One of the things we did together with my father today was look through some very old family photos, trying to figure out who was who. I got to hear some stories of my long-dead grandfather and great-grandparents. We drew a family tree for Ingrid and Adrian to keep all the names straight.

Here’s my great-grandfather Eduard, in St Petersburg, then Petrograd, with my grandfather Peeter (born 1911) and my great-aunt Aino (born 1913). Guessing from the children’s approximate ages, I’d say the photo is from 1914. Peeter died well before I was born, but I met Aino several times. I remember her as a large-boned old lady with a loud, happy laugh.

And this is my great-grandmother Gertrud Agathe, with Aino and Peeter again, and their younger siblings Paul and Ott. Ott died young in WW2. Paul emigrated to Canada at some point; I remember him sending gifts to us after the fall of the Iron Curtain. (Including my first jigsaw puzzles ever. Soviet Estonia did not have jigsaw puzzles. I had some home-made “mosaic” puzzles – that great-aunt Aino made and gifted to me, actually – but the jigsaw puzzles from Paul were an exotic treat.)

The boys all have the Toomik family protruding ears. I had the same; I remember having surgery to fix them when I was still in pre-school. Neither Ingrid nor Adrian has inherited them.

Another day in the countryside with my father and his wife. More stacking and splitting of firewood, in between sudden rain showers that make us hurry inside. And the stack of firewood we moved last time made possible a whole queue of other tasks, including repairing and painting the woodshed wall that the old stack was pushing against.

Afterwards we made sushi, which has become a yearly tradition by now.

Same procedure as last year?

Same procedure as every year.

I was a teeny bit worried that Ingrid and Adrian wouldn’t find this exciting any more, after climbing a via ferrata, but this poses a different kind of challenge and was still fun.

The last obstacle on the last climbing course, the “Tarzan jump”. Was pretty scary the first time, a little bit scary the second year, and barely makes us pause now.

Ahhaa science centre.

About two thirds of the space holds a permanent exhibition, while the remaining third is used for temporary ones. Past exhibitions have ranged from “spies and detectives” to “nutrition”. Currently the theme of the temporary exhibition is “adrenaline”. In effect, it was a small-scale amusement park for older kids.

There was a “rocket chair” for acceleration…

… and an extra steep slide, with a thick mat to land on…

… and a 360 degree loop bicycle ride. All three of us tried it, but Ingrid was the only one to manage the full 360 degrees – there was something wrong with the pedals on the bike that sometimes made them go backwards forcefully when the bike itself rolled backwards, and when that happened, we kept losing our footing and got hit in the shins by the pedals. Ingrid somehow got past that and beat the day’s record of most consecutive loops.

The permanent exhibition also has plenty of hands-on experiments. Like using a rope and pulley system to lift up your friends, and learning how the number of pulleys affects the force required…

… or riding a bike on a tightrope, and learning how a counterweight makes balancing trivial.

We brought a pair of dumbbells with us to Estonia so that Ingrid could get some workouts in. And since I was just sitting doing nothing in particular, and the dumbbells were also doing nothing in particular during the pauses between Ingrid’s sets, I joined her and did the same upper-body workout.

Spent the day at my father’s country house.

My father’s body is wearing out (due to a combination of age and childhood diseases) and his wife is shouldering all of the physical work around the house and the yard, so we made ourselves useful and moved a stack of firewood. Doable alone, but much faster with three or four people.

Once that was done, the next two-person job was to climb up into a tree to cut up a branch that had fallen there due to winter snows and gotten stuck. Ingrid did the climbing, I did the ladder-supporting.

The next generation: me and my Estonian friends’ children. (After spending an hour in an escape room, named “The curse of the pharaoh”, which they failed at escaping but succeeded in having fun together.)

Picnic with friends at Pangodi lake. The weather forecast promised more sun and heat than we actually got, which led to less bathing than expected, but also a less sweaty picnic.

The were signposts for a short walking path starting right where we were. It turned out to be just about passable, lined with mostly nettles (but also wild raspberries) and mosquitoes, so when the signage disappeared and we lost our way, we weren’t too disappointed to return to the parking lot.

A lousy night’s sleep on the ferry (my brother snoring, Adrian talking in his sleep, my brother waking up at 5, Adrian waking up at 7, etc etc) and then a few hours of driving. Now we are in Tartu (in my father’s apartment) and we are tired. Vegging out in the sofa, but at some point we will need to get up and at least get groceries.

On the ferry from Stockholm to Tallinn. I liked the DFDS experience last year, but Ingrid especially missed the buffet dinner, so we’re back on Tallink this year again.

The dinner is nice but the waiting before and after is boring as heck. There’s activities for the youngest kids, and adults can hang out in a bar if they like, but there is nothing at all for either teenagers or adult non-drinkers. How about a nice lounge with armchairs and music? A movie theatre?