Last Supper

Tonight is the last night of our this year's Australia trip. We're going to have a dinner with Teddy's parents and go bowling afterward. Probably we'll drink too much and miss tomorrow morning's flight. Hopefully not though, 'cause I can't wait to get to my USA home. :)

The last few days have been cloudy and rainy. Though last night was only partly cloudy and we drove up to Adelaide Hills' Mt. Lofty Summit to see the sunset over the city. The view was once again breath taking.






All of you, remember the earth-hour on March 26th at 8:30PM! We'll be watching it above Salt Lake City. :) Where will you be...?


xo,
J & M

Shark attack...

Saturday morning was Tomi's last, and it was time for pancakes! Miko got up before anyone else and prepared a really tasty breakfast. Yummy yummy! :P

After breakfast we had some champagne and a laugh. It was time for Tomi to go, so all of us jumped in a car and drove to the airport. The time at the airport went so fast that Tomi almost missed his flight! After Tomi was safely in the airplane we ran some errands and came home for a lazy night.

Sunday Me, Janina, Kati&Teddy wokeup early to do some surf up, drove about an hour to Middleton. There was lot of people surfing this morning, it was a pretty long beach. So we managed to get some surfable waves and i managed to carve a nice piece of my middle finger and what a colourful little photo we have :) Didn't hurt though so we kept surfing for a while.

Teddy, Kati & Miko

Kati on the board

Teddy on the board

Miko's finger after "shark attack"

Afterwards we headed back, but stopped couple times on the way to get something to eat and some venison meat patties for the BBQ later. After arriving home we started cooking and didn't have half the stuff so had to run to the store to get some, and while there we got an idea with my sis that we should bake a cheesecake so we shopped some more stuff from the grocery store and came back to cook and bake. Once we got home we started to make thai chicken soup, made it in a big pan so it took a while to cook. In the meantimeTeddy was cooking venison burgers on the BBQ. And we got the cheesecake in the oven before we started eating. While waiting for the cake to be ready we watched the movie 127 hours. The cheesecake came out perfect!! After the first movie was done we started the Black Swan.

xo,

J & M

The Reinforcements Leave...

Friday morning Kati and Janina went to drop off Tero,Sanna, little-Eevi and Maija to the airport. It was very emotional to see them go. :( Kati went back to work and Teddy came home with Janina because we had planned a bouldering trip over to the Bachelor's Pad.

Kati came straight from work to the pad and after an hour or so of bouldering we went off to the Scenic Hotel for a dinner. The view from the restaurant was over the city, the sky was clear and the sun was setting.

xo,

J & M

Port Adelaide

Thursday morning we woke up pretty early. Tomi had gone through Adelaide attractions book and seen a neat photo of Port Adelaide, town that none of us hadn't been yet.

We arrived in Port Adelaide around noon, spot on right before the dolphin cruise left. The cruise took 2 hours and we mostly saw only the fins of dolphins, luckily we bought lunch tickets and got something to eat - otherwise the cruise would have been kind of waste of our time.

After the cruise some of us went to see the Marintime Museum and the rest went shopping in PortMall. The mall wasn't the way we thought it would be, there was hardly any stores. The boys and Maija wanted some beer so we headed to a hotel that brewes their own beer. Before getting to the hotel we stopped at different hotel called, Railway hotel. The hotel's bar was empty, bartender stood alone behind the bar and the employee sat outside sipping coffee. Pretty laid-back employer. The bartender, Fredrick or Freddo as we call him, sat us down wanting us to taste different kind of beers, for free. He had beer that has been discontinued, but he had saved some for special occations and somehow we were one. Being the driver, I couldn't drink, so he gave me a bottle to take home. Finnish should learn from that kind of hospitality!

After the beer we Kati&Teddy @ TeaTreePlaza, did some shopping and came home for BBQ. It was the last night of Maija, Sanna, Tero & Eevi, we stayed up late, drank and had fun.

xo,

J & M

Siobhan turns 23 !

Wednesday was cleaning day we all cleaned up Kati & Teddy's place, did some laundry and took a breather and chilled in the backyard during the day. The evening Benen's wife Siobhan had her 23th Birthday. We all went to Modbury Civic park to have a picnic birthday party. We ended up having a lot of food (including feta salad, vanilla cheesecake, all kinds of cup cakes etc..) and even more alcoholic drinks like beer, spirits, white & rose wines.. The evening went past so fast and it started to get cold. Any of us didn't really have that much on, so we were forced to leave. We continued the night at the Heng resident, unfortunately without Siobhan & Benen.

Siobhan & Benen

xo,

J & M

Surf's Up Again !

After the Grampians we all took yet another trip to the beach called Moana on Tuesday. It was a long drive to the beach which turned out to be about as long as to Glenelg. This beach was so much nicer, had a nice cafe close by.

So after couple hours sun bathing, swimming in the waves and trying to surf Janina, Tomi and me went to have lunch pizza and some chicken wraps which were pretty good.

After lunch we want back to sunbathing and let other people to go and have something to eat aswell. After probably two or more hours of even more sunbathing and swimming we decided to head back for the cafe for dinner and wait for the sun set. It was beautiful but a bit cold because the wind. Had to do a small run to keep warm :)

xo,

J & M

@ The Grampians

We headed back to Grampians for the weekend, drove 8hours for a 5.5hour trip. We drove through wicked swarm of locus like a shower of rain, broken windshield wipers didn't help the situation, but we managed allright. Checked in to a nice motel with 6ppl in 2 rooms and 2 more ppl on the way. Our motel room, or Deluxe Cabin as they called it, was pretty nice and spacious. With two single beds and one queen bed, we easily fitted 4 ppl per room. Our friends, Siobhan & Benen, slept over 'cause they weren't able to find a space at the camping ground, Monday is a public holiday in most of the Australia, so surely it was crowded.

Janina tried bouldering for the first time (see picture under) and did really good, looked like a natural climber. She got two problems done on the first day and one is under progress. Miko's feet are bigger than anyone elses', so we couldn't find shoes for him. Which was sad 'cause he would have loved to boulder more. We hopefully will continue to climb and get Janina more strength for bouldering.

On the top after 30 min hike!

HOT

Teddy, Kati & Eevi

Janina almost stumbled into its net..

Mom & dad a.k.a Miko's parents left on Saturday. It was weird to see them go, after having them here for almost a month with us.

"Moi moi mita kuuluu" Teddy says. G'day mates from the land down under. What a pleasure and a challange to have Finns living with us here in Aus. I have to say I have consumed more beer and scotch in the last 3 week then I have in the last two years. I am struggling keep up but am trying to doing my best. I've had so much fun with them all. The Finnish really know how to live life. All the best for the rest of miko's and janina's journey.

^ We love Teddy!

xo,

J & M

Tempt Me

Thursday was the wine tasting day. We hit four different wineries and tasted about 30-40 sparkling, whites, reds, rieslings, ports... The list could go on forever! One of the weirdest, though really good, was a wine called Choc-A-Bloc. Dark chocolate mixed with red wine. Each of the same place's wines has its own story. There are names like Tempt Me, Forgive Me, Three's company, Black Sheep etc..

It's a shame that only a few of the wines are found in Finland. Denmark gets pleanty so, I guess, we just need to make couple of wine trips. ;) It was a nice day and just got nicer once we got home and decided to go downtown to see Kati & Teddy's wedding band perform at Shimmering West. It was nice to get away from the house, listen to music, dance and finally get to drink 'cause I wasn't the designated driver! :)

Friday was once again a beach day! Not much to say.. Sunbathing, playing in the water etc.. The normal stuff.

xo,

J & M

Beach, penguins and RAIN

Monday was a beach day for Miko, Tomi, Maija and me. Rest of our crew went to the city or shopping in a outlet mall. The day was enjoyable, +32 and clear sky for most of the time. After the coulds took over the sky, we decided to hit Teddy's older brother's, Rudy's, restaurant at the pier. View from the restaurant is amazing! If any of you ever get to go to Glenelg in South Australia, you should definitely go and enjoy the food, service and view at Lido.

Wednesday was kind of cloudy day, so we drove down to Victor Harbour to see little penguins and really nice views. The day was windy and the penguins were so cute! Got home on the same night, just to get ready for next day's wine tastings in Barossa Valley.

Meeting with the wildlife

2 weeks left in Australia.

still longway to go ;)

did first topless pics of Janina and they turned out GREAT! Topless meaning 2 bottle caps covering essentials. :) We've been hitting the beach as much as possible, there's still a long way to go to the "goal-tan". :D

The days have been filled with stuff to do and things to see. On Sunday we went to Cleland Wildlife Park. It was awesome to walk among the wildlife, feed the kangaroos and hold a koala in my arms. Spent the whole day there walking around and enjoying the stress free feeling.

xo,

J & M