I took a day off on Friday and headed to my parents in Eastern Finland with the whole family. This was the second trip for our baby girl, Seela, and she was fortunately very easy to travel with.

We left Espoo on Thursday afternoon just before the traffic jams and had almost open road to the very end. We arrived just in time for a quick sauna and then put the kids in the bed.

Friday was a clear and sunny day, temperatures around -5C. We visited Maarianrinteet skiing center, around 30 kilometers from my parents. Seela slept throughout the ordeal and boys had fun on the slopes — Aapo learned to ride a lift with snowboard and Niilo had enough guts to ride big slopes without reins. I and Sanna had plenty of fun, too. Maarianrinteet is quite compact ski resort with less than ten slopes and vertical drop of 140 meters. The pistes were in excellent condition and there were virtually no queues.

On Saturday we headed to Koli that has the highest and steepest slopes in southern Finland. The resort has been built inside a national park — before it was a national park — and cannot expand itself anymore. There is only a few slopes and two lifts. The vertical drop is 230 meters and the longest slope is 1500 meters. I took both boys up with T-bar lift and then promptly skied down. Niilo used reins on the first ride and then had enough courage to come down on his own — a feat for four year old.

Boys took turns in visiting the café in which Sanna was spending time with Seela. In the meanwhile I took the other guy up and down. It took almost 20 minutes for one ride — no queues, just long slopes — so we managed to squeeze only seven rides to two hour ticket. Despite that, my legs were shaking while we were driving back to my parents, as skiing with a kid in reins takes its toll on the knees.

All in all, very good trip skiing-wise. As an icing on the cake, we had a French visit in Kuopio to meet Sanna’s brother and sisters-in-law.

As you might guess, I’ve been busy living the life of a family man — thus, no updates here.

Anyhow, I’ve been able to travel a couple of times since the last post. I visited DrupalCXO in Amsterdam at the end of January, and also popped over to Taivalkoski for two winter sport days.

Amsterdam trip was excellent! It was really good to see the people in the Drupal community face to face, and we had really good discussions. Also the restaurants were a tad better compared to the previous meet-up at Brussels.

I spent my nights in CitizenM hotel near Schiphol Airport, and it was wonderfully weird modern experience — like combining a boutique hotel with a Japanese capsule hotel. You should definitely try it out.

Taivalkoski trip was ordinary one. My family left there one day earlier, and I flew to Oulu the following day. I spent some time doing business there — my company has a couple of clients from Oulu nowadays — and then took a bus to Taivalkoski.

Busy week took its toll, and I had to fight real hard not to fall into sleep for the last 30 minutes of the journey. When I arrived, I was ushered to the nearby skiing slopes with my sons. Fortunately, fresh air wiped away drowsiness, and I actually enjoyed the evening quite much. After skiing two hours, sauna, and a good meal I hit the bed and was asleep before my head touched the pillow.

The next day was spent also on pistes, mostly with Aapo — he is very good skier for his age, and fun to ski with. I skied also with Niilo that still wears reins, so that the adult can control his speed.

After two wintery days, I, Sanna and Seela (that’s the name of our precious daughter, by the way), visited some friends in Oulu before I flew back to Helsinki to work, work, work while Sanna and the kids enjoyed the winter.

Yesterday was a big day for our family; our third child was born in Kätilöopisto children hospital. We have two boys that now have a precious baby sister.

Our girl sleeping on her father’s chest.

This time it was a scheduled section, and I was more nervous than with the delivery of the boys. Maybe then the excitement was more focused on the date and now on the actual operation.

Everything went smoothly. We arrived to the hospital around 7.00 in the morning and she was born at 10.41. I had the privilege to entertain her two hours until Sanna was brought back to the room from the operation.

After getting everything in order, I popped over to our home to pick up the boys and Sanna’s parents to see the baby. Niilo, the younger, was really interested in the sister — fortunately positively — until I gave them some football cards to keep them entertained.

Sanna and the baby should come home late tomorrow.

The current winter has been extremely warm here in southern Finland — yes, I know that our extremely wam winters are cold for most of the readers, but my country, my standards. Anyhow, it has rained almost every day, and there has not been any snow to speak of.

This has been quite a bummer, as I fell in love with downhill skiing last winter, and now I’m handicapped due to weather.

One nearby ski resort opened their kids’ slope, and we decided to check it out. Both boys were really keen on going there, and the older one hadn’t forgot the skiing unlike the younger one. I started to wonder why did I pay 38 euros for being able to run the slope up with the child next to the lift, helping him to maintain his balance and his grab on the rope, and and then run the slope down trying to catch him, if the speed got too fast — as it always did.

After a few fuming tries we drew back to the café to eat pizza and think about the options. I focused on looking out of the window to calm down, and then went back to the slope with the older one. Sanna had a discussion with the younger, and for some reason he got his act together during the break.

We decided to skip the lift for a while, I pushed him upwards and then he skied down — now also controlling the speed. After a few successful runs, we moved back to the lift. To my amazement, he used it like a pro. Instead of running, I could walk up the slope.

After all, the day was success — albeit a bit pricey one.

Now the older son is visiting Sanna’s parents in Taivalkoski, where they have enough snow. There is a smallish ski resort just one kilometer from their house, so he can ski as much as he likes.

This was the first time for him to fly alone (an unaccompanied minor), a feat to remember. He also got a mobile phone and called like six times during the first day. I’ll pick him up on Sunday, let’s see how many tales he has to tell…

I’m not sure whether I’ve mentioned this here, but anyhow, we bought a summer cabin from Karjalohja, around 75 kilometers west from our home.

This move is a bit contradictory to my dream of being a digital nomad someday, but it could act as a basecamp, too. Or then I’m just making excuses. Anyhow, kids just love the place, and I’ve found surprising amount of serenity there. In that sense it has been money well spent.

On the other hand, there is a boatload of stuff to do. Everything on the lot, except a few big pine trees, and oaks, maples, and birches will need to go. Including the current cabin and the shed. We’ve already cut down several dozen trees, junked two tractor trailers full of stuff, and burned a big pile of trash wood. The talks have been started with an architect to get the required permits — the timescale is now like five years, so we are not in a hurry.

We’ve started a new blog about the cabin, only in Finnish. If you’re interested in the development, check puhettahuvilasta.fi.

I and the rest of the family spent a long weekend in Cambridge and London almost a week ago. The raison d’être was the wedding of Lauri and Sarah (congrats again!) in Cambridge, and then we took the opportunity to visit London for a couple of days.

We flew with Norwegian, a budget airline that has been expanding quite a lot lately. Booking was surprisingly easy and not too many compulsory hidden costs, only the checked-in bags had an additional prices. The flight was also normal, the plane was maybe a bit more crammed than usual, but we are compact in size.

We arrived at London Gatwick around six in the evening, and took a train, a tube, and yet another train to reach Cambridge. It was past ten when we were at the hotel, but the boys took it surprisingly well and we got them to sleep without fighting.

The wedding was on Saturday. The hotel (Doubletree Cambridge) has an excellent spa, so we spent time there in the morning — and we had just a couple of hours time to visit the city itself, and that was spent on finding jewelry and lunch.

The wedding was fantastic, an informal event in extremely nice surroundings, and among friendly people. We couldn’t stay too late due to the boys, and were almost the first to leave.

On Sunday we walked around the river Cam and participated in a punting boat excursion up and down the river. This is highly recommended, albeit a bit touristy, as you get to see a lot of the colleges and other historical buildings from the river. We learned a lot of charming small details (oddities) of the university history and life.

After the punting excursion, we took a train back to London. Our hotel was located in Bayswater — I used to stay a lot in the neighbourhood when I was younger, so the trip brought back fond memories. I felt quite old.

The hotel (The Cleveland) had really nice room with an extra bed and a kitchenette, so we could spend time also inside. Aapo became ill on Sunday and it got worse on Monday afternoon, so he had to stay in the hotel more than expected. Kitchenette and the dishes were helpful when I brought take-away food from a local Thai eatery.

Other than that, the rest of the trip was quite a usual visit to London, some shopping and some business.

The return flight was on Tuesday and we were quite early on the airport, as even Aapo was somewhat better, he was still coughing quite a lot and we decided not to walk too much in the town. Three hours can be easily spent with the help of Nintendos and good food. The flight itself was eventless. The boys surprised me by not falling to sleep until in our car around midnight. The next morning was hard for them.

We (myself, Aapo, my brother-in-law and his two boys) spent last weekend in a Lego building fair in Ilmajoki, some 300 kilometers up north from Helsinki.

I’ve been building with Legos for about three years, since Aapo was old enough not to eat them. The amount of bricks has somewhat got out of hands, and nowadays we can build quite big buildings and sets without issues in availability of bricks.

Last year, we brought two buildings (2 x 32×32 studs), this year we built buildings on 15 lots (15 x 32×32 studs), so there was a lot to pack to our car. If the growth continues, I need to buy a trailer or rent a van…

The trip was a blast. Kids loved the Lego fair, and we planned all kind of children friendly activities to keep the boys busy. The younger siblings were left at home, so this was a “big boy” event.

I took a few photos and uploaded them to Flickr. Here’s direct link to my castle and to my town buildings.

I’ve been organising a Lego exhibition together with a modern art museum cluster in Espoo for the past few months. This partially explains my absence in this site.

The exhibition was held last weekend, and it was a blast. Several hundred people visited out Lego space located next to the ticket desk of the museum complex WeeGee in Tapiola, Espoo.

To get a glimpse of the exhibition, I’ve uploaded some photos to Flickr. My models can be found on another Flickr set, photographed at home a couple of weeks earlier.

Now it is time to take a deep breath and then survey the damages my models experienced when taking them back home. The next exhibition is in three weeks in Ilmajoki, some 370 kilometers north from us, and I need to alter some of the models — as I can’t take everything with me this time.