domenica 21 agosto 2011

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.

venerdì 19 agosto 2011

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.

lunedì 15 agosto 2011

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.

lunedì 1 agosto 2011

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!