For Carina: It's a great day when...

...you're having trouble remembering just who it was who wrote Frankenstein and your 15-year-old son pops out, "Mary Shelley." (Now that is something the English major in you can really be proud of.)

...you take second place in the Provo High Marching Band Chili Cook-Off with something you threw together spur of the moment.

...your youngest comes to you and tells you, "Mommy, L~ has fat cats in her room." You're picturing something on the order of Garfield and wondering how something like that got into your house when what you discover instead is this:






(gee, why didn't I ever think of installing bowling alleys in my bedroom?)

...you read in the ward newsletter that one of your favorite people--becks--just got engaged. CONGRATS becks!

...your 15-year-old son who constantly tells you he'd like to go live with another family says this after spending two weeks with said family (who, by the way, spontaneously took him to DISNEYLAND [where of course he bumped into your friend Lorien] for a weekend while you were gone) while you were out of the country--after you have teased him about wishing he were a Duerden: "It's good to be home. I'm happy to be a Rowley."


...and finally, and most definitely the VERY BEST:


...you hear the following (from your 17-year-old [and therefore teenage] MALE offspring) over the phone when you're half a world away:

"Homecoming was great. But I am SO tired. It was SO hard to not have you here! I missed you so much. I never realized how much you do for me. And I always take it all for granted. And I never say thank you. I'm so SORRY. You do SO much for me. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR EVERYTHING!"



(this just in: I have just added the photos to my previous posts from Finland. More to come--Five Fabulous Fun-Filled Days in Helsinki--soon!)

It's kind of like football...but without a football

Now this is something I could get into...

And now I want you all to tell me this:

If you played roller derby, what would be your derby name?

when tomorrow is still today...

jet lag sucks.

that's all i want to say.


(but it was worth going halfway across the world--and having to take 24 hours to come back--in order to be missed and appreciated by my kids.)


more later...

party on vaasa...

vaasa, finland, i don't even know what day it is anymore--

last night we arrived in vaasa after a very, very long drive. everything takes about four times longer than it should because the side trips always occur spontaneously and after much consultation with the busdriver, the wwII buff, and our guide, mingled with "turn around as quickly as possible" warnings from the female voice of the gps. so it was well after 9:30 and we discover one, as with the hotel last night, the hotel is located in the middle of a the walkable town center, with no access by automobile and two, our visit apparently coincides with an annual event much anticipated by the young people of vaasa, the loose translation being "party in vasaa night." itäs a rigorous competition in which one must visit at least ten of the local bars with a punch card. if you buy a drink in every one you get a most fabulous t-shirt that boasts of your ability to drink in vasaa.

at first i was afraid that the hotel was a flashback to the horrible hotel we stayed in the night before in jyväskyla. apparently there is nothing to do but party in that town as well and the bass beat of elvis music rocked me into nonsleep well unto 2Ö30 a.m. but, aside from stepping around the occasional pile of tossed cookies (i thought of you sister pottymouth--as i also do every time i take another picture of a great wc)--and the fact that these beautiful young people are rotting out their livers and killing brain cells at much too young of an age, i figured it was one more thing to write home about.

(for sister pottymouth--from the door of another great wc)

the nice people at the hotel kept the sauna hot for me, which was an extremely nice gesture that is usually not offered, but was also considerate when you realize they had locked their main door at 9pm. so we got to enter the hotel from the bar, but when we got back from dinner the sauna was still hot. very hot.

and i loved every minute of it.


we have a great view from this hotel of the market square. i love market square. we need one in provo. of course it wouldnät at all be the same unless we all walked to it or rode to it on our cute little bikes with baskets on the front. but the flowers are brighter, the fruit is sweeter and the pastries are lighter in market square.
i promise.




i know this is all random, but in yet another in our list of events i refuse to call coincidence: yesterday we stopped at the chapel in kokkola. one of the couples in our group had called a member they knew there to come and meet them there briefly. imagine the surprise on the part of my dear friend sirpa when a woman she had known decades ago in finland and whom she kept in touch with on occasion rode up on her bike to the church intending to see the person who had called her. it was a joyful and unexpected reunion.

also after much heated discussions on the part of our guides and the standard misguidings from the gps (mingled with an event i never thought iäd see in my lifetime--in any country--the actual asking by men for directions) we found and stood on the ground where the church was dedicated for missionary work in finland some ages ago.


given the most beautiful of chapels i have ever seen scattered through so many towns and the dedicated saints who worship there, i am most thankful for what took place there and the fact that through much difficulty the finnish saints have opened their hearts to the message of the gospel of jesus christ and worked so hard to share that message to the point they are getting ready to dedicate a temple in that beautiful land.

these are a beautiful people. i cannot describe the feeling i get each time the finnish natives who are traveling with us spontaneously burst into song upon hearing the beatiful melody of finlandia (a.k.a. be still my soul). their reverence and love for their country is apparent. that is something i will never be able to capture with my camera, but i will hold the memory of it in my heart forever.

why did the reindeer cross the road?

...so i could take a blurry picture of his behind.


sorry--this will be in a rush. we have limited time on the internet, but i find i usually wake up between 4 and 5 and thatäs a good time to claim the hoteläs only computer.




we are on the top of the world in lapland (hereäs a nod to the jolly porter, who served in this city called rovaniemi). itäs fall here and the most beautiful fall iäve ever seen. i finally figured out the color of finnish houses are all colors of the leaves, from the palest of green to dark red scattered with gold and even that odd mustard color thatäs starting to grow on me.




(well, except for maybe this one...)


today after i tell you about the reindeer that are everywhere and that i crossed the line into the arctic circle

and that i spent an obscene amount of money at santaäs village yesterday i am going to turn a bit serious. the reindeer are indeed plentiful and very much protected. i thought i was going to be able to pet one yesterday in santaäs village--which is a delightful place in which to go broke--but apparently itäs the off season.


so i ate one for dinner instead.

ok, not an entire reindeer, but some reindeer. and it was very good.

but i wanted to tell you about attending church on sunday. we went to a small branch in juonsuu. we were told it started at nine, but of course it really doesnät start until about 9Ö15 after the bus arrives. we were greeted by the branch president and the missionary couple who has been serving there for about 7 months.

of course the brother just happened to have been the first companion of the oldest person on our trip with us. they had no idea. what a reunion. what an experience for this elderly man (husband to my newly adopted finnish grandmother i mentioned, sirpa) to sit next to his first companion from half a century ago and prepare to pass the sacrament.

because there are only four priesthood holders in this small branch. and only one of them--besides the branch president--was there that day.


we take so much for granted.


the service was beautiful. i have been struck by the simple beauty and devotion expressed in each of the beautiful chapels i have seen here. such an amazing thing for them to have so many chapels. i couldnät understand much, except for the the english translation provided by the sister missionary who humbled me by the time and effort she took into presenting her talk in finnish--one of the most difficult of languages. i was humbled by the fact that she has left behind her comfortable home, the sunshine (for it will soon disappear), her children and grandchildren and all she knows and loves to come here to serve in a language she will very likely not ever fully comprehend.

the people were so happy to greet us. such a warm and beautiful people. i was humbled by the thought of how hard it must be to live in such a beautiful but hard country.

harder still to be one of a handful of members of the church struggling to build zion here.

a few wonderful "tender mercies" besides the one above;

there are some sisters who came along to do geneaology. first we learn that one of the finnish women who has come on this leg of the tour but who is not a member is actually in their line. they have gone back ten generations and to the 1500s. not only is she in their line, but they have done the work for that family clear up to her. the sister was able to give the woman a copy of her line dating back to the 1500s, can you imagine traveling here and running into a complete stranger who could give you such a gift?

(the gen sisters with their laptop and their book of names--they ended up being related to everyone with Finnish ancestors--which means we all ended up being related somehow)

there are some older finns traveling with us who are members of the church and they passed about a letter in a bottle for us all to write to their grandson who is serving in littleton colorado.

imagine how that grandmother and grandfather must have felt when the same geneaology sister pulled out a photo of their grandson who had just happened to have eaten dinner at her other sister's home recently and thought to send a photo along!

we have also been blessed with circumstances in which the librarian of the lahti church happened to have been there for the first time ever on a friday afternoon to pick up something for the elders and who kindly let us in to see that beautiful chapel--three of the people on our tour had served there ages ago--and let us use the facilities (which are really a rarity on the road to northern finland).

she was still waiting for the missionaries when we left her.

and the sweet woman and the caretaker who not only let us tour the home and workshop of an amazing finnish sculptor even though they had closed the place for the season just yesterday, but also who happened to have some dough raising when we arrived and who generously went in to bake us fresh finnish pastry while we toured the place.







perhaps that doesnät seem so spiritual, but i found her work inspiring and believe such generosity on the part of anyone, but especially a stranger, a spiritual experience indeed.

this morning i have in hand the geneaology of my great-grandmother, who was born in oulu.

we are stopping in oulu on our way to a city whose name i cannot pronounce, let alone spell out for you.

in a few short hours i am going to step foot in the town of her birth.


i canät wait!

Some Like it Hot: Sunday Sauna

Did i mention i am fickle by nature?

So after i posted that last post i got to thinking and i realized that i didnät come all this way to not sauna. i also realized my best chances to avoid a crowd were on Sunday morning.

it was hot.

it was heavenly.

i was alone.


so now i have a question for my dear cjane:

if i take my towel off in the sauna but no one else is there am i really naked?

no one told me i needed to bring my own loofa

jounsuu finland, 5 something a.m.,

apparently sleeplessness isnät exlcusive to helsinki.

i am excited because after so many trees and lakes what i started looking at yesterday are the people and i figured out that if you flip the view screen a certain way you can take pictures of people without them even knowing you are looking at them. i am in love with the children and want to bring them all home with me.




but today itäs all about the sauna. iäm coming out. i know this will disappoint some of you, but iäm not entirely sure about the idea of the public sauna. night before last we were staying at a sports institute (founded ages ago by women and for women--the finns have a long history of strong and forward-thinking women. i love this finland!) in savonlinna. i love savonlinna! we walked down to the lake and were standing on the dock and as we turned to leave here comes this guy in nothing but his towel and a big grin on his face. we passed each other and i knew he was getting ready to whip off his towel and jump in the freezing lake
(yes, it froze night before last in savonlinna). i was obviously born in the wrong place and time because i politely kept on walking and never looked back. i think shane was really tempted to take his picture, but did the proper thing and refrained.

so i realized then and there, although iäm not uncomfortable at all with other peopleäs nuditiy, i really donät think i can get over being uncomfortable with the concept of my own. sorry cjane. last night i really was in the mood for sauna and i walked down to the basement where the sauna is located here (we are staying tonight in the hotel sokos in juonsu) and took one look at the virile 20-something-year-old sitting there in a very relaxed position with nothing on but his towel and a great smile and i just knew i couldnät bring myself to do it. i know iäm a wimp but it just seemed somehow wrong to plop down this old and frumpy self next to something beautiful like that.

besides that, i really didnät know i was supposed to bring my own loofa.

(Jean Sibelius sat nekked here)

yesterday was quite the adventure. we had to drive clear to russia to find a water closet.

we were on our way to jounsuu--which was supposed to be the shortest let of our six-day tour into northern finland--when the guys up front decided they were in the mood to go to the russian border and see some war museum they had heard about.

i have to interject that our native bus driver is darling and even though i canät understand a word he says, i like him a lot. but there is something about seeing three grown men huddled over a brand new gps and several maps--and yes, the driver is driving i donåt know how many kilometers an hour while staring at the maps--that i find amusing. even with all that help we still get lost every time we get off the main highway.


every time.

but itäs all good because now i have decided that everyone should get themself lost in europe on a daily basis. one sees the most interesting things...

in any case, they decided to do this without telling anyone till we were well on our way. i was game for the adventure, especially because if i was coming this far i might as well get as close as i could to the russian border, but there are some darling native finns on the trip--female native finns--who are forces to be reckoned with--and they were not so happy about this detour, especially as we all at this point really needed to go to the wc.

the road trip was lovely, but i have to admit that after so many gazillion (and iäm not exagerrating here) trees and lakes they all start to look the same. and when one really needs to go to the loo the last thing they want to see is another lake.

so finally we stop in the middle of nowhere and the lovely finnish woman and the tour guide have words. she is not happy. meanwhile the rest of the group is scavenging for food as we have stumbled upon wild blueberries all over the thick forest floor. we were picking and eating the berries--wondering when and if we would see civilazation ever again--when the other finnish ladies ran over to us and scolded us because the berries were better on the other side of the road.


sure enough, i looked over there and saw that the moss was greener over there as well...


anyway, a few more miles down the road and a quite relieving visit to one of the most rustic outhouses i have ever seen and we all seemed to be in a better mood.


so i was visiting with the finnish women and i thought i wouldnät be able to understand a word they said. i should not have been able to understand a word they said. but suddenly i realized they were in a quite passionate discussion about how the men shouldäve dropped us off at our hotel in juonsuu and then headed off on this fruitless goose chase for the war museum (which we never did find, but we did see an old bunker and stand on the ground on which the way undermanned finns outsmarted the russians in complete darkness--they fought hand-to-hand in the dark with knives, identifying the enemy only by the feel of their backpacks). they were quite right and i knew exactly what they meant, so i looked at the one finnish lady who does speak english--her name is sirpa and i love her--and said to her, "i think itäs kind of a guy thing." she looked at me in surprise and then told the other finn that what i had said and we all had a good laugh.
(You don't mess with Sirpa--but she has the best laugh)

that understanding of the universal ways of man really does exceed all boundaries of language.

really.

Sleepless in Suomi

helsinki, finland, september 15, 4:00 a.m.--

observations:

i may not be as afraid of flying as i think i am. Aside from a few moments during take off thinking, "This Bernoulli guy was just plain crazy"--mingled with fervent prayer--itäs not really too bad.

snakes on a plane are not nearly as dreadful as...


...trying to sleep on a plane.


i really, really like europe. not at all in the itäs-so-superior-to-the-u.s. kind of way. itäs just so cool! i forgot how great it is to be somewhere that has history, art, culture and tradition dated by millenia, not just mere centuries. i also love how international it is, too.


that said, i'm also bemused by the fact that here i am entire continents away and the hotel bathroom is tocked with dove cream wash, creammy body wash and shamppo. nearly everyone iäve encoutered speaks great english and there is was what finn refers to as the american embassy--the golden arches--on every block (not really--but almost).


love the abundance of trees and lakes here. for awhile i kept thinking we were crossing different points of the same lake. then i realized they were all different lakes. lakes in finland are like mormon churches in utah valley. there is one on every corner.




not so sure about all the mustard-yellow building and houses, but you gotta love a country that makes it look so easy being green (in both senses of the word), that believes in random acts of sculpture scattered everywhere, and that has a woman president--even if she does look like conan o'brien.


the dutch donät seem to bet he most patient of people. i was at more risk of a horrible accident in the airport being wheeled around on a cart (my knee went out a few weeks before i left) by a crazed and flustered dutch woman than i ever was flying through the air at 30,000 feet in a gazillion-ton tin can. i am quite sure we took a couple of corners on two wheels and we came within mere centimeters of takin out a priest and an indain woman with small children. there is a reason they call them the flying dutch.


people will pick their noses just about anywhere.


hooray for and god bless the finns for finally getting their own temple. one, itäs strikingly beautiful (and weäve only seen the outside). the steeple with the angel moroni is a sight to behold. it just sort of jumps out at you from nowhere--just like the portland temple--through the trees (in fact, Finland--hey hey I finally found the cap key on the Finnish keyboard--really reminds me of all i love about the pacific northwest]. coming from a place where we have so many temples within an hours drvie we take for granted--what a HUGE deal this is for these wonderful people to have on int heir own country. and its not just for the finns. this temple will serve countries speaking eight different languages--including russia--and when i was on my mission missionary work had not even been officially allowed yet in russia (i am old, but what iäm trying to see is that the spreading of the gospel has come a long way).



that is truly something wonderful to contemplate!


signing off now--scuze the typos and the lack of punctuation--i finally understand missionary e-mails now!

p.s. i was actually thinking i would love to live here--itäs truly heavenly. then i realized in a couple of months it will be 20 below celsius, be buried under six feet of ice and snow and have only three hours of daylight and i would likely not be nearly so charmed. right now, however, iäm loving it!

So long, farewell, Auf wiedersehn...

We're almost ready to be on our way. I'm hoping to have Internet access to post updates on our trip. But as they keep downgrading our accommodations to "keep costs down" on our tour, that's looking less likely. We just learned that most of the hotels on our six-day tour of northern Finland don't even have double beds. Something about that tells me not to expect the Internet or even hope for a continental breakfast.

That's OK, as long as I can find a clean shower and a hot sauna I'll be good to go.

I'll try to keep you all posted.

Beauty or Brains: Talk amongst yourselves...

I really wanted to write something pithy about an upcoming anniversary we'd all rather never happened. But due to my palpable fear of flying and the fact I'm taking a rather long flight in just a few short days, I'm working really hard to avoid thinking about it.


Wish me luck with that...


So--in an all-out honest effort at distraction--here's my trivia question of the day:

Would you rather be a genius or be beautiful? (I don't mean the we're-all-beautiful-people kind of beautiful--I mean the drop-dead gorgeous-stoppin'-traffic kind of beautiful.) Lorien can't play because she's both already all right.


Not that they have to be mutually exclusive.

Well, only sometimes.


But, you know, if you could pick between one or the other which would you choose?


And why?

I meant what I said, and I said what I meant!

You may be somewhat familiar with my now 11-year-old daughter, who has been going on 15 ever since she was five.

Her favorite response to me--no matter what I ask of her--is this: "One sec."

You may imagine this grows tiresome as seconds roll into minutes and minutes roll into...well, you know.


Which is what prompted the following exchange that took place recently in a somewhat public place:



Me: "L~ come here NOW, please."


~L: "One sec!"


Me: loudly and emphatically "NO MORE SECS!"



You coulda heard a pin drop.