{design aglow}

i can't remember if i've shared this great website before so here we go...

you have got to visit www.designaglow.com!

i'm not a professional photographer, yet i love this website. so much eye candy and inspiration even for an amateur photographer.

{finland, day 11, part II, parviaisten talo}

after our day trip to vuokatti, we got to tour parviainen's home. their home is full of antiques and horserace trophies. i liked how the trophies were not on display in the living room but were sort of hidden in the backrooms.

heikki told us about his horses and what it's like to train horses for racing. horses are basically like children: you have to treat them with respect and fairness or they'll turn on you.

i was very impressed with the parviainen family and the beautiful horse ranch they keep. great people!

bye, bye beautiful horses!

bye, bye the guesthouse we stayed at.
next morning found us driving to the west coast.

{what i've been reading lately}

i thought i'd share with you some of the books i've been reading lately.

i bought this book for about $10 at costco and i'm totally enjoying it. forget about the old beliefs of how our brain can't learn new things as we get older, etc.

my grandma has alzheimers and i tend to have "brain fog" quite often. my memory is terrible! so i worry about my brain. now i realized that i need to exercise my brain too. i've learned some fun tips from this book and i plan to utilize them. here are couple of quotes from the book:

"...if we were to represent the strength and power of the world's greatest super-computer by that two-story house, the potential power of your own brain would be represented by a building far bigger than the 100-story skyscraper. The strength and power of your own brain would be more accurately represented by a heaven-scraper 10 blocks square at the base and reaching to the moon."
"The only limiting factor, biologically, to the number of thoughts, memories, behavior patterns, and habits that are available to you must lie in the physical limitation of the pattern-making potential of your amazing brain. With billions of brain cells, many with hundreds of thousands of branches, each branch with hundreds of thousands of connection points, each with trillions of messengers, and each connection point capable of forming billions upon billions of different patterns, the number must be gigantic. Even... infinite."

"For most of us, one of the biggest worries about getting older is losing our memories. Yet your memory has no limits - whatever your age. Many older people may take a little more time to remember things, yet once the memory is there it seems as good as at any age. In China, older people are still generally revered for their wisdom. "Old age" does not have the same negative connotations that it does in the West. In a Harvard study, researchers compared the memory performance of a group from performance between young people from each group. However, the older Americans were outperformed by the older Chinese, who had a much more positive attitude of aging. Similarly, Americans who had a positive outlook on age performed better than Americans who had a negative outlook."

lots of great stuff in this book!

don't forget to take care of your brain. :)

i enjoyed this book as well. it was interesting to read about life in 1960's congo (now zaire).
i loved syrie james' first two books (about jane austen & charlotte bronte) so i thought this must be good as well even though it's about dracula. i wasn't disappointed. she took the story to a new level and you actually end up thinking dracula is somewhat lovable. any story is better when you add romance to it, in my humble opinion. :) yes, i'm a hopeless romantic. i Y love. :)

syrie james can't write books fast enough for me to read.
ps. I'm very disappointed about Syrie's latest book "Forbidden". R-rated, definitely, and the story was week. :(

{:D & wow!!!!}

{finland, day 11, part I, vuokatti}

day 11 of our finland trip:

first we visited some relatives who live on a farm.

then we headed to vuokatti, which is a bit east of kajaani.
we drove to the top of the ski hill and hiked a bit. enjoyed the gorgeous scenary.

i don't put family pictures here that often anymore (i keep a private family blog for them) but here's two for ya. this is us on top of the vuokatti hill.

at the bottom of the hill is a car racing place. what a genius idea to utilize the ski lifts in the summer by hauling race cars up the hill and then letting go so you can speed down the hill. i tell you, i had a huge smile on my face the whole time. we each got to go down five times.

sienna got to race the kids' cars and she was all smiles too. this little girl loves speed. i loved seeing her face as she zoomed down the hill. she looked like she was having a blast. we all did. this was awesome!

my dear husband got the fastest time but my mother-in-law's time was only tiny bit slower. jay didn't use his breaks at all the last time and ended up crashing to the tires and couldn't finish. he was trying to break the track record. :)

i was disappointed in my time. i love speed but wasn't sure if you could go down the hill without breaking as much as i did. they guy told me to use breaks so i did. if i had realized you could have gone faster, i would have! next time! :)

what a thrill!

jay's mom. what an awesome lady!

then we visited the ski tunnel. i didn't even know this exists. another cool idea! cross-country skiing year round. we weren't dressed appropriately, of course, so we only took a quick look at the place. sienna had a quick ride on the kicksled. they're so much fun!

here's some info on the ski tunnel:
The Ski Tunnel idea was initially thought of in the 1980’s. There was a clear need for stable training conditions for competition skiers. In the summer, these conditions could and can only be found at high altitudes– for example on glaciers above 1900 m. These are not good training conditions, however. They require daily travel and altitude adjustment. After seeing snow making in laboratory conditions in Italy, the founders put the ski tunnel plans in motion. Construction of the highly innovative Ski Tunnel began in April 1997 and was completed in eight months. In its early years, the automotive industry used the tunnel for testing. Today the tunnel is exclusively used for Skiing...

The winter weather conditions in the tunnel are optimal –there is snow and fresh air, temperature is controlled to optimise conditions. Because the conditions are stable, weather related risks and inconveniences are not a factor. An advanced ventilation system provides humidity control and good air quality. Humidity, levels are measured with the air and snow temperature and the air-conditioning in the tunnel are monitored and controlled by computer technology. The inside air and snow temperatures are normally between -5 and -9 °C, but can be dropped to -18 °C if needed; even ice formation is possible. The tunnel air is completely exchanged every four hours. The snow making system consists of high-pressure cannons that replenish the trails’ surface at night or when required. The carbon dioxide levels are continuously measured so the amount of fresh and exhaust air always correspond to the actual demand controls the ventilation. This avoids any unnecessary load on the refrigeration system when there are no activities in the tunnel.

The tunnel is open from early June to December and also in winter at times when it is too cold to ski outdoors. Skiers from all over the world come here to train The main attraction is the 1.2 km Ski Tunnel, which has a 2.4 km natural snow surface ski track. With curving trails and hills, the conditions are similar to natural outdoor ski trails in every respect. In the first-snow season there is a connection from the tunnel to the outdoor tracks and biathlon stadium. The first-snow track outdoors opens every year on 10th October.
(text from: www.vuokattisport.fi)
we ate at a restaurant at the katinkulta hotel before heading back "home" to the horse ranch.

more on that in the next posting. :)

{dots dots and more dots}

today sienna and i had fun with dot stickers. gotta love circles! ;)

(it looks like the pink didn't scan. some pink areas look white in the pictures.)

i'm so behind in my blogging. i've been busy with reading :) (can't put a good book down, you know me) and seeing my little one start kindergarten. yes, i cried when i walked home from the school alone. you want them to become independent. you want some alone time. yet you want to spend every second with them too. sigh.

happy friday everyone!

{free stickers}

go to www.welovetoillustrate.com to download free stickers for your kids' books & stuff. enjoy the lovely illustrations too!

i so love illustrations for children.