Lammi Mummo

The house still had all the photos from when my Mummo was alive the photos she had placed there of her children and grandchildren.  I can even see a photo of my sister in her wedding dress. Mummo is the lady on the bottom shelf second in from the left.

Apparently I look like my mum on the right......

Grandma was buried at the local church graveyard, yet another huge grand old church. 

Sompala

We've been able to come and see the house my mum grew up which is still standing and had plenty of room for us all along with my cousin and her 3 children as mum was the oldest of 9 children.

Soon after we arrived we went and lit the sauna and went swimming. This lake I swam in when I was 12 years old and now I've got my boys swimming with me, special moment.

Kaustinen

Kaustinen is the closet town to Salonkylä.  This is where Jon's grandparent's are buried.  In Finland communities are built around these grand old churches most of which are maintained and are beautiful.

We also found some old photos of Jon when he was christened and when Jon visited Finland last time with his family.

Salonkylä

We spent nearly a week in the little village called Salonkylä where Jon's dad grew up.  

We got to see Eltsi with her fiancé, we're looking forward to see you in Australia soon. xxx

This is people dropping in country style.

We spent a couple of evenings around the fire, in the sauna, swimming in the river, playing mölkky and simply enjoying family time. We would like to give a big thank you to Jaana & Tuomo, Jaakko & Ira and Jenni & Aki, for letting us stay at their place. xxx

Vehl. Järvelä Oy

We visited two of Leo's cousins Juha & Matti along with their wives. The brothers have their summer cottages on a lake with the savusauna on the water which was ready to go when we arrived. They put on the amazing hospitality that finns are famous for, the salmon had been smoked, and the finnish pancakes were cooking when we finished in the sauna. The two brothers run a business out of the their vans and travel around selling their wares to builders and so on. The summer cottages were delivered completely finished inside and out on the back of a lorry, all they had to do was hook up the water and power and then they were ready to put the kettle onto boil.  They are also placed in such a way they can be moved to yet another location. I personally think they are a brilliant idea. They were both decorated country style so I was in my element checking out both of the cottages. Kiitos Matti, Marianne, Juha & Pirkko.

Järvelä

Not many people have a sign of their surname so of course we're going to get a photo of us next to a sign of our surname. Boys wondered if we were famous enough to have a town named after us? 

Juhannus - Midsummer

We experienced the longest night of the year on the 22nd of June.  Juhannus is a night that Finns celebrate, they leave their city dwellings and head to their summer cottages in the country for a long weekend of good food, saunas, spending time with family and friends and making the most of the endless summer nights. The sun doesn't set in northern Finland however where we stayed it set around 11:50pm and rose around 3:00am. Jon and I went for a bike ride after midnight and took some photos after sunset or was it before the sunrise.... The first photo below was at 11:15pm.

Grillimökki

We had the opportunity of eating in a grillimökki, it's owned by Jon's dad's cousin.  We first spent the afternoon walking around his property before heading into the sauna.  There is a spring fed dam which the men and boys walked through a paddock to get to.  Jordan found this very memorable and described how he was going to write about it in his diary. On the property there is cattle farmed, we had a tour of the cattle shed where the smell was a bit too much for some of us. For dinner we entered the grillimökki for dinner.  It is a hut with a fire in which you grill food on.  It was one of the best steaks we'd ever had.