Fall and preparing for Halloween

With Thanksgiving it was still summer, but now fall has come to Toronto as well. The last days have been really nice, quite cold, but the sun has been shining. Apparently this morning people had to scrape their car windows. Let's hope we still have a few of these lovely sunny fall days, before the winter starts. I took some pictures today, to show you how colourful it looks with the red/orange maple leafs.

Here in Canada Halloween is a big thing. Some people put a lot of effort into decorating their homes and yards. On Monday October 31 children go out to play trick-or-treat. They dress up and ring doorbells in their neighbourhood to receive candies. This weekend a lot of people organize dress up parties. We are also invited to go to a party downtown tomorrow. I am still working on our costumes and I will show you pictures of it after the party.

Juha bought a pumpkin on his way home. I had already wanted to buy one for a longer time, but pumpkins are really heavy and I was not able to bring one home by foot. Now when I finally got my pumpkin, I immediately started to carve it and gave the pumpkin a face. Can I introduce to you: Mr. Pumpkin!

First you cut a hole in the top for the lid

Then you scoop out the strings and the seeds

Scrape some of the flesh from the inside

Draw your pattern and start carving

To preserve the pumpkin a bit longer you can soak it in a bleach solution 

With some tea lights inside

Have a nice weekend!

Maple Leafs vs. Flames at the Air Canada Centre

Juha had decided to surprise me, or let's just say he couldn't wait anymore, and bought us tickets to a NHL game last Saturday. He had found some standing tickets for only 25 dollars per ticket and couldn't resist the temptation. He already wanted to see a NHL game last time we visited Toronto, but the prices of the tickets were sooo high, that we decided not to go. Since we have been living here Juha has been checking the NHL ticket website quite often, but most of the tickets were sold for 200-300 dollars. So finally on Saturday, it was his lucky day :) An adjunct benefit was the fact that the Flames has three Finnish players on its team: Kiprusoff, Olli Jokinen and Niklas Hagman.

We went on time to the Air Canada Centre, where you could see thousands of Maple Leafs and Flames fans. Almost everyone had a jersey, cap or something else from the fan shop, which looked really nice. We had standing tickets and we were not really expecting much of it, but when we found our places they might have been the best places in the whole stadium.  We were standing behind the top row of seats and had a good view over the whole rink.

And of course the world is a small place... next to us were three Finnish guys watching the game.

We have heard that the Leafs fans are not the most enthusiastic fans, but still it was quite a show. It felt quite amazing to be in a stadium with 19 000 people, especially when they were singing their national anthem, O Canada. During every break there was some entertainment and the time went by very fast. However, the beverage and food prices were ridiculously expensive. For a medium beer you had to pay 9 dollars, so we were sticking to Timmy's coffee and chocolate drink.

Kiprusoff #34

Olli Jokinen #13

Jokinen almost made a goal

Hagman #10

Go Flames Go!

It was a good game. The Flames made immediately two goals during the first 15 minutes, but then the Leafs made three goals and the Flames were not able to make it an even anymore.

All in all, it was a really nice experience and Juha is already longing for a next time... Well actually, me as well :)

Our backyard

One of the best things of living in this neighborhood is the fact that our backyard continues in Sherwood Park. The park is especially in favor of dog owners, because it has an off-leash area. Besides a lot of playful dogs, you will see joggers, children playing at the playground or people reading a book on one of the benches, which is my favorite activity as well. A special thing about the park is the nature trail, where you can go urban hiking. It is quite hilly and it makes you feel that you are somewhere in the jungle.