Petree and Kirkpatricks at play!

What have we been up to?

No, it has not all been travel and having a cocktail in some far off town square...(However, we do hope to soon post our Scandinavian holiday trip photos :) but we are trying to stay active and do as much as we can around our school and work schedules.  

We have traveled to the city of Narva-Joesuu a few times. Located just a few kilometers north of Narva, we take a local bus that is free to travel between these two cities. Narva-Joseuu sits on the Gulf of Finland where the Narva River enters the sea.  Historically a resort town on the gulf, it is still filled with a number vacation homes, year-round residences, and three destination spa-hotels. It is known locally for these spas as well as nature.  

Gulf of Finland 

The forests of Narva-Joesuu

On the coast

Many Narvans travel to Narva-Joseuu to hike through the woods or spend time on the beach. Early this winter we spent an evening in one of the spas. The hotel spas and "water parks" in Estonia have numerous message jet areas, "lazy" rivers and hot tubs that usually run a bit cooler then we are used to in the States.  It was great to spend the evening in this spa - it had steam baths as well as saunas in addition to the various jets in the large pool.  

     

Hiking to the Gulf

As we have mentioned before we live near a nature park area that offers skiing, biking and hiking. Here is a shot of the kids hiking along the boardwalk in the park earlier this fall. Now the woods are snow covered and we went skiing for the first time last weekend! We hope to do it more often, and Don is motivated to get his house chores done in the morning in order to sneak out for a mid-day ski before school lets out!

A night out skiing

Boardwalk in the Narva park

One weekend this past fall we traveled further down the coast to the city of Toila and visited Oru Park. The park has a large estate overlooking the Gulf that has been preserved and converted to a secondary school. The park has a swimming area, harbor, and the stately gardens from the original estate. It boosts a number of tree species planted by the estate owner and they too have been preserved. While a number of battles have been fought in this area - during the war of 1700 as well as WWII,  much of the forest has survived and it was great to walk through the old forest.

Oru Park

Coast in Oru Park

Oru Park

Tallinn

We did take a weekend train ride to the capital city of Tallinn - the nations capital - earlier this fall. We hiked through the old town and saw many of the sights. While walking through the town square we stopped to listen to a local historian and he gave Owen a job - carrying the flag!...Owen enjoyed the position - note to future visitors take a tour: they are free tours and occur twice a day. We learned a lot about the history of Tallinn. Not only do you here the history but we also entered two medieval houses - very cool to see these very old structures!!

In front of a medieval merchant home

Tallinn old town

Owen working!

flag bearer!

Visiting Tartu

Lillian is midway through her orthodontic treatment and this does not take a holiday either. After some searching, we found an orthodontist in the city of Tartu.  Fortunately there is a great coach bus that runs to Tartu daily and the city offers more than just orthodontics. We began traveling to Tartu once a month this past fall for ortho adjustments but we also did two family trips as well. One trip was to celebrate the first weekend of advent and do a bit of shopping and sightseeing. Tartu is also the location of the historical university and is the cultural center of the of the country.  It is a must see location!  

Kids at play

As Owen and Lillian makes friends, they have both been invited to birthday parties, and Lillian has been off to the mall and movies with her friends.  Early in the school year Lillian traveled to Helsinki, Finland to go to an amusement park with her class - it was a bit concerning to her parents as it was early in our stay but it was fun for Lillian as she stayed up all night and then "had" to sleep in the next day:) Owen has been on two school field trips - one with Rhonda as they traveled to the port town of Sillamae to see a performance of The Wizard of OZ  and one with Dad to a museum and waterpark in the town Rakvere. 

Sillamae

Lillian found a volleyball club shortly after the start for the school year. She “trains” (here it is "training," not practice…) at least two times a week.  This has been a great break to the routine and keeps Lillian playing while here so she can continue to play once she returns to the States.  

In addition to volleyball, Lillian has been keeping in touch with her friends from Hudson as well as those she met last summer at the Concordia language camp.  She, of course, does a bit of screen time daily but she has been doing a bit of knitting as well...I think Dad is next in line for a scarf because Mom received one for Christmas!

Owen has tennis training three days a week. It was great to find a tennis club really close to our apartment.  

In addition to gaming and screen-time Owen continues to work with paper, either folding and making designs or creating 3D models. He also flies his micro drone around the apartment (duck!!). Recently, he started to make various things out of air-dry clay. 

While the kids think that Dad simply watches Netflix all day, he does cook, clean and shop...as well :)!!  But to be honest, the lack of square footage allows him to get through a cleaning routine pretty quick. He is relieved that the midterm elections are over but he does spend a fair amount of energy on the political saga that is consuming the US. We hope he can pull away from the news cycle at some point. In addition to work around the house, he finds time to continue his language study and research the history of Narva and Estonia.