I'm not a slacker after all:)

I would like to say that I did go running after Troy got home from work yesterday. Though it was definitely not a "I'm so glad to be running" run but I logged in my 4 miles for that day.
I'm hoping to run a half-marathon in mid-March and a marathon on August 3rd in San Francisco.
If anyone has any tips about training for a long race, I would love them. I used to be a sprinter and 400 meters was my longest race so this is quite the change.

Too dependent on my iPod?

Today is my off day from classes and clinicals. So I got to sleep in and after eating breakfast, I went to mapmyrun.com and decided to find a nice 4-mile run for this morning. I got it mapped out and changed into my running clothes and then I realized that there was no way I was going on a run....because my iPod was in my car that was sitting in the Raytheon parking lot. I called Troy few times to see if he was by his desk and check if he could meet me at the car if I would run to his work and then continue my run from there. There was no answer and I ended up changing my clothes. I really do not listen to my iPod very much except when I'm running and I can not run without some music. Does anyone else have the same problem or am I just too dependent on my iPod?

Busy with a Capital B

We have been so busy for the last few weeks that I have not even done my usual blog stalking..I mean reading or updating our blog. School started two weeks ago and life is little different now that Troy is back in school. He has to go to classes twice a week to the campus and since he still works 40 hours a week. We have not seen very much of each other in the past few weeks. I do realize that we are pretty spoiled with our time together since I used to be the only one with a funky school/work schedule and we don't have little ones who require our time yet.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think we are any busier than everyone else. However, school, work and training for a marathon have kept me very busy and I have not even started doing my really long runs. So far, my longest run has been 6.7 miles, which took an hour. So I have some long runs ahead of me and I'm hoping that I will have the mental strength to get through them.

I do have to make a quick side note about running in Tucson or maybe I should say in the Southern part of Tucson. There aren't really any good running routes so Troy and I drove to this Santa Cruz River path that has about 8 miles worth of running/biking path. We get to the path and we are like "where should we park our car?" Well, we ended up parking at the Adult Detention Center because that was the only place nearby. You just gotta love Tucson!

So our weeks go by very fast; however, we have had some fun weekends. Last weekend we played some mini golf with Paul and Heather We did boys vs. girls and the boys won and Troy got 1st place overall and I was in the last place. Nice balance, right?

I also made some delicious buttermilk brownies from scratch. I have never done it before so it was quite exciting.


I went to see "27 dresses" on Saturday and I recommend it to those who like cute chick flicks. Mostly, it was not trashy or inappropriate. I am not any sort of a movie critic so don't get mad at me if you go and see it and find it predictable and lame:)

Troy will be going to Utah this weekend so I will be a loner; I haven't stayed in our house by myself yet so I am little worried about that. Hope you guys won't mind if I make some late night calls to keep me company:) Just kidding!

The Most Punctual Airline of Manchester

Troy enjoying the room service in Manchester, England.

That is what American Airlines claimed in Manchester, England and we found out why they are so punctual. Our flight from Helsinki to Manchester got delayed by an hour due to a snowstorm so when we finally arrived to Manchester, we had about 5 minutes before the flight to Chicago would take off. There were about 20 of us trying to make the connecting flight and they piled us into a van and started driving us towards the departure gate. As we pulled around the corner, we could hear "the gate is already closed" through the walkie-talkie and saw the airplane pull away from the gate. Needless to say, we did not make that flight since American Airlines did not make any effort to wait for us, which didn't make us very happy since they had sold us the ticket with very short layovers. After it was concluded that we did not make that flight, we were dropped off at the arrival gate without any directions on what to do next. After wandering around for a while, we found the right desk and started to negotiate our flights to U.S. We had missed the last flight to U.S that day so we had to stay in Manchester until the next day. Troy was supposed to be going back to work the next day so we were not too happy about this delay; however, they did put us in a nice hotel and paid for all our meals. We took a train to the downtown of Manchester and came back to the hotel with the conclusion that there really wasn't anything worth seeing in Manchester. If we would have been stuck in London or Paris, it could have been cool. We did enjoy some good meals and a good night sleep.

We are used to long travel time since we go to Europe twice a year; however, as our flights went Manchester-Chicago, Chicago-Dallas and Dallas-Tucson, I was almost in tears during the last flight because I was exhausted and sick of airplanes. We got home around 8 pm and I had to go to work at 7 am the following morning. Fortunately, our bodies were still in Finland time so we were able to get up early without any problems. 

Also, I should mention that Troy got into the graduate school program at U of A so now we have two students in the house again. School starts this week and it will be an interesting semester ahead. I will be doing pediatric nursing and medical/surgical nursing this semester and I need to apply to nurse externship programs for the summer. 

I will post some pictures later since I can't do it the way I like on Safari.

Burning Chapel

Our church chapel in Tampere (my hometown) burned this morning. They don't know if it is an arson or an accident;nevertheless, it won't be in use for a long time. The roof burned so badly that collapsed. All of the kids in my family were blessed in that chapel as well as baptized, my parents were married in there since they wasn't a temple in Northern Europe at that point and my mom's funeral/memorial was held there. It is weird how a simple building can be so much part of your family history. As I was reading about it, I guess that is only the second chapel that has burned worldwide and it will take few years to build another one. It will be interesting to see where the two wards will meet until then since the closest chapel is about an hour away.

Hyvää Uutta Vuotta! Happy New Year!

Can you believe it's already 2008? We had a fun New Year celebration. We went out for dinner and Troy tasted some snails (my dad likes them), played some board games and then went to the city to watch fireworks and a New Year program that the city of Helsinki had put together. There were tons of people in the city; most of them were very jolly due to their alcohol consumption, but we still enjoyed doing the count down and being part of the Helsinki tradition. It was interesting to notice that we heard more foreign languages than Finnish around us. I haven't come up with any new year resolutions yet, but I think it will be a good year. Last year was a reminder for us how quickly things can change and I hope to make this year a great one.






I decided that blonds don't really have more fun and dyed my hair back to brown. The one thing I love about coming home is the supply of my sisters' clothes and accessories etc that I get to share with them for few weeks. Anna got some heat rollers for Christmas and decided to test them out last night. Sadly, our hair is so fine that curls don't stick around for too long.

Love, food and family= fabulous Christmas

We have been enjoying our vacation so much that I have not even been blogging. Or maybe you can say that we have been so wonderfully lazy that I have not even blogged. However, I try to think of the blog as a substitute for a journal, I should be better about updating it. We obviously arrived to Finland safely; however, this time the traveling seemed more taxing than usual. It must have been the five hour lay-over in Chicago before a seven hour flight and the three hour lay-over in Manchester that made the travel time feel like forever.

The one disappointment about this Christmas was the lack of snow. We have not seen the sun for a week now because it has been so cloudy so it's difficult to know what time of the day it is when you look outside. Usually the snow makes it lighter and obviously more beautiful. We had a wonderful Christmas with all of the usual Christmas traditions. Even though we don't have any small children in our family right now, we were all very excited about opening our presents.
Before opening presents, we read the Christmas story from Luke and sang Christmas songs. If we had kids, Santa Claus would come and visit us on Christmas Eve and hand out the presents to us.

In Finland, the whole country shuts down for Christmas. Everything closes after 12 pm on Christmas Eve and stores and such don't open until the 27th. It is quite the contrast to the U.S and I think it really brings the Christmas spirit and gives an opportunity to spend quality time with a family. Our sleeping schedule has been messed up since we have been up until 2 am most nights playing games or watching a movie. Troy and I are usually in bed by 10 pm so it has been quite the change, but that's what a vacation is about:)

Our family picture for 2007.

We went ice-skating the weekend before Christmas. Our feet and ankles got pretty tired very quickly but it was fun to get out and do something different.


One of the Christmas traditions in Finland is taking a candle to the cemetery to a family member's grave. It might sound creepy if you have not experienced it, but it is beautiful and peaceful. This happens on the Christmas Eve and it is beautiful as you can see thousands of candles lit as it is pitch black outside. Mom's grave site is two hours away from Helsinki so we did not drive there but we took a candle to my dad's grandma's grave.


Troy and I also decided to be get out of the house and went to the Young Single Adult dance last night. Troy bought me a nice dress for Christmas so it was fun to get to wear it for more exciting occasion than church. I love dancing and there are not too many chances for that as a married couple, so I enjoyed the time on the dance floor. I will post some pictures as I get them from our friends.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and enjoyed the time with family and friends.