was very nice. Also Sofia and Daniele didn't get any home work yet. For Daniele this is the third and last year in the Scuola Media. Sofia had some companions from her old school and many new ones.

Celebrating Carlotta

On the 20th of July it was Carlotta`s sixth birthday. She has become a big girl. Lots of things have happened during the summer and in many ways she really has grown.
On her birthday my parents were in S. Petersburg, so I invited two friends of mine whose girls are about Carlotta's age and who we see quite often when we are in Finland. They both were my classmates when we were at school and our children get along very well.
We baked oat cakes the night before and made a cake and bought some sweets. The weather was nice so the children could play out in the garden and we could drink our coffee outside. Carlotta was very happy with her little birthday party.
I got this template from Maybemej, but used different colours in it.

As my parents weren't there and Carlotta wanted to celebrate with them too, we went out to have lunch this Friday to Kärkisaari. We usually go to this summer restaurant once every summer and love the atmosphere there. A few years ago the place got new owners and isn't as good as it used to be, but the place in itself still is wonderful. This time I must say the service was a bit awkward. They always have cold starters and and then you can choose either meat or fish for the main course. I ordered to the children (they don't have any special children menu) who all wanted meet and when it was time to order for us adults they told us that they had ran out of meat and only had fish. I don't like fish, so I said, I preferred meet. The waitress, who I suspect is also the owner of the place, asked me why I didn't like fish when you get so intelligent when you eat it and suggested I could eat my children's leftovers from their plates. Nice, I said and when she asked if my parents wanted fish and they answered that there obiously was no choice, they said that they could always decide not to eat at all! Never heard a waitress giving those kinds of answers to a client... Well, in the end I did eat what the children left, as both Carlotta and Sofia hardly ate anything, so the problem wasn't that there wasn't enought to eat, but the very strange way to treat their guests. Otherwise the food was nice and the cake good. But I'm not sure if we will go there to celebrate Carlotta's birthday next time.
Me and Daniele went there with our bicycles. It's about 12 km one way, so we burned off at least a little part of our meal.

July lay-out

We did these and lots of other things in July - it was warm, we ate strawberries and picked blue berries, went to Hamina Horse Show, to Lovisa, Sofia went to the riding camp, Daniele to the sailing camp and it was Carlotta's birthday.

Ferragosto, autumn feelings and a summer lay-out

Today it's Ferragosto in Italy and the summer holidays begin for lots of people. Here in Finland schools start and the weather is really autumn like, so here there is a summer-is-over-feeling. Again, we are very lucky, because when we get back to Italy in about ten days, summer still continues!
I did a digital lay-out about our four days in a summer cottage. It was so nice and relaxing. It was windy there most of the time, rained a little bit, but the water still was warm and we had at least one swim after the sauna every day. The children went swimming also without the sauna.
This was about the only moment when it wasn't windy at all and we went out rowing before going to the sauna.

Summer days

July is over already! We came to Finland on the 1st of July and have almost only had sunshine here. Today on the 1st of August the air was much cooler, but still very nice. I have been working quite a lot, but have also had time to go horse riding, see some friends and relatives (not so many, though), to swimming, eat strawberries, blue berries and raspberries and Daniele and Sofia have been to their summer camps. Nice summer days and we are lucky to have quite a few more to go before schools start in Italy in September!

Last days of our mountain holiday

The third and fourth day in Peio

The first days of our mountain holiday in Trentino

Summer week in the mountains

Long time no updating. The third week of June we went to the mountains and just got home to unpack and do some laundry and on the 1st of July we were off to Finland. Our week in Trentino was very good. There are beautiful sceneries where ever you look and I took hundreds of photos. Every day we went out hiking, some days longer hikes and most days just shorter ones. In the hotel we had a nice sauna where we could relax after the walks. There were quite a lot of children in the hotel and Carlotta played a lot with the hotel keeper's daughter who was the same age. On the third day the hotel organized a nice barbeque and there we got to know another family from Brescia who had a boy and a girl Daniele and Sofia got a long well with. The last days we hiked together with them and also asked to join our tables in the hotel restaurant so we could have dinner together. It only rained a bit one day and the day we arrived there, so we were very lucky with the weather again.

Barbeque 1st of May

We had a barbeque in our garden on the 1st of May. It was a good excuse to finally take out and clean the garden furniture and, of course, meet our friends. We had a really nice day out in the sun!

A day at the beach

On Thursday it was national holiday here and we finally went to our summer place in Fregene. It's not far away at all, but our week-ends just are so full of football matches and horse riding and other things that we don't go there very often. We should go there more, because you really get a holiday feeling when you go there. We invited our good friends there, which makes the day even more enjoyful. And the best thing is that while we are at the beach with the children our husbands cook the lunch. Lovely! And it always tastes wonderful there.

If you go there quite early in the morning you can buy lovely fruit and vegetables just near our house. They really taste different from those that you buy in the super market!

The weather was nice too, not too warm and not too cold. The only thing that wasn't nice was that the beach where we always go was very dirty! Last year they closed the nice open bar at the beach because it was unauthorized and now someone had burnt it, so it all was very ugly. But anyway it was a good day and gave me some energy for the evening and next day when I had a lot of work because I had a translation to deliver.