On the move ...

We had to move. No choice. We wouldn't have moved if it had been our choice. But now that we're here, I can see that this was meant for us. It has been a blessing.

It was stressful (that's an understatement) to find 'the next place' once we knew we couldn't stay in the previous rental. It was stressful once we found 'the next place', wondering 'how will it really go?' and 'how will the kids deal with yet another move?' and 'how long will it take to feel settled in?' But almost from the first day here there were positive changes obvious in the kids who were so hard the whole past year. I think there are two major contributing factors. One is that they have friends next door - we share the yard with them, and our boys get along amazingly well with the neighbor boys (we have 5 boys, they have 7.) Of course they craved friendships with someone other than our family. In the previous place, they just didn't seem to get those friends. The other factor is that we are homeschooling - a huge, huge stress taken away when they didn't have to school in yet another new school, and another school in Finnish (I know, we live in Finland so of course they'd go to a Finnish school - but last year was so stressful), and then just public school in general when some of the kids tend to stress easily anyway.)

So we are living in an old, old building. The part we live in is about 130 years old. And it was used as storage before we moved in. So I was a bit overwhelmed when we first came to start cleaning it up ... and quickly realized I have to take it a room at at time. And .... it took lots of elbow grease, lots of soap and water, lots of time, and there is still work to do in the cleaning department (haven't tackled the areas upstairs that we'll use) ... but we're living in here. And it feels like home. For now. All the walls could use painting, and maybe at some time we'll tackle some of them. But since it's not ours, and since it's 'temporary', let's see how much we do in the end.

This house is fun because it has the fun old closets in the bedrooms, it has high ceilings, and old 3-panel doors (some of them are double doors.) There is a fun, unique ceiling in the living/dining/kitchen. There are old windows (might not think they are very neat in the winter, when it's cold out and lots of the cold probably comes in, but ...) There is one exposed log wall in the entry (of course it's a log structure) - and it's log upstairs.

But probably what is the greatest is the friendship in the yard. Their older boys are like big brothers to our older boys who don't really have those older brothers ... there are 3 who are older than our boys, and I think at least in some ways they give that good example for our boys to follow. And then it's so great to have buddies right here. N, T and D seem to spend lots of time with one of their boys, and another joins them quite often. The neighbor boy who is L's age is also buddy to not only L, but really likes to play with K, too - and I think all the kids 'dare' to practice speaking Finn with him. He's a chatterbox, not shy, and not an age where he would laugh if they say something wrong. And then there is C and his little buddy. C speaks English (and now a few words in Finn) and the neighbor boy speaks Swedish more strongly than Finn, but Finn almost fluently. But these two don't seem to have any language barriers. They just get along. They use some of their own language, and maybe a few words in Finn now - but never seem to notice that they don't have a common language. C told me a couple days ago, as he was sitting in may lap in the evening and I was reading books to the kids, "Mom, hurry up and make me sleep so then I can wake up in the morning and play with A." So cute!

We still wonder when will the day come when we can move back to our home in America. But at the same time have to remember to count our blessings. Here A has had lots of work. Here we also enjoy freedom and all the 'needs' in life (food, water, shelter, clothing, etc.) as well as many wants.