Birthday, conference and travel

It was Tracy's birthday last Sunday. It was a big round one, but I won't say which...

To celebrate, we spent the weekend in Stockholm. I had a conference there the week before, and Tracy and Annabel joined me on Friday. We had a lovely weekend. We didn't have a map, nor a guidebook, so we just aimlessly wandered around most of the time. Johan showed us Skansen - an open-air museum - which was lovely. I think we'll make more trips there in the future. It was Annabel's 6th country - if you count her stopovers in England and Turkey. I remember when we were still in South Africa and Izak visited Stockholm, how expensive we thought things were. Now we realise that Stockholm is a cheaper place than Helsinki. It was weird though to see prices in the hundreds instead of the tens. The Swedish Krone is close to the Rand in value - so we got an idea again of how much things cost when you convert. We haven't done that in a while, and you forget that 5 € are worth over 50 rand. Five euro can't get you very much here, just about a sandwich for lunch.

I had my first international conference presentation. Somehow I didn't get all the mails and didn't know when I was speaking. So I packed two shirts and flew in a t-shirt. Turns out that I was scheduled to speak on the first afternoon, so I presented in my t-shirt and then wore shirts for the other days. The presentation went ok, and nobody threw tomatoes at me. I made some interesting new friends and good contacts.

Tonight we bought our tickets to South Africa in December. We are flying on 16 December to Johannesburg, then renting a car and visiting ouma Miemie in Bethlehem, then a couple of nights in PMB, hopefully a night in Harding and in Aliwal with our friends there, and then Knysna for Christmas and New Year. Cape Town is the final stop and we leave again on 11 January. Let us know where you are and when you are there so that we can hook up!

Annabel has started standing on her own for short periods, whenever she is busy with something she forgets that she cannot stand. It is a lot like the cartoons when someone walks over a cliff. You know the fall is coming, but you cannot tell exactly when it will happen. She is also walking with a little trolley, pushing it around on her own. Someone just has to be close because she has not found the reverse gear yet, and tends to bump into stuff.

We have been eating lots of mushrooms which Tracy picks on her daily walk with Annabel in the forest. They have come a bit late this year, but are superabundant. We went yesterday with Milla and Markus to Nuuksio, and found even more interesting varieties. Milla taught us a couple of new very nice ones. We are becoming more adventurous, although I think Tracy is more adventurous than I am, and willing to try things that might still be the death of me. There are some mushrooms in our book that are marked as both deadly and delicious at the same time. Apparently you just have to prepare them in the right way, but I am not sure I want my last meal just yet. The ones we have eaten so far have been very tasty without killing me.

Crawling, Camping and Concerts

Annabel has learnt to crawl in the last two weeks, it has been coming for a while, but she is now confident enough not to moan about it everytime we don't pick her up. She is not hurtling around yet, but can get from place to place if the urge hits her. She still would prefer holding someone's hands and walking around, if that is offered. She has also gained two more teeth, so she is now the proud owner of six teeth. How our understanding of being rich change as we grow up...

We went camping on Friday night with Simon and Sini in Nuuksio park. It was Annabel's first campout, and she had a tremendous time. She was carried everywhere and got to sleep in a tent on her sheepskin and in a sleeping bag between mom and papa. She even extended her normal sleep time for the occasion. We were hoping to find some mushrooms and pick a couple of berries, but this year is not nearly as fertile as the previous, and not only did we not find many edible mushrooms, we also found almost no poisonous ones. Last year you almost had to be careful where to walk if you didn't want to step on a mushroom. We did find 5 kanterel mushrooms and one viinihapero, which is not really worth writing about, but I just did, so there. Other than a lack of success, the weekend was really pleasant, and reminded us of the value of getting into the wilds.

While in the wilds, I got an sms from Conrad, asking if I wanted to go to U2 (U-kakkonen, as it is said here). What a blessing. I had seen the posters go up, and had secretly desired going to see them, but the shows were sold out, so I had little hope. In the end we had fantastic seats, behind the stage, but very close and quite high up. The concert was really amazing, good music, a fantastic stage and 1% of the Finnish population in attendance. I was struck by the depth of their lyrics and songs again and again through the night. The members of the band are Christians, and somehow I could see that in the way they went about their job. It was a pleasure to see them live. Tracy had seen them in Cape Town so didn't feel too bad about missing out, but this was my first major concert since Depeche Mode in the 90's. I really enjoyed it.

Tracy has been well, and recently had her first article from her Honours degree published in the Journal of Experimental Biology. It is quite an important journal in the field and is a great honour. Of course she was helped, especially by Mark, who added some data to her originals, but still, her name is there as an author. We are settling in to our new house, and she has really managed to make it feel homely, even in the short time we have been here. The environment here is so much better than the previous place, and we already know the names of many of the little kiddies that run around here, and are slowly getting to know their parents. But I think we have met more people in two weeks than in our year in the previous place.

It has been a very busy two months, which is why the blog posts have been scarce. I attended two conferences back to back, actually a pre-conference and a conference, both on music education philosophy. During the conference, Guillermo from Costa Rica stayed with us, and it was really good to have him with us, even though we were both immersed in the conference and so we had little time for discussion. Directly after the conference Tracy and I helped to lead a confirmation camp for 6 days. It was quite intensive, with four adults leading and 2 teenagers who were being confirmed. I reckon they had the hardest time, since we had to take breaks to look after Annabel and cook. The camp took place at our pastor's summer cottage, on a lake in central Finland. The mosquitos were incredible, creating black swarms whenever we ventured too close to the edge of the lake. We rowed and sailed on the lake, which was blissfully mosquito free.We then had a week to recover and then took part in the annual midsummer retreat hosted by our church. I presented two workshops on singing and worship, and played all the music, so was very busy. Tracy was forced to look after Annabel single-handedly for most of the weekend. The program was really packed full, and I was finished by the end of it. Tracy really enjoyed it. Maybe we should swop duties next time.

A couple of days later we departed to Washington, D.C. to visit my parents. Both flights were relatively easy for Annabel, she was still small enough (just) to fit into the bassinet, and managed to sleep a lot of the time. It was a really fantastic visit, and after a couple of days, Annabel really enjoyed her grootouers. She even let us disappear a couple of times, once to have a salsa dancing lesson, which we truly enjoyed. We signed up for a group lesson, but were the only people there, so got an extended private lesson instead. We have been practicing a little in our lounge since then, and are continuing our lessons by watching YouTube videos. We spent a lot of time walking in museums, since it was exceptionally hot, and museums have aircon. We were there over the Independence Day celebrations, and got to watch the broadcast from the mall on TV and then saw the fireworks from our apartment roof. The fireworks were truly spectacular. The best part was seeing our parents, and allowing Annabel to spend time with them. She now recognises them on Skype when they call, and has long conversations with them using language that she hardly ever uses with us. She has also become a complete computer maniac as a result, and can hardly see a computer without wanting to touch it and talk to it. We'll have to find a way of taming that desire before it costs us a computer.

Since arriving back we packed up our house and moved to a new one - all in the space of just over a week. We had applied for a new place in January, and heard just before we left to Washington that there was an apartment available. We quickly went to look at it and had to decide the same day whether to take it and pay the deposit etc. Lots of friends praying helped us in our decision. So far we have been very happy, apart from the (slightly) longer travel times to our usual destinations. The flat has 2 bedrooms, and a larger living area, and also has easy access to a little park in the courtyard where Annabel can play in the sandpit and swing on the swings. A whole lot of friends helped us to move, and it went amazingly quickly, everything was out of the old place and into the new in less than 2 hours. What a blessing!We are still living with boxes everywhere, but have managed to clean the kitchen (it was disgustingly dirty) and have a more organized bedroom as of tonight. There is still a fair bit to be done - the previous tenants were not hot on the cleaning side of things. You can see some pics of the place here.

I am trying to get back to work, and have been cycling the 30 minutes to the office. I will be fit if the good weather continues for a month or two yet. Tracy has been enjoying the larger space, and has been working hard to make it homely. It is taking shape, and I think we can be very happy here. I had an extended discussion in Finnish with one of the little boys who live here while Annabel and I played in the sandpit. I am hoping we can also have those kinds of discussions with their parents at some stage. It would be good to be part of a community here, and it looks like it might be possible.

We have also had some other additions to the family. We are godparents to a friend of ours, Lynn, who was baptised at the midsummer retreat. She is a recent convert to Christianity, and has asked us to help her along in her new-found faith. We also became aunt, uncle and cousin to little Charlie, who was born to Shawn and Mel at the end of July. We are really happy about this, and cannot wait to meet the little guy. Hopefully he and Annabel will be good friends, and manage to spend time together.

Reunion and a big week

It has been a big week, we have learned to sit, made a tooth, and started (or tried to start) eating solids. Notice the royal we, seems I cannot separate myself from my family anymore. Well I tried, but it was not nice. Tracy and Annabel returned safely after yet another easy flight. Our bible study group had been praying for them for both flights, and Annabel really did not make any trouble, she slept much of the way there and back, and charmed the socks off the fellow passengers and the air hostesses for the rest of the time. What a blessing to have friends who pray.

The two of them had a fantastic time in Cape Town, mostly spent with Tracy's parents who were every inch a grandfather and -mother. Annabel got her first swim in the sea (more like a toe dip, the Cape water is fridgid) and first mountain climb under her belt. They also got to see many friends and all Annabel's uncles and aunts on both sides, and many of Tracy's extended family.

Tracy brought back some biltong, custard powder, rooibos tea and a 2.5 kg bag of maize flour. We have been really enjoying eating 'krummelpap' for breakfast. O, and a lot of books and toys.

Summer has arrived this weekend. The leaves all came out overnight, the temperature rose by 10 degrees to a warm 26, and the sun has been out ever since. We have had a picnic lunch in the park, and got our first nettle stings for the summer. We also spent a lovely day having a braai with the Hickeys, pap and homemade wors.

My grandmother has moved into the digital age and now has a laptop and has succesfully communicated via email! Baie geluk ouma!

We are hoping to travel to my parents in Washington, D.C. in July. In June there are 3 conferences and a weeklong camp for me, so by July I will need some rest time. We are hoping all Annabel's papers will be sorted out by then. No, she still does not have all the things she needs to be a world traveller - although she will have the biggest carbon footprint of any baby I know, I think she'll be planting trees for the rest of her life to sort out all the mess created in her name...

Augustine once famously said that all humans have a God-shaped hole in them. I have recently developed a family-shaped hole. Tracy and Annabel are in Cape Town, they just made it before the volcano cloud. When I dropped them at the airport, all the flights north were already cancelled. So let's pray for some favourable winds in the next week or so, so that they can come back on schedule. Annabel was great on the flight, not really crying, and coping well with all six the takeoffs and landings. The grandparents and great-grandparents are very happy to have her there, and it sounds like they are having a roaring time with friends and family. The photo is one I took with skype, hence the poor quality.

I am stuck in Helsinki because of the volcano, I was meant to travel to a conference this morning, but no planes took off. So instead of one week at a conference and one week at home alone, I now have two weeks at home alone. So far it has been ok, considering the circumstances, but it might get long. The plan is now to work as much as I can, and I have been trying - there is not much else to do...

Spring is sort of arriving, there is not a lot of snow left, only in places where it was heaped to get it out of the way. Nothing much is growing yet and although little buds are starting to form on the smaller plants, everything is still very brown. The temperature has also not been much above 10 yet, and I was thinking of going camping with some of my free time, but when I was walking to my office in the cold I realised that it might not be such a good idea. I'll wait a month or two.

I have recently signed up to Spotify, and it has been worth every cent. There is so much good music on there, and since I no longer have my CD's with me, it has been a real blessing. If you are also a member - search for the Bluegrass Worship Band, I really enjoy them at the moment. They re-imagine current worship hits in a Bluegrass style, it is quite fun.

We had a great weekend away with Willem, Hanna-Leena and her extended family in Paltamo, like we did last year. It was quite a bit warmer this year, and the skiing was not nearly as good as last year. In fact, we had much better skiing in Helsinki than up there. But we had some great conversations, and some amazing meals. It was a real blessing to have a bit of a rest, and we came back tired from the long journey but refreshed from the good company.

Flying home and reading books

So the big news is that Annabel has got her birth certificate, yay! We went on Wednesday to pick it up, and also got her a temporary passport. So Tracy will be travelling to South Africa between 15 and 29 April, to spend time with her parents, family and friends in Cape Town. She is very excited and we booked her tickets in this last week. After the disappointment of not being able to go in January, this will be a real blessing. I decided not to go, in order to save a bit of money, and then we are planning to do a proper holiday in December, where we will also go to KZN to see our friends there. As it turned out though, Paul and Shannon, and Sue, and Carol will all be in Cape Town during that time. Anyone else wanting to join...?

I will be attending a conference in Sweden at the same time, presenting my proposal at one of the sessions, and hopefully getting some good feedback. The town where I am going has a NewFrontiers church, so I'll try and hook up with those guys while I am there.

My supervisor from Oslo was here this last week, and he was very happy with the work I have been doing on my literature review, and was very encouraging. It was good to hear some positive feedback, and that I am still on the right track.

I ordered some books from the Rabbit Room (see link on the right) with money that Tracy's folks gave me for my birthday. So we have been furiously reading together, because they are really good. I can highly recommend 'The Fiddler's Gun' by A.S. Peterson and the Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson. The first is a historical novel set during the American Civil War, and deals with some big issues, most importantly - redemption. The second is a series of fantasy books, related to the Narnia series in intention, and is really fun. When we get into it, not much else gets done, and we spent this last weekend reading to each other almost non-stop. (If you are in Helsinki and looking for a good book, let us know.)

Annabel has been learning to sing. I found that she enjoys when I slide up from low to my falsetto voice, and then she started imitating me. So we have little vocal warm-up sessions that are really cute. She has given her first full-bellied laugh, and is experimenting with moving around by kicking her feet against anything that provides traction. It will be interesting once she figures out how to crawl, and I am thinking we should not encourage this development at all.

We have been baking a lot of bread using the Sullivan Street Bakery recipe and a terracotta flowerpot. Here is a photo of one of the beauties. It is really simple, and so delicious to have fresh bread, although you have to plan a little bit because it needs to rise for 12-14 hours. We are now trying to find a similar recipe that will work for whole wheat flour, and will report our results later.

Ouma, ice hockey and jinglebells

We had a visit from my mom, henceforth known as ouma, for ten days at the end of January. It was really good to have her here. I went to work most days, since I had an examination to prepare for, and she and Tracy held the fort. It snowed for all except one day while she was here, and the world was a snowy wonderland. She was a very willing babysitter, and we were able to go skiing together, we went to bible study without Annabel, and even went to a restaurant. It was the first time I have ever seen Springbok meat sold for less than beef. The prices were really obscene, at least by SA standards, but we had a lovely time together. Even Annabel was sad when ouma had left. The whole day after she was gone, Annabel would make these little sighing noises and look sadly out the window. While ouma was here Annabel started learning to hit the little bells that are attached to her mobile. She has subsequently recorded the first track of her upcoming CD, entitled Atmosbellic. If you are interested I can send a small sample of her work...

My friend Lari invited me to go and play ice hockey with him and some friends, like you would get a touch rugby invite in SA. My skating is ok as long as I am going straight forward at a moderate speed. Anything other than that spells difficulty if not disaster. So when you play ice hockey you have to concentrate on what the puck or ball is doing and how the stick is controlling this, which left me with little brain power to control the skating part. Needless to say, I was constantly picking myself up off the ice, and near the end managed to whack my head on the ice. I have a newfound respect for ice hockey players, and can understand some of the anger they display towards their opponents - it must be a way of letting off steam from all those frustrating falls they had while they were learning the game.

Tracy and Sini went pulka sliding again, today is officially Laskiaistiistai - sliding downhill tuesday. The idea is to go downhill on anything that will slide on snow, which is just about anything. Afterwards you are supposed to eat pea soup, sweet buns and hot chocolate. I think it is the Finnish version of festive carnival before the fasting of lent, slightly understated, as with most things Finnish.

Frozen trees and praying

There is a weather phenomenon called 'frozen fog' that we have experienced this last week. Basically I think that fog rolls in from the ocean, much like it does over the Natal midlands, but then gets surprised by a nasty -17 degrees mainland, and goes into shock. Before it has time to wet its proverbials, everything is frozen and it carries on as usual. But whatever it comes into contact with gets covered in a fine layer of ice crystals. When it snows, the trees get these heavy lumps of white on any part that has sufficient surface to hold a bit of weight, but this just coats everything. It is spectacularly beautiful. I sometimes saw white plastic christmas trees in shops in SA, and always wondered at how fake you could get - why not luminous pink or ultramarine, while you are at it. But now I understand that they were trying to copy this.

We have just finished a week of prayer and fasting with our bible study group, and had a great

time praying with our friends. Instead of normal bible study, we spent the evening praying for the group and each other, and then also had a night of prayer on Friday. We really hope that we can do this more regularly, there is no real culture of prayer here, and the church prayer meeting consists of three guys who meet every week.

My mom is coming to visit next week, which we are excited about, since we were not able to go home and see all the other family. We are hoping to make a plan about when we can go soon, but are still waiting on an ID number for Annabel before we can really start thinking about it.

We have been skiing as often as Annabel allows it. Tracy needs to feed her and then go, while I take care of the hour and a half she is away. It is really fun, and we have found some nice tracks around the area we live, through the forest. I was thinking of the scene in the Narnia book last time I went skiing, where the little girl first arrives in Narnia and she comes to a place in the forest where there is a lamppost. It felt like I was in the Narnian forests.

Christmas, New Year and Travels

We have had an amazingly frustrating 4 weeks with regards to our travel plans. Annabel needs a South African ID number and passport, and a Finnish visa/residence permit in order to travel. To get all these things properly would take about 9 months. Unfortunately we had planned to travel to SA, our plane left last week, in fact. But we had hoped that we could get a temporary passport and a quick issue re-entry visa, which, in theory, should take a little more than a week. Unfortunately the embassy sent our application for an ID number a little later than immediately, and then Home Affairs lost the application. This we discovered after Tracy's parents and their friends spent the best part of 3 days on the phone. We found a very helpful man, who discovered that the whole diplomatic bag was lost. So he said that we could re-send the application to him and he would take it down to the ID department personally. So we sent all the documents that the embassy told us to have. He then found that we also need our birth-certificates ??? Isn't Home Affairs the place I should go if I want a re-issued birth certificate? Surely they can check on the system? Anyway, mine is in a box somewhere in Hilton, but we managed to find a copy of Tracy's and sent that off. So now we are waiting to hear from him again if that is enough.

So the short of it is that our trip has been postponed. :(

Sorry if you had planned to see us, we will have to make another plan, there is always room in our flat here...

We spent Christmas eve with Simon and Sini, who cooked us a traditional Finnish Christmas meal, it was truly delicious, and we had a lovely time decorating their tree and chatting. We also went with Willem and Hanna-Leena to a little cottage about 3 hours from here for New Years eve.

We were invited long ago, but thought that we would be flying to SA, so then we re-invited ourselves and joined them on short notice. It was great to get our minds off the dissapointment. We spent lots of time playing board games, sledding and in the sauna. We went from the 90 degrees of the sauna to roll in the snow at -21. I think that is quite an impressive temperature differential. The other friends who we spent time with there grew up in the town. Her family have been farming the same farm since before 1630 - take that Jan van Riebeeck!

It has been truly freezing here since Christmas, with temperatures very rarely going above -10, and as low as -24. We have been cross-country skiing a lot, there are some tracks in the park just over the hill, and you can follow them for kilometers, if you had the fitness. I joined Thomas and some other friends this morning for a lovely ski in a big centre. There are lots of uphills and downhills, and we completed a circuit of about 7 km. Milla has promised to take Tracy soon.

A family pic

We caught Annabel in one of her very happy moments! She gives the biggest smiles when she's fed, got a clean nappy, is not tired and has no tummy troubles... that's at least once a day!