WELCOME!!

Blogger Boss needs to decide what this is going to say about how crazy her life is & how she loves coffee & walks with her hubby.


Thursday, September 12, 2013

Greetings from Canada!

Ok.  Here's attempt number two at writing my first post after returning back to Canada.
I tried to write one on my phone the other day, and well, it flopped.
So, now we have a computer set up and internet working, meaning that I again can blog with ease.

Where to begin?
We left Finland quite wiped, physically and mentally, and I can honestly say that I was too tired to really have any strong emotions.  We had a long trip ahead of us, with 2 layovers, and a 7 hour time change, so when we took off in Helsinki I felt pretty neutral.
Not bawling, but not either grinning like an idiot.
What brought a huge smile to my face however, was watching my husband and little guy.
Our almost 4-year old son, sitting at the air-plane window, with his dad next to him...
Well, that sure made me smile and tear up all at ones.
Our little guy was pumped to be on the plane.  For months we had talked about the big plane, even showed video clips of take off and landing etc, so he was well prepared and very excited.
So yeah, watching his face as we took off, seeing all sorts of emotions wash over his face, and then noticing that my hubby with tears in his eyes proudly watching his son's reaction.
Priceless.

We had layovers on Iceland and then in Halifax.  The flights themselves went amazingly well, the weather was perfect and I dare say our kids were too.
We almost missed our flight from Halifax.  They literally had our boarding cards printed for us, waiting to run us through security, VIP-like, to our flight that was scheduled to leave at 10.05 pm.  We made it on the plane just past 10.00 pm.... Whew!!
I still can't believe they did that.  I bet they rather not have 9 people miss their plane...
We were late because our overseas flight was behind schedule, and then we had to go through customs, get all 15 pieces of luggage, go through secondary (since we were moving back to Canada and this was our first point of entry), then dash through the air-port and check in our luggage again...
We got to the check-in at 9.55 pm.... (10 min before departure)

So, amazingly enough we landed in Toronto as scheduled, but our luggage didn't.
So after being awake for more than 24 hours, I had to recall all 15 pieces of luggage to file a report.
Sigh.
The kids were border line comatose at this point.
Then we needed to find a shuttle to the hotel.
Through the terminal with all the kids, down one level, walk, walk, walk... only to find that the shuttle service to our hotel ended at 10.30 pm (It was 1 am at this point).
Soooo.  Backtrack.  Upstairs and walk, walk, walk to where the taxis were running.
We needed a mini-van and a regular car to bring us to the hotel.  (it was actually a good thing we didn't have our luggage since we probably would have needed a 3rd taxi for that!!, and thankfully all our luggage arrived at the hotel the following day)

As we arrived at the hotel with our sleepy bunch we were met by a super friendly receptionist.
She grabbed some muffins from the kitchen and offered everyone free water bottles, figuring we were hungry.  She was right.  After having our late night snack we finally were able to go to bed around 2 am.
Aaaaah.  Man did that ever feel GOOD!! ( = 9 am in Finland, we'd been up since 7 am the day before)

The next morning the kids couldn't believe how warm it was.  We had left a fall like Finland, and arrived in a very much summer like Canada.  It was around +30 C, and humid.
We enjoyed a yummy breakfast, and it was fun to watch our youngest two as they realized that they were able to understand what everyone else were saying!!
Which reminds me of what our 1st grader said after her first day back in school here
"Nobody spoke Finnish all day, not even a little bit!"

Anyway, this is getting long.
I will write another post soon, but I mostly wanted you all to know that we are safely back HOME.
And yes, It feels very much like home.  I had been worried that it would feel different being back, and that I'd regret moving again... But already on our drive down from Toronto, the closer we got, the more "home like" it felt.  I am thankful to say that this was the right decision for us.





4 comments:

Pellerina said...

aaah... i got butterflies in my belly reading this!! I VERY MUCH know this feeling!!
And the "nobody spoke Finnish" comment made me laugh out loud! Awesome reflections in her "new" country!!
Dying to see you guys. Will be great whenever it happens.

Anonymous said...

Nice to hear you are happily back at home and everything is going well! We miss you much here in Lappeenranta... big hugs to everyone!<3

Riikka+fam

Sofia's Corner said...

Just a big WOW! to everything you wrote. So happy for you all to finally be back home. An amazing feeling! Looking forward to hear more about your adventures over there, and hopefully we'll be able to visit you sooooon! :)
Hugs and Good Luck with everything! :D

Sanna said...

Synd att ni inte kunde närvara vid vårat bröllop men tack så mycket för eran fina gåva! <3