2014 Recap

We have had quite the year! A lot has been squeezed into 2014, we have been on the go, for sure! Let's go back, and look, shall we?


JANUARY


We started our year in Maine, snowmobiling, ice skating on the lake, and sledding on Killer Hill. Remember our FedEx story? If you don't, make sure to check that out - small town living at best:)

My dad had been visiting from Finland, and when it was time to take him to the airport, we took Missy, too! She flew to Finland to do her homeschool studies there, and to take Finnish lessons. Her ticket was for three months.

Mama starts a special project, which hasn't been mentioned in the blog yet.


FEBRUARY



In February Little Miss learned to ride a snowmobile, all by herself! We also celebrated Chinese New Year, made sugar on snow and enjoyed skiing and snowshoeing. Grandma and Grandpa came up to snowmobile with us. Missy continued her studies in Finland.


MARCH


In March Little Miss turned eight years old!

No Spring in Maine, yet!

Missy is having a wonderful time in Finland. We miss her so much.

In late March we took a work trip to Nantucket Island.


APRIL


In April our pace picked up quite a bit. Before leaving Maine we managed to do a bit more muddy spring snowmobiling. Missy got her wish, and we extended her stay in Finland by two + more months.

We packed up our crew (minus Missy) and headed west in the Mothership. We stopped at Niagara Falls in New York and Canada, spent a while at the Airstream Factory in Jacksonville, Ohio, and took a field trip to the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. We visited the Creation Museum in Kentucky, and the Jefferson Monticello in Virginia, before spending Easter with my sister's family in Virginia. In Virginia we also took a field trip to the Historic Jamestowne, and on our way back we drove our Mothership on a ferry!

On our way south to Florida we stopped at Fort Clinch State Park, and fell in love with the old fort! (More here and here.) We'll be back, for sure!


MAY


We spent May in Florida, and loved being back on the beach. We visited Winter at the Clearwater Aquarium. We took two trips, one to Miami, and later in the month to our favorite homeschool conference in Orlando. The month went by so fast, and soon it was time to be traveling again. Two of our boys got learner's permits to start driving.


JUNE



We had a whirlwind trip back to New England in the beginning of the month. Missy finally flew back to United States!!! It was so good to be together as a family, again. Our camp in Maine was being rented out most of the summer, so we had a lot of work to do to get everything ready.


JULY



Beginning of July we spent a wonderful week on Nantucket Island with the Captain's sister's family, and celebrated the Independence Day with cousins on the 5th (a storm came through on the 4th).

We had to leave the island early - our boys spent a week at Patrick Henry College in Virginia at the Generation Joshua iGovern camp. We dropped them off in the Mothership, and during the week visited our Virginia cousins (Cousin E turned 4!). Together we toured the Luray Caverns.

After Luray, we went on some scary mountain roads - not fun in a 35 foot motorhome. We survived:) We had a nice stop in West Virginia, then pointed the Mothership toward Ohio, again. We had an appointment with the Airstream service department in Jacksonville. I had fun photographing the iconic trailers, click here and here. We also took the Airstream Factory tour (a must!). In Ohio we also took a field trip to the Bicycle Museum (Mr T wrote about that).

Our hope had been to visit South Dakota next, but ended up breaking down right after crossing into Indiana. Instead of South Dakota, we spent almost a week at an RV service center in Richmond. We actually had a great stay there and a visit from dear friends. We took a tour of the Model T Museum as well.

Once we were all done, we had to hurry back to east coast. We had a work week on Nantucket island, but managed to have fun there, too (not too hard, lol).

We also finally finished our school year - high school was tough for our family.

During our travels we got the word the Captain's grandmother, our beloved Nanny, had passed away. We miss her.


AUGUST



From Nantucket we visited grandparents and cousins in southern Maine, spent a few days in New Hampshire with friends, and went back to see family in Maine.

By about middle of the month our renters had left, and we returned to our camp for some R and R. August is great in Maine! We rented a boat one day and did tubing - fun!!
Grandma, Grandpa and our Maine cousins came to visit and pick blueberries with us.


SEPTEMBER



In September we started school again. We had made major changes to our curriculum. Tenth grade and third grade were going to look a lot different. The Captain, Mr A and Mr D started flight school.

We made a new friend, who showed us his homemade potato cannon. What a blast (pun intended:)! Our Maine cousins came for a visit, which was a lot of fun. Friends from New Hampshire came, too.

We also attended Nanny's memorial service in Massachusetts. It was a beautiful celebration of her long life, and we loved seeing family gathered together.


OCTOBER



Before we started our travels again, we enjoyed gorgeous fall foliage in New Hampshire and Maine. We first traveled to southern Maine, and then on to spend an amazing weekend on Nantucket with the Captain's family and friends. We even sailed Privateer Lynx - a wonderful experience.

The highlight of our year was our trip out west. From Massachusetts we drove to New York and Pennsylvania, through Ohio, Indiana and Illinois to Iowa. We had only stopped to sleep and get gas, but in Iowa we stopped for a half a day shopping trip. Next we drove to South Dakota, and had a great visit to Laura Ingalls Wilder homestead. (Unfortunately I had some technical difficulties with my photos from that visit, and still haven't had a chance to fix them.)

In South Dakota we visited the Badlands and the Mount Rushmore National Memorial. We drove to Wyoming to see the Devils Tower National Monument. In Utah we went to Arches National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park, and drove around on crazy roads! And the Captain, Mr A and Mr D saw Moab from an airplane!

(Here's a recap from half-way in Colorado. And a blog post of our Denver visit.)

From Utah we drove to Arizona, saw the Grand Canyon from the northern rim, and saw Indian cliff dwellings. Driving in Arizona and New Mexico was gorgeous! It was time for us to head back to Florida, and we thought we could visit places on our way. However, we broke down in Arkansas, which put us behind our schedule, and we had to push hard to make it to Florida by October 31st. We made it, though!

Mr T helped campaign for Governor Rick Scott with Generation Joshua. He made it on time and had a great experience.


NOVEMBER



The first part of November we spent in Florida. We had a great time, even though the weather was all over the place - some days we were in shorts, some days in down jackets, brrr!!!

I became a U.S. citizen in November! After being in the United States 21 years..

Our plan had been to spend Thanksgiving in Virginia, and come right back to Florida, but as often with our plans - they changed.


DECEMBER



We ended up staying longer in Virginia, and bought tickets to fly to Maine:) We arrived in Maine with the Captain sick. So we didn't linger at Grandma and Grandpa's house, just drove up to our camp. Just in time for a snowstorm (ice, too!), birthdays, an adoption day and Christmas!



*****************************************************************************

What a year. Full of adventures, full of changes. Full of God's grace, full of many stories of His provision and protection. We look forward to 2015 to see what God has in store for our family!


Happy New Year 2015 to all of You!


PS. (See also year 2011, year 2012 and year 2013.)

A Couple of Days in Montreal/Pari päivää Montrealissa

I loved the location of our hotel in Old Montreal. We were able to walk to all our destinations. The only place we couldn't walk to was the Botanical Garden. My #1 wish while in Montreal was to visit the Chinese Gardens of Light to see the nearly 1000 glowing lanterns at the Botanical Garden (their Japanese Garden was lit up also), but we were not able to go.

Since this was a business trip, our evenings were scheduled with conference activities, and on Saturday, when we could have stayed a little longer to go to the garden, I was suffering from a migraine, so we decided to head home (boo.) The exhibit is on until November 4th, and this year is the 20th anniversary year. We heard it's magnificent - so go if you can!!



During the day whenever we had some free time, we walked all over Old Montreal, Old Port, and toured the Notre Dame Basilica, which was my # 2 wish to see while visiting, and was so worth the time and money.



It was gorgeous! Definitely a must see in Montreal. If you visit during Mass, you can enter for free, but paying the $5 admission fee gave us also a tour, both the main sanctuary, as well as the smaller Chapel of Notre-Dame du Sacre-Coeur. We also heard the organ (click here for a very short video), which has four keyboards, 99 stops and approximately 7000 pipes.



You can read more about the Notre Dame Basilica by clicking here.



Despite us walking all over Old Montreal, and even visiting some interesting shops, we didn't buy anything but a few cups of coffee. And from Chinatown we picked up some mooncakes for this weekend's Mid-Autumn Festival.
 


On Friday night our group went on a Amphibus tour after a delicious dinner at Modavie. The city looked magical in the dark.



We had gone to Montreal in 2006 as a family, right before Little Miss joined our family. It was another business trip (in fact, same type of conference), and we had taken the kids to Biodome. I wish I could give you a review of our visit there, but I can barely remember it. It might be time to return with the kiddos. If and when we do, we'll also plan on seeing the Explorail, Canadian Railway Museum, which sounds fascinating. A lot to see and do in Montreal, for sure!

The question is, can the Mothership navigate the streets of Montreal?

**********************************************************************************

Vietimme pari kolme päivää Montrealissa, mutta konferenssin takia meillä oli aika tiivis aikataulu. Aina kun oli mahdollisuus, lähdimme kiertelemään Vanhaa kaupunkia, missä hotellimmekin sijaitsi. Notre Damen katedraali oli vaikuttava kokemus. Chinatownista haimme kuukakkuja kiinalaista syysfestivaalia varten. Ykköstoiveenani oli Kasvitieteellisen puutarhan kiinalainen puutarha, missä parhaillaan on miltei tuhat lyhtyä, muttemme valitettavasti päässeet sinne. Ehkä ensi kerralla. Pääsisiköhän Montrealia kiertelemään Mothership-asuntoautollamme?:)

To Montreal

The Captain and I got to use work as an excuse go on a business trip to Montreal this week.




I'm pretty sure the foliage in northern New England is at peak at the moment, making our drive to Canada just breathtakingly gorgeous.



Most of these foliage photos were taken in Maine and New Hampshire. (Some were taken from the moving car, as you can probably tell:) But we did pull over a couple of times to take stretch our legs and take pictures.



This picture above is from Vermont as we cut the corner of the north-eastern state, right before crossing the border into Canada. We stopped, and heard our first "Bonjour" as the border patrol agent quizzed us about where we live (always hard to answer), where we are going, and for how long. Fortunately a very brief stop:)



Much of our drive in Canada it was raining, but I enjoyed looking at the farm land, then entering the city of Montreal, which we found out, is the second largest french speaking city in the western world, after Paris. People seem to speak and understand English well, but most signs out and about are in French.



Our hotel room at Hotel St. Paul is very very nice.



It feels like we are on a romantic little getaway, instead of being here on business.



And so, we are determined to make this trip into both business and pleasure.



A romantic dinner at Le Local (so perfect in every way) and an evening walk was a great way to start our stay in Montreal. Stay tuned for our next post(s) from Montreal.

***************************************************************

Kapteeni ja minä ajoimme upean ruskaisen Uuden Englannin läpi Kanadaan tällä viikolla. Alkupostauksen kuvat ovat Mainestä ja New Hampshirestä, ja rajan ylitimme Vermontin kohdalla. Kanadassa ruska tuntuu olevan jo ohi, mutta kaunis on maaseutu vieläkin. Työt toivat meidät Montrealiin, mutta olemme myös nauttineet kahdenkeskeisestä viikonlopusta romanttisessa hotellissa ja suurkaupungissa. Postaus jatkuu seuraavassa numerossa...

The Fantastic Bay Of Fundy/Fantastinen Fundyn lahti

Hands down, the most fantastic experience of our road trip was playing in the mud! Yes, really!

We only spent about a day in Nova Scotia, but it was the best day of probably the entire year! We had heard about the world's highest tides there, so once we got to Nova Scotia we googled Bay of Fundy and discovered a great blog called Bay of Fundy Blog. After spending a good time reading this blog we decided to spend the day at Five Islands Provincial Park.




Even though we didn't get to the area at the point of lowest tide (it was maybe 1-2 hrs after), it was so impressive to see the bottom of the ocean almost as far as we could see. Enticing, wonderful, red mud just waiting for our bare toes! Yum!

100 billion tonnes of water daily

Each day 100 billion tonnes of seawater flows in and out of the Bay of Fundy during one tide cycle more than the combined flow of the world’s freshwater rivers!

When can you experience the Tides?

Visitors can see two extraordinary high and low tides every 24 hours. The time between a high tide and a low tide is, on average, six hours and 13 minutes. As such, you can reasonably expect to see at least one high and one low tide during daylight hours. (From the Official Site of the Bay Of Fundy.)





We arrived at the Five Islands Provincial Park and raced out to slip and slide in mud. There were a few other people out there, some locals digging up clams, and a few other tourists taking pictures and walking around.

This park is the home for the annual Not Since Moses race. We had just missed it by 1-2 weeks, and sadly discovered we can't make it back next year either (it will be on July 3rd), but one of these years we will make it back in time for the race!






We walked to the rocky point on the left in the pictures above. By the time we got there we realized the tide was coming back in pretty fast and we had to get back quickly if we didn't want to swim :)

What a fantastic, fun, fabulous Bay of Fundy!

*******

Reissumme kohokohta - ehkä koko vuoden kohokohta - oli Fundyn lahti Kanadan Nova Scotiassa. Kannattaa kurkistaa linkkeihin englanninkielisessä osassa postauksesta. Fundyn lahdelta löytyy maailman korkeimmat vuorovedet, ja kun pääsimme Five Islands-luonnonpuistoon, eteemme avautui ihana mutainen lahti. Leikimme mudassa, kävelimme merenpohjaa pitkin ja söimme lounasta sillä aikaa kun vuorovesi nousi taas ja kattoi taas lahden. Ihana paikka! Ehdottomasti palaamme takaisin joku päivä!!