Another school shooting

It's been a sad day for Finland yet again. There was a school shooting that left at least 11 dead. The last incident was less than a year ago. This is a tiny country of just over 5 million inhabitants and we're not used to that kind of things to happen. It seems unreal.

I've never been afraid of the thought of having my kids go to school here as I've always considered this a peacful country to live in. I guess I didn't think anyone could be worried about the safety of their children at school. Then I read about several people who said one of the reasons why they homeschool is the violence in schools. Even though I probably would still send my children to school if we lived here I think I'm beginning to understand how you feel when you're not convinced about the safety of the schools.

My heart goes our to those who are mourning the loss of a loved one today. I feel for the parents, siblings and other family members whose loved one didn't come home from school today. I also feel for the parents and family members of the shooter; he killed himself. I don't intend to justify what he did but nonetheless he is somebody's son and relative. The people who lost him also have to go on living their lives bearing the loss of a dear person as well as the pressure from the outside for being the shooter's family.

Busy week...

... or at least it felt like we were busy all the time. The main events were a birthday party where the kids were invited (and went to dressed as a princess and a pirate) on Tuesday, a movie and a dinner with my sister on Wednesday, my massive headache on Thursday and the Portuguese-speaking Bible study on Friday.

I felt a bit rough the whole week and I'm actually surprised that I'm feeling just fine right now. As I was coming home on Wednesday night I felt so cold and I had to have extra blankets in my bed so that I could sleep at all. Thursday morning I thought my head was going to explode and I had to ask my mum to take the kids to the nursery and stay at home the whole day. On Friday my whole body was aching as if I had exercised loads and I had a really sore throat. And today I'm feeling just fine. What was that? I don't really care as long as it doesn't come back...

There are plenty of things to do before we leave (only two weeks to go, yay!) and I'm going to sit down tonight and make a few lists of things to do and things to buy. I've pre-packed our suitcases and there's still some space in them although admittedly there are tons of things that didn't make it to the suitcases yet... So I'll be busy with that during the last couple of days.

Tomorrow I'll focus on Sunday School. I'll have the kids just this once before we leave Finland so I'm really looking forward to that!

Stockholm

The only real travelling this summer was our cruise to Stockholm (Wed-Fri). We travelled on board Silja Serenade.

Luana looking at Helsinki as we're leaving. It was bitterly cold on the deck but she was able to squeeze a smile on her face :)

First thing we did was to visit Junibacken, home to Astrid Lindgren's characters. It was a lovely place and the kids liked it a lot. We got to see two short theatre plays and although they were in Swedish the kids still found them interesting. This picture is of Pippi Longstocking.

Then we went to the Royal Palace and saw some of the fine rooms and halls inside. This picture is from the court yard.

Finally a walk in the old town. This is the old market square.

And one of the main shopping streets in the old town.

The cruise takes two nights and you get to spend the day in Stockholm. The boat is great with kids; ours loved the play area! We also had a really good buffet dinner and the kids surprised us by behaving really really well for almost two hours at dinner. They didn't even go crazy with the desserts and allowed us adults to carry on eating even when they had already finished their meals. I had some pencils and small notebooks for them to draw and that was enough to keep them busy until we all had finished our dinners.

The kids were very excited about the whole trip and that came out as tantrums and excessive whining for most of the time. We were trying to enjoy the trip but it was a bit hard at times with at least one of them strongly objecting to everything we suggested... Good memories all the same and the kids sure had a good time! :)

Theatre performance

Last night Luana wanted to make a theatre performance for us. She dressed up as a princess and then chose clothes for her little brother (he wasn't originally wearing his sister's skirt but he picked it himself later on).


Theatre performance turned into a dance show where she had a coreography, I had to sing and he was just messing about.


But in the end she made him dance, too.


It was great fun to watch (me and my mum were seated on the sofa and formed the audience) although Luana found it very frustrating when Lucas wouldn't stick to what they (or rather she) had previously planned. They overcame the difficulties though and the performance was cute and funny.

The building I work in

OK, I have to admit I don't actually work in this environment but part of the building I work in looks like this on the inside.
The building was built in two parts in 1815-1816 and in 1826-1827 by a Russian-born businessman Jegor Uschakoff and it represents the neo-classical style. It served as a shop and as a bookstore until it was bought by a bank.

They hired architect Lars Sonck to renovate the building and it was reopened as a bank in 1904.

The City of Helsinki bought the building in 1961 and renovated it. They maintained the old bank hall (pictures above) and the stairway (pictures below).

Art Noveau or Jugendstil just happens to be my favourite architectural style so I love how the the building looks from the inside!