Smoking jacket

The jacket has a built-in pair of lungs on the front. As the wearer smokes, the lungs fill up with the exhaled cigarette smoke and begin to gradually darken over time.

Casper

Here is the World's first look at Casper...



What a cutie.

And then there was one

Yesterday, we adopted Casper from DARG. We have now had him and Checkerboard for over a month, and it was time for them to finally have their vaccinations (after battling with illnesses over the past weeks), meaning that they are ready for adoption. We now have to arrange things like rabies jabs, microchips, another vaccination and then a 3 month wait for a blood test before we can fly him up to Finland. We probably won't see him in Helsinki until September.

Checkerboard is leaving us today. She was picked for adoption a week or so ago and the lady will come and take her home this morning after the vaccinations happened yesterday. We will all be sad to see her and her poo-eating go, but we know she had to leave at some point, and the family she is going to seems nice.

In 10 days we have gone from a 3-puppy litter, to just one.

Prom

Prom on Friday was amazing fun. Milja had been very ill during the week but was a bit better and had her hair done (after cancelling and rescheduling her appointments 2 times during the week!) in the afternoon and then it was the cocktail party at Charlottes with parents and some teachers. The school had made it that no alcohol was served at all during the evening, which made the idea of a cocktail party a bit of a joke, but Charlottes mum adapted and we had smoothies and soft drinks, along with a sushi bar (with chef) and nibbles. Everyone was dressed up and Jamie K had a kilt on, great fun.

The Prom itself, at the restaurant, was really good. The place was really well decorated (again by Charlotte's mum!) with red carpet outside and balloons, cards and chips everywhere (casino theme). All the Seniors (Milja's class) and Juniors (next class down) got a pack of cards with a photo of them all on the back of each card. The food was great and at 10pm we all headed upstairs to the bar, where there was dancing and poker and blackjack tables where we could play with fake money. That was fun, but everyone lost : ) Milja and I headed home early at about 11pm cos she still wasnt fully well again, but people stayed until 1.30ish i think, and most got to bed 4am.

All in all it was a perfect, dressed-up evening to signal the end of the year, and for all the guys who are leaving in the next months to have an amazing evening together.

It's time for Prom

Tonight is the Prom for Milja's school. We are starting to get ready now and we are heading off to Charlotte's beforehand for a non-alcoholic cocktail party, thanks to the school. The actual Prom will be held at a very cool restaurant in Greenpoint, Stake, where we have visited before. Great place, quite intimate, with a stylish upstairs where we will party on down after the meal.

Milja has just been to the hairdressers and we have about an hour to put on our fancy gowns and suits ready for the evening.

Countdown

We will be in Finland in a month. We a scheduled to land on June 17th late afternoon. We will have to start soon figuring out how to get all the stuff we have accumulated here back in the sam amount of space we came with. Thankfully Minna and co. will probably be flying to Helsinki in July and so we might be able to leave some things with them.

We only have 4 more Wednesday dinners left (Milja only has 3 because of her trip back to Finland in a few weeks time).

Vanilla

We all miss you.

Sick as a puppy

http://kapkaupunki.blogspot.com/2007/05/sweet-little-vanilla.html

Weekend streaming

Saturday was a day that a lot of Finns had been preparing for and looking forward to - Eurovision! After winning the competition with style last year (with this song by Lordi) it was Finland's turn to host the competition.

We had planned to watch the online stream on both Thursday (semi-final) and the Final on the Saturday, although we had to settle for nothing on Thursday, and then just the Radio 2 coverage on Saturday. We were disappointed with the result and the quality of voting that plagued the scoring yet again, but it was still fun to hear it and experience it down here in Africa.

On Sunday Milja and I planned to watch the Ice Hockey World Championship Final between Finland and Canada online with our Canadian friends, the Lamontagnes (or "Fam Lam" for short). Fred bought the game and had a projector to display the game on a wall in their lounge. Unfortunately the game streams are protected by Windows-only DRM, and as our families have just Macs, we had a slight problem. Mid-way through the first period, Fred and I hurried to Dylan's to borrow his computer so we could watch the game. It was great fun watching with a projector and with supporters of the other team. In the end, and after a ballsy comeback from Finland late in the 3rd period, Canada won 4-2 (3-0, 0-0, 1-2) to become World Champions (again).

Busy, busy

No posts for two weeks?

I have been online seldom in the past few weeks. Here's a short update...

Our first batch of five puppies were big enough to return to DARG at the weekend and are now boarding there. We went to visit them on Monday and already Belle had a home set up for her where she will move next Monday. We were all happy to see one of them move on to a home. Of course, as we left after dropping them up, we managed to pick up another litter, this time a group of four ten-day old puppies needing bottle feeding and help when nature calls. A lot of work. Minna hasn't slept much this week. We still have the second litter, the three small breed dogs, one of which we are keeping and taking with us to Finland (although he will arrive later than us as he has to be cleared for vaccinations and such).

I have been doing a lot of web development and have two new projects going, one of which I am hoping will be a success once we are back in Finland; the other being more of a side project.

Finland are doing OK in the Ice Hockey World Championships this year, and they play USA in the last quarter final in an hour's time. Hoping for a win, but not expecting one. They will play hosts Russia in the semi final if they go through, the only unbeaten team in the competition.

QPR finished their season at the weekend, finishing 18th (of 24). They managed to survive relegation again, and should look to improve the squad and hold on to the manager for consistency - something they haven't had much of in the past two seasons.

On the count down to Finland, we are now just 38 days away from landing in Helsinki. That's just 5 weeks.

Last night, Milja, Mila, one of her friends, and I went to see Hot Fuzz, which was amazing. Very, very funny but twisted in with action, suspence and horror, too. We've heard of people not finding it funny and it being a waste of two hours, but I think it will be one of the best films this year. We all really enjoyed it.