It is always interesting on our walk on Monday mornings to notice how much more
the flowers have grown or blossomed. The lupine is in full bloom!
Lupine is not native to Finland and it is considered an invasive species, but it sure is pretty!
They are doing some construction work near the school, and have torn out some of the rose bushes. The ones that are still there had blossoms starting to fully open on Monday. We took another picture on Wednesday because even more were now fully open. Monday is on the right and Wednesday on the left.
We noticed these little plants that look like miniature trees.
An area of field that was covered by yellow dandelions last week is now full of white fluff balls.
I had some things that needed to be done at the apartment on Wednesday morning, so Steve went to the office and I came a little bit later. I always enjoy seeing the little daycare kids out for an excursion.
Tuesday evening, we had to get some grocery shopping done and get the apartment cleaned up for guests later in the week. Steve was able to still go over and help Elder Kite at Pelican loading up furniture and supplies to open a new apartment.
Our summer is going by fast already and there are many things that we would like to see that are open only in the summer. We decided that we would drive to Hanko for the day, about a 1.5 hour drive.
On Wednesday, we noticed that the grasses and flowers in the field are getting taller.
This shows the yellow and white flowers that are in this area.
We noticed this little path and wondered if it is made by people walking or
perhaps this is the path that the fox walks along. We saw the fox again this past week.
They will be a great office couple.
Friday evening there was a baptism in Haaga.
On Thursday evening we had Pres. and Sis. Lehtinen and the Taylors come to our apartment for dinner. The Taylors are the couple that will be coming to replace us in December. They came to Finland on a trip and wanted to meet us and the Lehtinens in person. We thought they might also like to see the apartment that they will be living in. We forgot to take a picture while everyone was here,
but we did get a selfie in front of our apartment building.
On Friday we noticed how tall the ferns are getting. The little yellow flowers in front of them look cute.
The Taylors came to the office on Friday morning. We enjoyed showing them around and talking about some of the things that they might want to work on learning in their mentoring and at the MTC.
We enjoyed talking to Taika, the sweet teenage girl who was baptized.
It looked like there was a good chance of rain in the Espoo area,
but it looked like Hanko was supposed to be mostly sunny.
Hanko is the southern most city of continental Finland.
We found the parking lot and the nature path that leads to the southernmost point.
There was a marker there, but it was no longer legible.
We stopped at a picnic table to enjoy the view and eat the snacks we had brought with us.
The hike back went a lot faster, but it was too long! I was ready to be done when we got about 1/3 of the way back. We were glad we went, but we were exhausted by the time we got back to the car!
The path is about 3.5 km one way. Part was through forested area.
And other parts were right along the sea coast.
It was a beautiful day for a hike. It was nice and cool.
I think that it was in the low 50s when we started, and a jacket felt good.
At one point, we started noticing swans swimming past us.
Finally, we made it to the southernmost tip!
They just kept coming. We could see in the distance lots of white dots on the water
and as we got closer we could see that they were swans. 
There were also old buildings that were decaying and falling apart. 
The views were amazing.
There were interesting things to see all along the way.
As we got to the tip, the hike was across rock. The path was marked by poles.
The hike to get to the tip took us a lot longer than we thought.
It was also a lot more difficult to walk over the rock than it looks.
Can you find the pole marking the path?
We ate our lunch in the car and then headed to a museum that we wanted to see.
We went to the Frontline Museum. We were just starting when a large group of military cadets came. We decided to go see the bunker, which was about 4km away first and then come back.
We went to the Frontline Museum. We were just starting when a large group of military cadets came. We decided to go see the bunker, which was about 4km away first and then come back.
We were glad that we went to see the bunker. It was all very interesting.
The door into the bunker.
There were several rooms. This was for accommodations, with several bunks.
There was the artillery room. When they reloaded, there were be toxic gas, so they had face masks connected to pipes that allowed them to breathe fresh air.
We went back to the frontline museum and spent time looking at the exhibits and learning more about Hanko and what happened there during the wars in the late 30's early 40's.
The machine gun room also had face masks. Steve wanted to try it out.
We walked down a path to the tank obstacle.
The tank obstacle stretches about 6 km across the Hanko peninsula. These huge rocks have an average weight of 3500kg. In soft ground they were dug 1 meter into the ground.
On solid ground they were attached with steel bar into the bedrock.
They were placed in 3 lines and the entire obstacle consists of more than 10,000 rocks.
On the path this frog or toad was out sunning himself.
We did not take any pictures there.
We drove back home and were totally exhausted!
Sunrise/sunset times Sunday 9 June 2024
Espoo Finland 3:58am to 10:43pm for 18 hrs 45 min of daylight.
Provo Utah 5:56 to 8:55 for 14 hrs 59 min of daylight.
No comments:
Post a Comment