Trip to the Home Land

We went on a quick week and half trip to Finland for my brother's high school graduation. As always, it was wonderful to be in Finland. We made a daily trip to the candy store with at least 50 bins of different candy to choose from and ate finnish pastries and rye bread with the delicious Finnish cheese. The weather was perfect (in the 70s) and we spent hours outside. The highlight was obviously Mio's graduation and the graduation party and it was fun to see our family friends. 

Dad and I before our 10 K run on a saturday morning, The luxury of running on trails that are lined with green trees and overlooking the sea. 

Our silly family after Mio's party. Notice the different graduation cap. 

Anna and I sitting in the graduation ceremony. 

We hope to be able to live in Finland for few years in the future though it would definitely be a change. Here are some of the adjustments that would happen when moving to Finland

-Troy needs to learn Finnish

- gas prices of 9 dollars/gallon

-no mexican food

-move from a 1500 sq ft house to probably a 800-1000 sq ft apartment(due to expensive house prices)

-more expensive food prices

-far away from Troy's family

-long, dark winters

-Troy probably wouldn't make as much as money and I for sure as a nurse would make much less money.

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What we would gain from our move

-daily access to the best chocolate and candy in the world(obviously on the top of the list!)

-free health care

- excellent public transportation

-great schools for our kids and free college education

- close to my family

-access to sauna

-ability to take trips to different European countries for cheap prices

-sun setting around midnight during summer time

-swimming in the CLEAN lakes during summer

-ability to walk to places and miles and miles of great running trails

OK, both lists are obviously much longer but those are some of the big differences between the two countries. I really love living in both countries though Mexico..I mean Tucson is not that close to my heart.  How do other people feel about living in different countries?

LIttle Escape from Reality

No, we are not using drugs to escape the responsibilities of life. We escapee to the Yosemite National Park for a weekend to meet up with my dad. Every year, he finds a business conference in the Western U.S to attend and mixes business with pleasure as he comes to visit us or we meet with him. Fall 2006, dad and I took a week long road trip in Northern California.

This time, we met up with dad in Vegas, where he had spent few days at a conference, and drove to California. We drove around Yosemite and got settled into our canvas tent on Friday. It dropped to the 20s at night so Troy and I shared a sleeping bag to keep us warm. My poor dad had 4 blankets and he was still freezing.  

We actually saw a bear and bear cubs! It wasn't a huge bear but still a bear.  As we were driving out of Yosemite, everyone was stopping and getting out of their cars with cameras. So Troy did the same and now we have a proof of our bear experience. We also saw a car that a bear had destroyed. At first we thought that it was a "set-up" to remind everyone to be smart about food etc in their cars; however, as we returned from our hike  we saw a couple whose car it was. They weren't very happy as the driver's side door was torn off and windows broken.

On Saturday we did a 6-mile hike to the Nevada waterfalls; the top of the upper one in this picture . We actually got wet as we passed the first waterfall because there was so much mist. It was beautiful and we got a nice work out since it was quite the elevation change.

My dad insists on getting a convertible when he visits California so I had be bundled up to keep myself warm. There was still now in some parts of the national park so no wonder it got little chilly.

Our trip gave us the much needed energy boost to finish this week's finals. Good luck to everyone who is doing their finals or whose hubbies are finishing their finals.  I'll be at the health science library at 6:30 am tomorrow to study for mine:)

Almost a Panic Attack

I had my big clinical evaluation tests yesterday and I did fine;however, the problem is that fine is never good enough for me. So after 7 hours of evaluation and a nice lunch/dinner afterward, I was feeling OK about the day. I go to bed at 10:30 pm or so and the day starts playing in my mind. I start realizing things that I missed and I just start panicking. I did not fall asleep until 1 am and that was after a phone call to Troy in Florida, who had been sleeping for few hours by this time. So then I wake up around 6 am this morning and immediately start freaking out about the tests again. My heart rate is way above what it should be and I'm feeling nauseous. I'm obviously exhausted since I did not get much sleep the night before or last night but I can't fall back to sleep because I'm so worried about it.

It's not that I failed; however, nursing school has a way of making you feel really dumb when you miss things. So Troy spent half an hour, at 2:30 am his time, convincing me that getting a B is OK. Part of my brain agrees and accepts it and part of it keep screaming "failure". SO yeah, I don't know how good nursing school is for my mentality.

Struggling

So my summer was all planned out with a trip to Finland, internship at the hospital, SF marathon and a few week vacation. Then I got a letter from the hospital few weeks ago and I was reminded again why you shouldn't try to plan everything. I still have my internship so that is good; however, when I interviewed I was told that the internship would end on August 1st, which was perfect since my marathon was on the 3rd. This letter informed me that the last day would be August 10th, which means that I cannot travel to SF to run my marathon and then go on my vacation. It really is not the end of the world, but I had my heart set on running a marathon this summer so I googled marathons in August 2008 and found Park CIty Marathon on August 23rd. Running a marathon is going to be quite the challenge and Park City does not make it any easier with the altitude change and  with the fact that the first 16 miles go uphill. 

I always do my long runs on the weekends, so we drove to Oro Valley and I had mapped out a nice 12 mile course. We went later in the day than we should have so I could really feel the arizona heat. So I started running and at mile 2 I told Troy that I was dying. I just did not feel like myself at all. I knew my form was bad and I wasn't going very fast. This course was uphill for the first 5 or 6 miles so it definitely was not an easy run. I struggled the whole run, I would stop for water breaks about every mile and I just felt like I was not runner at all. And of course, for the first time ever my shorts started chafing my inner thigh. I ended up running 9 miles and then Troy got the car and picked me up. It was a hard run both mentally and physically.

So I'm totally sunburned now and little discouraged but I am determined to run a marathon. I am pretty emotional person and as I watched a clip from a marathon movie earlier today(www.marathonmovie.com), I got all choked up because I know finishing a marathon will be so incredible. I did sprints when I ran track and there is pain involved in the 400 m race; however, that pain goes away in 20 seconds or so.  For a marathon, I will have to push my body for 26 miles and I know it will be hardest physical thing I have ever done (Since I have delivered any babies yet:).

Any words of wisdom or encouragement are welcome:) Is training in the Arizona heat crazy or should I just do it? I know I want to run a marathon, I just need to decide if it's gonna be this summer or in few years...

I'm Back

So I have been very lazy about blogging last weeks. It's not that there was nothing to blog about, but I just had no desire to put in the effort to type my thoughts. I have been tagged like three times so I will start with some of them.

Open the nearest book to page 123 and post the fifth sentence.

From "Into the Wild"

"More and more of the classes he took addressed such pressing social issues as racism and world hunger and inequities in distribution of wealth."

This was a book about 23-year old college graduate from Emory who lived few years on the road and in the nature. It was actually really good and I wanted to see the movie; however, it was of course R rated. 

Hyvää Syntymäpäivää Keiju

Eevi has given me a hard time about never posting on her blog, so I figured there is no better time than her birthday.... even if it is to wish her a happy birthday. Eevi has been a great blessing in my life. In fact my parents were just telling me the other day that Eevi has been good for me. For those of you who have known me for many years, you can understand how true that statement is. Everyday I wake up and look at Eevi and wonder how it is possible that I love her more today than I did the day before. Happy Birthday Eevi-Sofia!!

I know that Eevi likes to have a picture with each post, so I am attaching one of my favorite pictures of her. It is every man's dream to have a super model wife, so here is Eevi's best shot at it. Doesn't she belong on the cover of Vogue!

This is Love

Troy hates needles but he had promised me that I could practice my IV skills on him...ONCE! So here is the happy man after I got done with him. I did not have the connector for the catheter so that is why there is quite a bit of blood. I am proud to say that I did put an IV into a patient last Tuesday and not a drop of blood dripped. It was beautiful. So my IV count is 5 now and 1 blood draw. Oh, the things that get me excited.