My Trip of a Lifetime Aug3-15, 1998
I won't go into how it came about, but I finally made it back to the Motherland, Finland, and partcularly, Oulu, Finland. My Mom had come here in 1923 as a young single lady who wasn't all that anxious to get uprooted from the place she loved. I'm sure many times she wanted to return and a couple of times actually planned her return, but it was never to be. So it seemed even more imperative that my brother and I were to go there.
So I flew to New York, met up with my sister-in-law, brother, their eldest daughter and her boyfriend and we embarked on our most momentous trip. Right off the bat I should express my extreme gratitude to our cousin's daughter, Leena, for all the arrangements she made for us to see so much of Finland, meet all our relatives and just to have a great time. She must have spent untold hours planning and arranging everything. I'll always be grateful to you, Leena.
We had a fun flight, and I'm not usually that fond of flying anymore. In trying to arrange special seating for my sister-in-law, we all got "bumped" up to first class. If you have never traveled that way there are some nice little perks to help make the trip enjoyable. Plus my silly brother and I got into a laughing jag over a couple of comments we made to each other about what our departed brother, Herb, would of thought of some aspect of our first class treatment until everyone else were about to disown us. Gus, Barb and I were lodged at the home of my cousin Antero (Antii) and Anneli. Lucy and Jim stayed with my cousin, Leena and her family about a block away. I went loaded down with a huge backpack and two suitcases. Jim had one small back-pack. These young people really know how to travel light. The first thing that struck me is that there and at every home we visited, everyone took their shoes off at the entry. I thought that was just a Japanese custom, but at least in our family, they didn't want to soil their beautiful wood floors. The first thing I have always done when I walk in my own house is take off my shoes - just that my feet always hurt I guess in my shoes and I always want to make myself as comfortable as possible. But I thought it was just me and I was surprised that others followed the same custom.
The sequence of places we visited and things we did in Oulu is not necessarily in the sequence that we did them. Most of the places we visited , we were accompanied by Antero and Anneli, their daughter, Leena, (our official guide), also our cousins Liisa, Leena and her husband, Jussi, and our cousin Pentii and his wife Laina(Now we affectinately refer to each other as veli and sisar). Also on some of the trips our other English Guide, Santeri, the ten year old grandson of Leena and Jussi. He had taught himself English by watching old Anerican Western Cowboy movies which they got on TV with subtitles in Finnish. He spoke very good English.. Most of the Finnish students take at least one other language in school, but he had not started on that yet.
One of the first stops was a visit to the Oulu Cemetery where our Grandma's grave site(Maria Kiiskila) is located as well as a lot of other family members. It was almost familiar to me as I had seen pictures of it before,but it was very well maintained with an abundance of red geraniums present at many of the grave sites. A guided tour by the 'principal' had been arranged at the school that my Mom attended as a child on Koulakatu St. (School St). The school is still in operation today, but serves students that have special needs. Then we visited the main area of Oulu and the Market Place which I had always heard so much about as it was probably visited every day for the family's needs. We saw beautiful strawberries on display there - they came from California. It really is an international world nowadays, maybe always was. I remember my Mom telling me that back in her days, most of the meat came from Argentina. After that we dispersed on our own for a couple of hours.
My Mom also grew up on Koulakatu St. (School St)#35 and it was only a short walk there from the Market. I knew that the place she lived was no longer there, but it still was nice to get a sense of her having been right there and then I traced the trip she would have made up to her school and then a little further to the Oulu Cathedral she would have attended. On the winter time she would ski to school. I suppose everyone in Finland does cross country skiiing to this day even if a lot of commuting is by auto. The beautiful Cathedral had just recently been renovated so looked in pristine condition and there was a nice young man on duty there to attend to 'tourists' like me, although I seemed to be the only one visiting there at that time. The state religion of Finland was and is today, Lutheranism, although a lot probably do not attend church. It was the church's job to keep the records of births, deaths, census, etc.
When we all got back together, we took a tour on the Potnapekka(miniature train tour) that included a stop half-way at Nallikari Beach, a nice wide sandy beach right there in Oulu. I particularly remember passing one area where Antero pointed out the homesite of the Store family. Antero and I started corresponding years ago when we were searching for my grandfather, Kiiskila, who had come to America in 1905 and then never heard from again after 1910. Antero was doing the genealogy searching in Oulu and we came to find out that my Great Grandmother was Vilhelmina Store and had come from Stockholm to Oulu. Pretty much of a shock for my Mom to find out she was 1/4th part Swedish.
Cousin Antii worked at the University of Oulu in some capacity involving the testing of the water. The Oulu River was at one time very polluted as it was the main tributary for the extensive logging industry for years. There must have come a time when strict codes were enforced to restore the river so I believe that was the area that was concentrated on the water testing he was involved . Thus we had a tour of the University and I, of course, took great interest in the Botanical Gardens located there. We also visited the City Art Museum, Taidemusea, a beautiful building inside that nicely displayed an impressive art collection.
While staying at Antero and Anneli's home I learned for the first time that they were both very musically gifted. Antero has been playing the Cello for many years (I got the music room as my guest bedroom) and think they both played the piano. They both also sang with the Oulu Chorus for many years. Antero had the real wood burning sauna so we had that special treat on Wednesday and Saturday nights. I liked that almost as much as a Jacuzzi. In that respect I don't think that was much of a treat for my Mom - she always made it sound like a kid here who hates to take his bath. They would go regularly to the city sauna and mostly what she talked about was her Mother dumping a pail of water on her head. They put on a big breakfast - had all the things we have for breakfast like fruit, juices, cereal but then also all the things we would associate with lunch like deli meat, boiled eggs and fixings for sandwiches. Then that way lunch was not a big affair - maybe more like stopping someplace for an ice cream cone. Leena had arranged for us to meet so many of the immediate relatives by visiting their homes and at each one we were treated to rich deserts usually things like strawberry short cake with whip cream - a wonder we didn't all gain pounds. Leena had also arranged a reunion that included all the families, the cousins, their children, and grandchildren and folks came from all over Finland to attend. It was rather overwhelming, but delightful, to meet everyone. They had rented a large hall, called Oulun Salo, on the outskirts of town. After all the festivities inside, we also had sauna in a separate building in back right on the beach at the North Baltic Sea. The sauna building also had a comfortable living area, a good supply of beer, a porch to relax on after the sauna, followed by a swim in the Baltic Sea.
All the cousins. Front row from left; Laila, Liisa Hiltunen, Leena Hilli, Aarne Aitto-oja(all children of Aunt Fanny. Back row; me, Antero Aitto-oja, brother Gus, Juhani and Pentii Kiiskila (sons of Uncle Karl). Missing was Eero Kiiskila who was living at time, but unable to attend because of ill health.
One afternoon and evening we got shipped off to cousin Pentii and Laina's home to visit with their family. We gourged ourselves on Pizza and then Laina brought out another big beautiful strawberry shortcake covered with whipped cream and decorated with strawberries. This time it wasn't just Gus and I but also Barb, Lucy and Jim who got hysterical about all this food that was coming our way.
From left to right: niece Lucy and now husband Jim, Antero's daughter, Leena, sis-in-law Barbara, Antero's son-in-law Seppo and daughter, Tuula, wife Anneli and Antero
On the first weekend in Oulu we traveled north to Rovaniemi to vist Antero's daughter and son-in-law, Tuula and Seppo. On our way we had a brief stop in Haparanda, Sweden so I could add that to the countries I have visited. Tuula served a special Lapland luncheon that included onion pie and salmon casserole. Then there was a visit to their beautiful new city crossing over their modern bridge and visiting the Museum, Artikum - The Arctic Centre, The Provisional Museum of Lapland. I had no idea until I visited there, that during the Big War, Germany occupied the city. As the Russians were advancing, the German's retreated burning the entire city. There were only a few buidings remaining. They had wreaked so much devastation on the peoples of this area. needless to say, even to this day there are many in the area that have a very low esteem of the Germans. It must have been a terrible hardship for the people left without anything and the pictures of the time are haunting. But it rose from the ashes and today is a modern city. The next morning we set out for the town where Santa Claus lives - Napapiiri. Besides Santa's home, there were also restaurants, gift shops and that is right where the Arctic Circle is located so the most memorable thing for me was to stand on the line marking that place. Also got my first look at live reindeer there - they were pretty ragged looking. I figured at the time it must have been the mosquitos as they looked half eaten up - the mosquitos are fierce there. I have a T-shirt with large Mosquitos pictured and captioned Mosquitos - The Finnish Air Force. But maybe they have a molting season.
Anneli and I standing on the Arctic Circle. Anneli sang like an angel. She had a lovely lilting voice and was always so effervescent. We lost her recently.From her demeanor one would not know the years of suffering she must have endured with her health problems.
Tuula and Seppo returned to Oulu with us to spend more time together. That was so nice as I feel so close to them all. Leena's companion had a big speed boat so we got to ride the Oulu River. Along the Oulujoki(river) we saw people at rafts along the shoreline standing in large steel cans that were submerged mostly in the water. They were washing their cotton rugs and stood in the cans so they didn't have to bend over. Of course they used an environmentally safe sudsing agent. Leena told me it had become a custom and she and Tuula had done it. Our destination was a visit to the Open-Air Museum at Turkansaari (Island) where there was a wooden church from the 17th century and other old farm buidings to visit. I have pictures of Seppo and Jim walking on a pair of stilts. Seppo did well, but Jim could only go backwards. I remember as a kid walking with them over on Market St with ease. Don't know whose they were, but at my age at time of visit, I wasn't even about to attempt it.
Another day we loaded up two cars and headed south to Karvoskyla, near Nivala, to visit the home of my grandmother and great- grandparents. Antero's father also came from there. Antero's mother, Aunt Fanny, spent a lot of time there with her grandparents and got to know Antero's father, Juho,there. So he took many trips back there to visit relatives and family on both sides. We stopped first in Nivala to visit the Church there where my great grandparents attended and the cemetery next to the church where they and my Great Aunt Lyddia are buried. I'm not sure how often my great Grandmother attended church as she had an eye gouged out and left blinded probably sometime early on in her married life. My Mom only spent one summer there, but to hear her you would have thought it was very frequently as it made such an impression on her and she had a lot of stories about that experience. So when my Mom was there, Grandpa took them to church and he read the Bible to Grandma. Grandpa was deaf so they made the perfect couple. he apparently was the greatest of guys - always happy, always cherry. Practically next door is the Nivala Museum which we also visited. It features a lot of the work by the sculpture Kalervo Kallio.There is also a portrait there of my great grandmother, Anna Yliniemi , wearing a kerchief and smoking her pipe. Mom told me that her grandfather grew two patches of tobacco as apparently they each had their own preferences as to tobacco. Since my Mom wasn't much of a farm girl, she was designated to work in the house and take care of Grandma. Mom couldn't get over how, even though she was blind, she could tell where my Mom missed a spot when sweeping the floor. Then she spoke of leading her out to the fence where she leaned on it and smoked her pipe and told my Mom to get "lost" for awhile.
Then it was on to Karvoskyla and to the home of our hosts there, Anna Liisa and Erkii. They have been family friends for years . All the homes in the area have names and their's is Ronkainen. It was there that I noticed that all houses - all buildings even multiple story buidings in the cities, have outside ladders attached to the buildings that lead to the roofs. Apparently it is a federal law and code that every buiding be so equipped. All places in Finland were wooden structures, they must have had a long history of building fires so this was a precaution to help the fire fighters when the need arose.After a lovely meal there, Anna Liisa led our contingent about a half mile back into the woods, passing a stuffed eagle serving as a scarecrow protecting a strawberry bed and an old junk truck which I don't know how it got out in that rough terrain, to an opening where my great grandparent's home, known as Pienela was standing. It is a cute red-sided wooden two room house with a a few stairs leading up to a little entry way. I'm not sure how long my great grandparents lived there. They were tenant farmers on nearby place and built this house as their retirement home on their property. My Great Aunt Lyddia cared for them in their old years and lived most of her adult life here. One more stop on our trip at the home of Aune and Erkii Sorvala's, cousins of Antero where we feasted on some more strawberry short cake and whipped creme. He had an old outbuilding that he had paneled entirely on the inside with white pine for his grandaughters. It was a beautiful job. Erkii was the only one I encountered in our visits who also enjoyed a smoke and I think he was pleased when I gave him my American cigarettes. Driving back to Oulu we saw several rainbows and tried chasing them down to find the pot of gold at the end. Somehow I just took it as a sign of our good luck to have had this wonderful opportunity.
Pretty little cottage with red siding in the middle of an open area. Mom always said it would be a good place to go and hide out as no one would ever find you back there. It is now owned by an American, but was told he hadn't visited in awhile.
Barbara, Jim, Lucy, and Antero. Jim and Lucy are standing in front of the door to the bedroom. My folks were little people maybe like hobbits?
Until next time, stay safe out there and Have a Happy, Dave
With August just around the corner I'll leave you with a calendar I created with Flickr Toys.
So I flew to New York, met up with my sister-in-law, brother, their eldest daughter and her boyfriend and we embarked on our most momentous trip. Right off the bat I should express my extreme gratitude to our cousin's daughter, Leena, for all the arrangements she made for us to see so much of Finland, meet all our relatives and just to have a great time. She must have spent untold hours planning and arranging everything. I'll always be grateful to you, Leena.
We had a fun flight, and I'm not usually that fond of flying anymore. In trying to arrange special seating for my sister-in-law, we all got "bumped" up to first class. If you have never traveled that way there are some nice little perks to help make the trip enjoyable. Plus my silly brother and I got into a laughing jag over a couple of comments we made to each other about what our departed brother, Herb, would of thought of some aspect of our first class treatment until everyone else were about to disown us. Gus, Barb and I were lodged at the home of my cousin Antero (Antii) and Anneli. Lucy and Jim stayed with my cousin, Leena and her family about a block away. I went loaded down with a huge backpack and two suitcases. Jim had one small back-pack. These young people really know how to travel light. The first thing that struck me is that there and at every home we visited, everyone took their shoes off at the entry. I thought that was just a Japanese custom, but at least in our family, they didn't want to soil their beautiful wood floors. The first thing I have always done when I walk in my own house is take off my shoes - just that my feet always hurt I guess in my shoes and I always want to make myself as comfortable as possible. But I thought it was just me and I was surprised that others followed the same custom.
The sequence of places we visited and things we did in Oulu is not necessarily in the sequence that we did them. Most of the places we visited , we were accompanied by Antero and Anneli, their daughter, Leena, (our official guide), also our cousins Liisa, Leena and her husband, Jussi, and our cousin Pentii and his wife Laina(Now we affectinately refer to each other as veli and sisar). Also on some of the trips our other English Guide, Santeri, the ten year old grandson of Leena and Jussi. He had taught himself English by watching old Anerican Western Cowboy movies which they got on TV with subtitles in Finnish. He spoke very good English.. Most of the Finnish students take at least one other language in school, but he had not started on that yet.
One of the first stops was a visit to the Oulu Cemetery where our Grandma's grave site(Maria Kiiskila) is located as well as a lot of other family members. It was almost familiar to me as I had seen pictures of it before,but it was very well maintained with an abundance of red geraniums present at many of the grave sites. A guided tour by the 'principal' had been arranged at the school that my Mom attended as a child on Koulakatu St. (School St). The school is still in operation today, but serves students that have special needs. Then we visited the main area of Oulu and the Market Place which I had always heard so much about as it was probably visited every day for the family's needs. We saw beautiful strawberries on display there - they came from California. It really is an international world nowadays, maybe always was. I remember my Mom telling me that back in her days, most of the meat came from Argentina. After that we dispersed on our own for a couple of hours.
My Mom also grew up on Koulakatu St. (School St)#35 and it was only a short walk there from the Market. I knew that the place she lived was no longer there, but it still was nice to get a sense of her having been right there and then I traced the trip she would have made up to her school and then a little further to the Oulu Cathedral she would have attended. On the winter time she would ski to school. I suppose everyone in Finland does cross country skiiing to this day even if a lot of commuting is by auto. The beautiful Cathedral had just recently been renovated so looked in pristine condition and there was a nice young man on duty there to attend to 'tourists' like me, although I seemed to be the only one visiting there at that time. The state religion of Finland was and is today, Lutheranism, although a lot probably do not attend church. It was the church's job to keep the records of births, deaths, census, etc.
When we all got back together, we took a tour on the Potnapekka(miniature train tour) that included a stop half-way at Nallikari Beach, a nice wide sandy beach right there in Oulu. I particularly remember passing one area where Antero pointed out the homesite of the Store family. Antero and I started corresponding years ago when we were searching for my grandfather, Kiiskila, who had come to America in 1905 and then never heard from again after 1910. Antero was doing the genealogy searching in Oulu and we came to find out that my Great Grandmother was Vilhelmina Store and had come from Stockholm to Oulu. Pretty much of a shock for my Mom to find out she was 1/4th part Swedish.
Cousin Antii worked at the University of Oulu in some capacity involving the testing of the water. The Oulu River was at one time very polluted as it was the main tributary for the extensive logging industry for years. There must have come a time when strict codes were enforced to restore the river so I believe that was the area that was concentrated on the water testing he was involved . Thus we had a tour of the University and I, of course, took great interest in the Botanical Gardens located there. We also visited the City Art Museum, Taidemusea, a beautiful building inside that nicely displayed an impressive art collection.
While staying at Antero and Anneli's home I learned for the first time that they were both very musically gifted. Antero has been playing the Cello for many years (I got the music room as my guest bedroom) and think they both played the piano. They both also sang with the Oulu Chorus for many years. Antero had the real wood burning sauna so we had that special treat on Wednesday and Saturday nights. I liked that almost as much as a Jacuzzi. In that respect I don't think that was much of a treat for my Mom - she always made it sound like a kid here who hates to take his bath. They would go regularly to the city sauna and mostly what she talked about was her Mother dumping a pail of water on her head. They put on a big breakfast - had all the things we have for breakfast like fruit, juices, cereal but then also all the things we would associate with lunch like deli meat, boiled eggs and fixings for sandwiches. Then that way lunch was not a big affair - maybe more like stopping someplace for an ice cream cone. Leena had arranged for us to meet so many of the immediate relatives by visiting their homes and at each one we were treated to rich deserts usually things like strawberry short cake with whip cream - a wonder we didn't all gain pounds. Leena had also arranged a reunion that included all the families, the cousins, their children, and grandchildren and folks came from all over Finland to attend. It was rather overwhelming, but delightful, to meet everyone. They had rented a large hall, called Oulun Salo, on the outskirts of town. After all the festivities inside, we also had sauna in a separate building in back right on the beach at the North Baltic Sea. The sauna building also had a comfortable living area, a good supply of beer, a porch to relax on after the sauna, followed by a swim in the Baltic Sea.
All the cousins. Front row from left; Laila, Liisa Hiltunen, Leena Hilli, Aarne Aitto-oja(all children of Aunt Fanny. Back row; me, Antero Aitto-oja, brother Gus, Juhani and Pentii Kiiskila (sons of Uncle Karl). Missing was Eero Kiiskila who was living at time, but unable to attend because of ill health.
One afternoon and evening we got shipped off to cousin Pentii and Laina's home to visit with their family. We gourged ourselves on Pizza and then Laina brought out another big beautiful strawberry shortcake covered with whipped cream and decorated with strawberries. This time it wasn't just Gus and I but also Barb, Lucy and Jim who got hysterical about all this food that was coming our way.
From left to right: niece Lucy and now husband Jim, Antero's daughter, Leena, sis-in-law Barbara, Antero's son-in-law Seppo and daughter, Tuula, wife Anneli and Antero
On the first weekend in Oulu we traveled north to Rovaniemi to vist Antero's daughter and son-in-law, Tuula and Seppo. On our way we had a brief stop in Haparanda, Sweden so I could add that to the countries I have visited. Tuula served a special Lapland luncheon that included onion pie and salmon casserole. Then there was a visit to their beautiful new city crossing over their modern bridge and visiting the Museum, Artikum - The Arctic Centre, The Provisional Museum of Lapland. I had no idea until I visited there, that during the Big War, Germany occupied the city. As the Russians were advancing, the German's retreated burning the entire city. There were only a few buidings remaining. They had wreaked so much devastation on the peoples of this area. needless to say, even to this day there are many in the area that have a very low esteem of the Germans. It must have been a terrible hardship for the people left without anything and the pictures of the time are haunting. But it rose from the ashes and today is a modern city. The next morning we set out for the town where Santa Claus lives - Napapiiri. Besides Santa's home, there were also restaurants, gift shops and that is right where the Arctic Circle is located so the most memorable thing for me was to stand on the line marking that place. Also got my first look at live reindeer there - they were pretty ragged looking. I figured at the time it must have been the mosquitos as they looked half eaten up - the mosquitos are fierce there. I have a T-shirt with large Mosquitos pictured and captioned Mosquitos - The Finnish Air Force. But maybe they have a molting season.
Anneli and I standing on the Arctic Circle. Anneli sang like an angel. She had a lovely lilting voice and was always so effervescent. We lost her recently.From her demeanor one would not know the years of suffering she must have endured with her health problems.
Tuula and Seppo returned to Oulu with us to spend more time together. That was so nice as I feel so close to them all. Leena's companion had a big speed boat so we got to ride the Oulu River. Along the Oulujoki(river) we saw people at rafts along the shoreline standing in large steel cans that were submerged mostly in the water. They were washing their cotton rugs and stood in the cans so they didn't have to bend over. Of course they used an environmentally safe sudsing agent. Leena told me it had become a custom and she and Tuula had done it. Our destination was a visit to the Open-Air Museum at Turkansaari (Island) where there was a wooden church from the 17th century and other old farm buidings to visit. I have pictures of Seppo and Jim walking on a pair of stilts. Seppo did well, but Jim could only go backwards. I remember as a kid walking with them over on Market St with ease. Don't know whose they were, but at my age at time of visit, I wasn't even about to attempt it.
Another day we loaded up two cars and headed south to Karvoskyla, near Nivala, to visit the home of my grandmother and great- grandparents. Antero's father also came from there. Antero's mother, Aunt Fanny, spent a lot of time there with her grandparents and got to know Antero's father, Juho,there. So he took many trips back there to visit relatives and family on both sides. We stopped first in Nivala to visit the Church there where my great grandparents attended and the cemetery next to the church where they and my Great Aunt Lyddia are buried. I'm not sure how often my great Grandmother attended church as she had an eye gouged out and left blinded probably sometime early on in her married life. My Mom only spent one summer there, but to hear her you would have thought it was very frequently as it made such an impression on her and she had a lot of stories about that experience. So when my Mom was there, Grandpa took them to church and he read the Bible to Grandma. Grandpa was deaf so they made the perfect couple. he apparently was the greatest of guys - always happy, always cherry. Practically next door is the Nivala Museum which we also visited. It features a lot of the work by the sculpture Kalervo Kallio.There is also a portrait there of my great grandmother, Anna Yliniemi , wearing a kerchief and smoking her pipe. Mom told me that her grandfather grew two patches of tobacco as apparently they each had their own preferences as to tobacco. Since my Mom wasn't much of a farm girl, she was designated to work in the house and take care of Grandma. Mom couldn't get over how, even though she was blind, she could tell where my Mom missed a spot when sweeping the floor. Then she spoke of leading her out to the fence where she leaned on it and smoked her pipe and told my Mom to get "lost" for awhile.
Then it was on to Karvoskyla and to the home of our hosts there, Anna Liisa and Erkii. They have been family friends for years . All the homes in the area have names and their's is Ronkainen. It was there that I noticed that all houses - all buildings even multiple story buidings in the cities, have outside ladders attached to the buildings that lead to the roofs. Apparently it is a federal law and code that every buiding be so equipped. All places in Finland were wooden structures, they must have had a long history of building fires so this was a precaution to help the fire fighters when the need arose.After a lovely meal there, Anna Liisa led our contingent about a half mile back into the woods, passing a stuffed eagle serving as a scarecrow protecting a strawberry bed and an old junk truck which I don't know how it got out in that rough terrain, to an opening where my great grandparent's home, known as Pienela was standing. It is a cute red-sided wooden two room house with a a few stairs leading up to a little entry way. I'm not sure how long my great grandparents lived there. They were tenant farmers on nearby place and built this house as their retirement home on their property. My Great Aunt Lyddia cared for them in their old years and lived most of her adult life here. One more stop on our trip at the home of Aune and Erkii Sorvala's, cousins of Antero where we feasted on some more strawberry short cake and whipped creme. He had an old outbuilding that he had paneled entirely on the inside with white pine for his grandaughters. It was a beautiful job. Erkii was the only one I encountered in our visits who also enjoyed a smoke and I think he was pleased when I gave him my American cigarettes. Driving back to Oulu we saw several rainbows and tried chasing them down to find the pot of gold at the end. Somehow I just took it as a sign of our good luck to have had this wonderful opportunity.
Pretty little cottage with red siding in the middle of an open area. Mom always said it would be a good place to go and hide out as no one would ever find you back there. It is now owned by an American, but was told he hadn't visited in awhile.
Barbara, Jim, Lucy, and Antero. Jim and Lucy are standing in front of the door to the bedroom. My folks were little people maybe like hobbits?
Until next time, stay safe out there and Have a Happy, Dave
With August just around the corner I'll leave you with a calendar I created with Flickr Toys.
posted by Dave at 8:09 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home