Puuhamaa, Tervakoski, Finland

Puuhamaa is interesting amusement park among all kind of amusement parks in Finland or where ever you enjoy amusement parks. Puuhamaa is pretty close what comes to Helsinki and Espoo, but far enough so you really need to decided to go there, because driving is about 100 km from Helsinki, so in that sense you just dont pop up there.

We had pretty good opportunity to visit here with kids (Lassi + Laura), because (loooong story), godmother (kummitäti) of Laura is Miia.... She has boyfriend called Antti, and Antti is working with the company.... and so on.... but anyway, we got invitation from them and we were pretty proud about the possibility to visit in Puuhamaa, because kids has never ever been visiter there. So, in that sense, we spent one day in Puuhamaa... In the picture, Antti is sitting in the back of the boat, Laura is sitting in the front and Antti's son is actually driving the boat. One interesting incident was there, that from two girls, who were in the middle of small lake, the strearing wheel get broken, so they started to go round and round and round....almost eternity loop.... they had fun, parents were worried and personnel tried to get them back to the ground :-)

Laura, the little helping hand

She is amazing.... I mean my daughter. After eating something for lunch, she asked me to join to sliding place.... I said my butt is probably too big for that (actually I tested the safety of sliding hill with her as good parent probably should do) and then I said that you can do it for yourself, because I am too tired, lazy and big for that fun. I will wait and cheer to you from the ground, ok?

Well, that was probably good approach for my fearless princess, who always managed to amaze me about what she dares to say, speak and act. So, she was able to do over and over again....then some totally stranger guy come next to me and started to smile to me... I watched him thinking that one more smile and he can smile while sitting.... then he asked, that is that little daredevil my daughter and he was pointing my daughter.... I said that yes, she is, what she has done now?

- No, no.... I mean she was so sweet... my son didnt dare to slide down, but your daugter took his hand and said: "lets go"

- Let's go?, I asked as confused

- Yep... She was so determined and fearless, that my son is now sliding with her, hand in hand

- Really? Laura does surprise me time to time...really.....

- Well....you can be proud of her, said the other father

.... So I asked that from Laura later on and she said, that the boy was so afraid, that pushed by parents, so she decided to help the whole family by encourage boy first to slide with her, just like I was doing with Laura, and then they did it to the next tracks.... so in that sense she did good helping hand.

Butterfly collecting "thing" found

Dear Diary,

16-07-2006 was a day for little trip. Our house is located near park. That part of park what is next to our house, doesnt have paths neither it is very easy to walk, so in that sense it is more or less bushes and jungle with all kind of difficulties to walk. Anyway, we walked there and fighted agains difficulties during this beautiful summer day and end result was, that when you are struggling enough, some times landscape will be more and more easygoing and in the middle of deep forest you can found all kind of interesting things, like for example butterfly collecting boxes, like here with Laura.

Results of Kuutamo Open

1. Pöllä, Jaakko.....................44+38 = 82
2. Salosaari, Juha...................42+37 = 79
3. Mäkikangas, Martti................40+38 = 78
4. Savela, Miikka....................35+40 = 75
5. Torvi, Hannu......................36+38 = 74
6. Kanerva, Heikki...................37+33 = 70
7. Hämeen-Anttila,Tapio..............31+37 = 68
8. Reinikainen, Tapio................35+32 = 67
9. Kumpulainen, Sami.................37+29 = 66
10. Jämsä, Erkki......................33+31 = 64
11. Kojola, Tuomo.....................33+30 = 63
12. Takanen, Janne....................32+30 = 62
13. Havisto, Hannu-Pekka..............28+33 = 61
14. Takanen, Mika.....................31+30 = 61
15. Isokääntä, Janne..................28+31 = 59
16. Isokääntä, Ilkka..................30+29 = 59
17. Luukkainen, Raimo.................27+31 = 58
18. Havisto, Hannu....................27+30 = 57
19. Näsälä, Leevi.....................31+24 = 55
20. Niemi, Jari.......................28+25 = 53
21. Koskenkorva, Vilho................27+23 = 50

Kuutamo Open, Nivala

During the spring, my dear friend Raimo Luukkainen (Rami, Rampe, Raymond) said, that isn't it shame, that this far we have been about six years members of golf club NSG (Nivalan Seudun Golf), but we haven't visit in our home club yet. I thought a little bit about that and I decided, that he is right! It defenetly is shame.
Then we decided, that well, we need to do something about it. NSG golf course, Hopea-Golf ("Silver-Golf") is located South from the Oulu, so driving to there will take half of a day (600 km), which doesnt actually make any sense to start driving there... We asked also some of our friends to join, but they said that it is just insane...
So...eventually we just decided then to go two of us. Reserved hotelroom from Hotel Puustelli (80 EUR / night). And during Friday we managed to get there at 16:00. At 16:30 we were already in golf course to getting introduction to the course by playing the 18 holes during Friday. The course was extremely good shape and it was enjoyable experience.
During Saturday we started to Kuutamo Open competition. The competition was 36 holes and I was honoured to start my round from tee 1 at 10:10AM with Ilkka Isokääntä and Janne Takanen. Both excellent players. We enjoyed a lot. Here is the picture about my group. I'am in left, Ilkka is in the middle and Janne in right side. Picture was taken by secretary of the golf club, H-P Havisto, who was excellent host for us during the trip.

Attitude in golf course

Golf is a game, which is asking attitude. You cannot forse yourself to play all the time as Tiger Woods or Minni Blomqvist. Sometimes this small white ball is going where you were planning it to go and time to time it just doesn't obey you much.
I got a good lesson about golf attitude during weekend in Kuutamo Open (Nivala, Finland). I was playing in the group with two local young man: Ilkka and Janne. Both were excellent, even they played with different style. Janne's style was more carefull and planning, which was mainly showd by club selections and Ilkka was the man of Power shots. The guy was hitting ball so strongly, that I was sorrying the ball already after first half :-)
The idea is, that even your tee stroke (first stroke) is opening away from main ways, you need to stay in the game without loosing nerves. One good example of the excellent attitude is Ilkka's opening from the 9th, when he was opening a good and loooooong hit, which was going too far (about 240m) and ending up the forest. He didn't panic or even worried a bit, just took smaller iron club and hit from the hard forest to back to the game. The end result was bogey (one over par, which was 4), so that is the attitude you can do competion and survive as winner from your life.
So, thanks for the guys to give me pleasant lesson about how to handle nerves and how to do things with attitude!