Been busy

So it's been awhile since I got a post up.  Been kinda busy.  Weekend before last was a visit from Meme and Carly that was great.  Then last weekend was our first full weekend of hockey practices and Steph was in DC for a conference.  Anyway so stuff we been doing....

Here is another picture from Steph and the kids trip to Lapland, I think.

 This is the picture of the place where we bought our used hockey skates.  A very impressive place.  The entire room was two deep wall to wall skates.  All four walls were this way.  There was a another room of cross country ski boots that was just like this.

 From Meme and Carly's visit, here is a mass of kids designing buildings out of legos as part of Helsinki Design Week.

 So Daniel had his first hockey practice (with GrIFK) recently in Kauniainen.  This is the ski hill next to the hockey rink.  For Pop-pop it is just of the 109 route near the hospital at Jorvi.  We took the bus, carried his equipment a 1/2 kilometer and then made it to the rink.  A coach introduced him to the team and he was off.  After practice, the assistant coach berated them in Finnish for apparently not giving much effort in practice.  (Daniel only pieced this together later.)  The punishment: up and down that ski hill 7 times with pushups and situps in between at 8p at night in a driving mist.  According to Daniel, the trail was slippery and kids were slipping all over the place.  He was somewhat reluctant to go back to the next practice.  Two pieces of good news.  First, two boys from Daniel's school are on the team and, second, they have really good cinnamon rolls at the rink.

This is a picture of the courtyard outside our apartment.  Lots of gravel in Helsinki (including on most soccer fields).  This is early October around 7p and the colors are full on.  

This is a picture from my walk home today.  It's the park next to Daniel's school.  Reminds me of Rotary Park in Malone, NY.