The REAL first snow!!

So now here are the photos after the first snowstorm. Notice the thick drift of snow on the balcony railing and window frames! It's hard to see in the photo, but, in addition to the kids playing in the playground in the snow, there are also kids sledding down the big hill in the park. At one point, there were about 40 people sledding down that hill, and it was fun to watch them from up above. They were sure having a blast!

I also took a photo of the snow that drifted onto the balconies of the adjacent building. I was looking out the window to check the temperature on the outdoor thermometer, and I noticed the man in the blue jacket (on the middle balcony) shoveling the snow off his balcony and throwing onto the ground below. I found it funny and grabbed the camera. First of all, it seemed strange to me that he was going to the trouble of shoveling the balcony since it wasn't THAT much snow. Plus, I figured it would melt pretty quickly from the heat of the building. Lastly, I wondered what would happen to anyone down below should they not realize he was throwing snow over the railing and get nailed with it as they walked by! In case of serious injury (I know, still an injury prevention specialist, right?), an eyewitness account might come in handy... ;-)

First snow!

Okay, so it was actually about 2 weeks ago now, but here are some photos of the first snow. We got a light dusting in advance of a bigger snowstorm, and these photos are of the pre-storm snowfall.

These are some of the same views as in the fall foliage photos I took. So now you can see what the park looks like with bare trees. It's not too pretty when there's no snow, but the snow makes it look quite nice!

Planes, Trains and Automobiles...and Boats!

Wow, this is long overdue, but here are some photos from our weekend trip to Tallinn, Estonia (3 weekends ago!). In addition to the excitement of traveling by boat, which we can add to the list of the modes of transport on which the "World Traveler Baby" (as a friend calls Leila) has been, we also caught a cold. So were relatively out of commission for a couple weeks and are just now catching up on all that was put off while we were trying to get well...

We took the boat over to Tallinn on a Saturday morning with our friend, Sari, and her daughter, Liisa. We met up with Sari's husband (and also our friend), Juha, there since he was already in Tallinn on business. Included in the post is a funny photo of me- trying to get Leila to smile for the camera- in front of one of the windows on the ship. It was raining and quite grey so you can't really see anything, but that is the sea behind us!

We spent a lovely afternoon with some friends of Juha and Sari's, Tero and Silja (and baby Jussi), which is likely where we caught said cold since Tero was just recovering from one. The good parts of our visit were the great company, yummy food and seeing the kids interact. Leila seemed especially excited by watching Jussi since he was right on her level and was interacting with her as well. Here are some (sadly, somewhat blurry) photos of that as well as one of Juha playing with Jussi and Liisa walking behind them.

We had evening drinks in the bar on the top of the hotel (which is in one of the 2 skyscrapers in Tallinn) and then went to bed early since we had the kids in our rooms with us. I especially didn't sleep much because I woke up to Leila's every peep, but, this way, I got a preview of what it will be like traveling to California in December!

We did a little shopping in an Estonian department store before we left on Sunday, and then headed back to Helsinki on a slightly slower boat. Luckily, these boats have play areas for kids, restaurants, bars, a casino and disco and some stores and boutiques. So there is plenty of entertainment for the journey. We spent most of our trip near the play area so Liisa could stay busy and because it was nearest the bathroom with the changing table. Here's also a photo of Matt with Leila and Sari with Liisa (and other people with their kids in the background).

Next time we hope to spend a little more time in Tallinn so we can see more of the city than just the area around the hotel. If we can manage to go when it's not raining, we'd get to do a lot more walking around. I'll be sure to blog about any future excursions there!