Last weekend

Last weekend was a m a z i n g. 

Everything started on thursday, R turned 28 and we met friends on the bar. 

We had great night out, but R didn't know that this wouldn't be end of it, I had planned a surprise "party" at the tapas restaurant for friday and all friends were coming!

I didn't want to ruin any surprise, but I had to ask him not to work too late that day, as the past weeks he has been working much. So he knew there is something, but what, he didn't guess. All our friends were there, we got him a gift he has been wanting more than one year. Don't ask me what this machine does, I just know that you can record music at home and attach your guitar/bass on it too. Super gift for musician!
Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera to the restaurant, so no pictures of that night..

Line6 POD Studio UX2 /Img Thomann


Saturday our friend's first baby, Jules, was born, I can't wait to meet him!
He is so adorable in the pictures.

At sunday we had lunch with the family and we tried to have walk at the Dentelles de Montmirail
but it was too windy (Mistral!). We decided to drive to another village to have hot drinks and then we continued back to home.

 

I did love this red wine.It's surprising since I don't like red wines.

I hope you had nice weekend too! 

ps. I have one interview this week, fingers crossed!

spring is here

at Sunday we drove to Vallabrégues for a vide grenier sales, it is kind of flea market 

and often has professional antique sellers too. I bought this spanish water bottle, it's quite rare to find this big ones in good shape. This one is 44cm high and the girth is 52cm.

 After we visited Tarascon, to have coffee and enjoy the sunshine.

On the way back, we finally stopped to take pictures of the almond trees 

and R took few branches to home. Like i told in the last post, i feel like these belong to nature but we couldn't resist to try, so 2 small branches found their way into our home. and i have the allergy now. 

Reminder: wash the windows..

I have been really busy last few weeks, with my french lessons, taking care of things and the best part, meeting new people! One day my english friend A sent me a message, telling that she is meeting some english speaking friends later that week and I could join them. She told me that there would be another finnish girl, so for both reasons, I wanted to meet everyone. It was really nice afternoon spend at the terrace in the sunshine. There were people from England, Scotland, Australia and America, and of course we two finnish girls. It's always great to meet new people, and we really felt friends with the finnish girl M, so we have been shopping, visiting cafés and today we visited St.Rémy de Provence.

We had great lunch at the restaurant in St.Rémy and I noticed this cute little dog, he was so patience while waiting his owner to finish the lunch. Seems that french restaurants are quite tolerant with animals.

Just before I was about to leave to St.Rémy, postman did rang our doorbell and I had package what I ordered from
Bark & Leaves!

I'm already in love with this tote bag, it's perfect! For little plus, there was a pile of cute prints from Aura,
I need to find frames for these.

I feel so relaxed now, happy and full of life. Spring is here, it really makes everything better.

Enjoy the sunshine!

Kitty debate - yes or no

I have been wanting my own pet for years, since I moved away from my parents house.

I had to leave our sweetheart there because my student apartment wouldn't allow pets and Naku was really happy at my parents grand house and having a yard to play.

When I was kid, I was asking almost weekly from my dad if we could get a horse. Now I understand that you just don't get a horse, just like that. I still want it someday, when the time is right. I have always loved all kinds of animals, I used to have stick insect, birds, a rat and a dog. Oh and we had a cat when I was really small, but my parents decided to give it a new life at my grandma's farm. 

 all photos / The Itty Bitty Kitty Committee

Anyway, I have been thinking about taking a cat. Seriously. 

We have been talking about it, I have asked questions from friends who has cats, and visiting pet stores to look at the things.  Now I need to know all plus and minus sides of having a cat. Some people says that it stinks to have the littery box, some says it doesn't if you clean it. How is it really? Can you have non stinky box?

This little one couldn't have direct access outside, as we don't have garden. And we live in a center of the city.

Is 38square meters too small for a kitty? Am I worrying too much? I don't want to make too many mistakes, what if the kitten will be a freaky one like our Naku when she was puppy, she shred the papers from the wall, ate a hole in mum's nice carpet, peed everywhere to protest, when under coffee table to scratch it.. endless list of the weird things she got in her head. And she turned out to be the greatest dog ever! So smart and lovely. She even did know how to sneeze when we told her to.

I was thinking about little female cat, is there much difference with the genders?

And is it bad for the cat not to have company of other cats?

I really need help and advices.

Looking at these cuties, my heart says yes already.

Photos The Itty Bitty Kitty Committee

Finland : visiting Turku, nordic ski trip in Sipoo and visiting Porvoo

My sister M lives in Turku (Åbo), situaded in southwest coast of Finland, next to Aura river.

Turku used to be the capital of Finland until 1812, after that Helsinki became a capital.

At 1827 there was a Great fire of Turku, leaving over 11,000 people homeless. It was the largest urban fire in Nordic countries.

We did got to see a Logomo museum, to see Fire!Fire! exhibition about fire and the Great Fire of Turku.

Before the museum we had a walk in the archipelago of Turku, 

it was quite freezing with -16 degrees and wind. Wind makes everything much colder.

I saw in news lately that in Helsinki it's -19 degrees, but with the wind it feels -30 degrees.

 Logomo's cafeteria

Finnish salmon soup

 We wanted to try the firefighter's outfit, too bad that it was kid's size only.

 desperately trying to make fire.. R made fire with flint, 

i think we need to buy one to our camping trips too!

demonstrate how the baker's street in Turku looked like after the great fire.

The pavement was still warm and smoke coming out between the burnt logs.

Relaxing on Fatboys after Fire!Fire!

Back to Vantaa.. 

I had planned a nordic ski trip to us, what left from Kuusijärvi - lake, made a tour in forest and one stop at the laavu, a small cabin where you can have fire and cook your meals. We skiied 10km to the laavu and back.

Kuusijärvi - lake, ready to swim!

Our last day trip was Porvoo, old part of the town. Porvoo is located southern coast of Finland, opposite from Turku. It's an old medieval town, with amazing old town. In Porvoo most of the people speaks swedish.

We have many cities and towns in Finland where the one of the main languages is Swedish.

 

 Traditional (tourist)Lapp hat

We had a great trip! Nice to be back in sunny +14 Avignon, even I miss badly home again.