Fun with Finnish Friends

Say that three times fast. Juha lived with my family as an exchange student when he was in high school. We've kept in touch over the years. He met up with me and some cousins in Paris when I was an undergrad and he was even able to be in Utah when Josh and I got married.

Since then Juha has gotten engaged to a wonderful woman, Inkeri. We were lucky enough to meet her and see Juha again when they flew down from Finland for a Madrid vacation. We were so glad!

I didn't realize how easy we got off with the name "Juha." Very easy to pronouce for Americans (YOU-ha)--even though my mom would slip and call him "Utah." Inkeri is a different story. I practiced before they arrived and thought I had it but I wasn't even close! I like to think I have a pretty good ear for foreign language pronunciation, but Juha repeated her name for me about 15 times, and every time that I repeated it back I swore I was saying it exactly as he was, but apparently not. There go my plans for learning Finnish! Good thing they both speak perfect English.

I caught Inke with this pouty look on her face that I thought was so funny. She looks like a cute little kid unhappy with the restaurant choice or something . . .

One of the days, we walked a ways to see a rose garden, only to get there and find out it had just closed. Let us in!
I think we got the idea from over the fence though.

Sharon, Amanda, me, Juha, Inke, and Josh Fletcher (Jesse's friend--more on him and Jesse in another post).

I was glad Juha got to meet his "neice"!

It's our turn to visit these guys in Finland next . . . maybe in a couple years. Should be fun!