21st September, Miro is now 7 years old.

(My camera was home alone and the battery on my phone was dry. So you will have to imagine this story in your heads.)

Today was Miro's 7th birthday. I had bought him some frozen cakes to take to school and share with his class, but had to take them to the school kitchen and postpone them till tomorrow, as it turned out they had a field trip to Upila, Hollola. A parish mansion located at the shore of lake Vesijärvi. I had forgotten that I had promised to his teacher that I would come along with some other parents.

The whole trip and lunch was paid for the kids by the Lahti parish, although us adults had to pay 4 euros for the lunch. Since I was totally unprepared as I had forgotten the trip, I had to drive to the nearest ATM and park my car at the (almost) nearby car park, then run to the school yard before the bus was scheduled to leave.

When we got there, I was pleasantly surprised, as although some of the day's schedule and agenda was designed around religious practice, praying and singing psalms, those kids with secular non-religious background weren't forgotten. Miro and his classmate Annu were excused from the religious activities and got to have some time solving word puzzles and colouring pictures.

After the psalms, the kids (including Miro and Annu) left the main building. We parents stayed inside, and talked about (surprise, surprise) religion in education, whilst the kids were out singing Happy Birthday in multiple languages to Miro. (Someone had obviously tipped the organizers that it was someone's birthday today.) When the talks were over, we would head over to the cantina to have lunch with the kids.

Next in schedule was orienteering around the premises, with different fun tasks at each checkpoint. Miro and Annu were grouped with me, and had quite a fun time at drawing hands, making keychains out of beads and string. Of course they were supposed to be "prayer keychains", but I naturally skipped the "prayer" part of the task description while reading the instructions. After all, both of these kids had no interest in such things anyway.

In the end, I let both Miro and Annu jump in a trampoline before we were called for the farewell speech.

The bus ride back was awful. I felt very tired and sleepy, and could easily have dozed off if not for some girl on Miro's class wanted to see his Fidget Spinner that was deposited in my jacket pocket.

After visiting the school premises, and getting my car from the park, I told the kids that we'd still have time before Leo's piano practice starts, so we might as well go get some "birthday cake" in a local bakery café; Sinuhe. I bought Leo and Miro a piece of strawberry cake each, cocoa for Leo and an apple juice with ice for Miro. I took a rye bread and coffee. Then we drove home and left Miro with Vera and drove back to town for Leo's practice.

When Leo had had his piano lessons, we went to the shops so Leo could buy him a present of his own. He got Miro the Lego Lord of the Rings PS3 version. We also bought the Gremlins 1 & 2 DVD pack for all to watch on the weekend.

Here's Miro with his birthday presents. The ⧺PlusPlus blocks and the Widget Spinner were bought earlier. I also gave him 2€, since @turpsy had sent me 2SBD to give as a present. (I rounded it to 2 euros because it was easier to give a whole coin and not fractions of it.)

Birthday boy and his presents.

He's bound to get more gifts soon because his grand parents and aunts and uncle will likely want to get give him something too the coming days. (I will probably need to move some of their toys to the basement storage again...)

Eh. That's all for now. ;)

Something else coming your way soon I guess. I'm still pondering on the next daily dose of OPED.

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