made in heaven:-) ... sun rays through the smoke and clouds

a kiss of frost

There was frosty morning today. Around 9 o'clock lawns were still hoary and I took photos of these beauties

Three hours in Kraków - photos from amazing Kraków Old Town

We spent in Kraków only about 3 hours while waiting for train to my hometown Lublin.
These 3 hours were enough to me to get captivated by Kraków Old Town's beauty.
There were zilions of tourists what I expected but this place is really worth seeing.
I share photos taken partly by me and partly by my father Tadeusz.
I know I need to come back there for longer.

The same place in a different time ...

"Fields Of Gold" is a beautiful song by Sting with amazing video about time passing by. 
The video brings to my mind trip to Paris in 1994. It was years before Google and Wikipedia. We had McDonald's Paris free map and lots of places to see. We took metro and stepped off at the station "Bastille". We asked people about Bastille (fortress and the state prison where in 1789 the French Revolution began) as we would like to visit it. We got answers: "It was here, ruined long time ago".
Well, I knew it was destroyed but I was sure it was preserved in some shape.
One man informed us about some remains of Bastille located close to the metro station but as he said 'just few stones not worth walking to see them'.
Another man interfered saying firmly: "Bastille was actually right here. Pieces of its fundations are still to be seen overthere but ... it was exactly here".
Similar situation with the biggest place of Paris, The Place de la Concorde, where during revolution stood guillotine and in only one month over 1300 people were guillotined/beheaded (i.a. king Louis XVI and queen Marie Antoinette). Nowadays thousands of people are walking there everyday without thinking what happened exactly in this place 200 years ago.
Exactly like in the video: same place but in a different time ... Click here to see the video. 
The photos below were taken by Christopher Moloney. He takes photos of the actual locations of famous movie scenes. These two pictures are my favourite ones:

sources: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/11/christopher-moloney-filmography-new-york#/slide=1 http://www.visualnews.com/tag/christopher-moloney/

fuzzy, winter views from the ship ...

Frosty window can be sometimes advantage while taking a photo. I took these photos on the cruise from Stockhom to Helsinki.

strange photo of myself

... actually this is photo of a half of my face and of the whole me with family seen from the above:-)

delights of everyday ... arjen valopilkut

I saw in some Finnish newspaper heading 'arjen valopilkut' what means 'delights of everyday'. Somehow I haven't heard nor seen this expression before. It sounds to me so positive and upbeat. And actually this blog was supposed to focus on this issue. But it's better to learn it now than never:-)
I send few photos showing my recent delights of everyday.
First picture: Tomas with his new friend 'pinkki heppo'. I have no idea why he likes this PINK pony so much:-) 
Below: Tomas surprised that a flower could
grow so much! We got this amaryllis
as a bulb, so his amazement was understandable.

Wide smile of Antoni just before sliding down. It is nice that at least children enjoy such a weather. The more snow the better:-)
... and I would sleep through all the winter if I could.

photo review of busy December

First of all - enjoying  the winter.
It has been snowing almost every day since November ....






 December is time of the Christmas parties (pikkujoulut) and the school Christmas party (koulun joulujuhla)

Antoni wrote a letter to Santa Claus and learned a song for him.

Boys were baking ginger biscuits (piparkakut) and preparing Christmas cards:

 

Antoni in front of the beauftiful Kulosaaren kirkko. In the last photos boys on the Christmas Eve.

The icy gate in Helsinki

I want someone to stop the world

I could name this post "morning coffee part 2" :-)
After long lasting rain, the sun created some funny shadows on the wall. I don't think it results from coffee, it wasn't that hot:-)! Anyhow, it's a bit scary looking in the calendar every morning realizing Christmas time coming so soon again, and the whole new year coming again so soon and really ... is the life around going so fast or maybe I am so slow? 
There's Polish song by Anna Maria Jopek ("Ja wysiadam") with very proper lyrics to my recent feelings:
"I want someone to stop the World
because I’m getting out now,
On the first station – there it is!
I want someone to stop the World
because I’m getting out now,
I don’t want to rush through the life out of breath"

The 1st winter morning in Vantaa ... 26.10.2012

 After beautiful golden autumn, the last Friday's morning seen from our kitchen window looked like that:

... not very encouraging view to go outside. This year change for the winter time came exactly when needed:-)

the painting worth at least 10€ :-)

Antoni came from school today with strong willingness of painting. So he was painting diligently for about 20minutes, and presented to me his masterpiece called 'the Prison'.
Showing the picture he pronouced: 'I guess this painting can be worth at least 10€ :-)

the same maple branch yesterday and today

Ihmeellistä, miten aurinko voi vaikuttaa maisemaan. Sama vaahteranoksa eilen ja tänään.
It's amazing how much the Sun can change ... all around! The same branch of the maple tree yesterday in the darksome morning, and the same branch in the sunny morning today.

the school has started ... koulu on alkanut ...

... My older son started school 2weeks ago ... but his worktable still looks like that:-) He is interested in school, most with mathematics, but I see that transition into school rythm comes little by little ... Vanhempi poikani meni jo kouluun, mutta hänen työpöytänsä näyttää kuin kuvassa. Siis legoja legoja ... Koulu kiinnostaa, eniten matikka, mutta näen että siirtäminen koulun rytmiin ei tapahdu yhdessä päivässä