Weekend!

Thanksgiving is getting closer!

Last week was the last whole week before the thanksgiving break. Tuesday we even got a snow day and Friday was a early release day, so had pretty easy week:) I'm sure many have heard about the storms in here, though I would say they are pretty close to a normal winter weather in Finland from my experience in this area. So doing good in here!

On sunday morning I woke up to see that the ground was covered with snow. We did get quite a lot of it but it's all gone already, the mud is back! We got to enjoy it almost a week but it's coming back hopefully. 

I finally met Allison's Husband Brandon. He works a lot and all around the states so he's not able to spend that much time at home. We had some family dinner and cake to celebrate his birthday.

Americans love frosting:D

Brookie, the cutest but at the same time the naughtiest little girl I have ever met! <3

Love my lil sis<3

On Monday I had my bowling try outs and made it on to the team, though they were being easy on me because honestly I was bad! ;D The coach said that I must have a natural talent for that when I told him I have bowled only couple times in my life, but I don't know about that..

Conditioning for softball is starting and I will meet our new coach tomorrow. I'm also going to audition for the High school's musical. Mr. H (Drama) the coolest teacher in the entire world is in charge of it. He told us that this years musical, The Beauty And The Beast is going to be the biggest yet. Even our budget is over 20 000 dollars!! I'm not used to Schools putting that much effort into a play. I'm so excited about that!! I don't know in which role I'm going to audition for though. I'm going to be so busy again that there's no way for me to get a big role. Rehearsals would be everyday for three hours except on Sundays. But I still want to be in it and I hope I will get a role:)

On Friday I went to see the mockingjay which was really good, with Jenny and her host sister and friends. 

Yesterday morning we drove to Frankenmuth to do some Christmas shopping. We went to the world's largest Christmas store, Bronner's Cristmas Wonderland. That place was crazy and open for 361 days a year!

Thousands of different kinds of Cristmas ornaments and other stuff, all you could think of:)

You can really find everything in there! Even a Finnish flag:D

Rest of the day we walked through the town and went to small poutiques, had some coffee and chocolate. They even had chocolate covered bacon, should have tried ;D

The amount of food, couldn't even get everything in the same picture! Practising for Thanksgiving.

Halloween!

Trick or treating and pumpkin carving :)

Pumpkin carving,

Had a really fun and exciting first American Halloween experience! We went to a local farm to pick up some pumpkins. They had really busy day but we still got a hay ride with these beautiful horses :)

Found our perfect pumpkins too!

Julie went to do some scrab booking with her friends so me, john and Natalie did the carving listening Christmas songs and I think they turned out looking amazing!

Hehe it was fun though took me like two hours to carv mine.

Mine, Natalie's and John's :)

Hehe looks pretty scary huh?;D

Trick or Treating,

Last Friday came the long waited Halloween. We went to my grandparent's house. I was red riding hood and Natalie was cleopatra. Allison and the girls came too. It was freezing out but worth it!:) We came back and had some pizza.

Sophie was a tiger :D

Next day I had Olivia's Halloween party. First we went to a scary hay ride to the cornfields and forest. There were people waiting to scare us.

My Swedish Fish Mathilda<3

 

What's going on :)

Hellou!

What going on in here? Well let me tell you. School is going well, at the moment all of my grades are A hehe;D
Exams I have had, have been quite easy and simple multiple choice tests but oh the work for homework is a whole another thing, especially in English. I should be in a lower english grade like others but I don't know why I'm not there. Right now we are analyzing lots of articles which is hard for a second languege but I'm managing alright even without having to translate. We aren't allowed to use our phones on school hours but some of my teachers are being pretty easy on me. In history class I can use my phone freely which is pretty cool and it helps.
Cross country is over and I am happy to have a little free time until bowling and conditioning for softball starts. I was planning on starting basketball but I just wouldn't have time for that so I am going to try bowling, though I wouldn't consider it as a sport and in the school is more like a club.

We went to a car race, first time seeing that too. Heh those cars were loud! I literally had to wipe my face off the dirt that came flying from the court. Most of the audience clearly weren't the first timers, well prepared wearing classes and scarfs to breath through.

Me and Brookie on our way to the race. Julie and Natalie stayed at home. Allison's husband Brandon did car racing before, where they actually met so I had Allison to explain the whole meaning for me.
Hehe for my dear dad this is propably the most interesting part. There were about ten paragliders in the sky during the race. Hope you got enough flying done also on your vacation :)

 

Car races are pretty popular in here. Cant really say how many people there were in the audience.        I thought it was cool too :) The race lasts surprisingly long about four hours. Accidents happen quite often and we got to witness some. Luckily no one got hurt this time.

The net fence kept some of the flying mud clumps on the court's side but not all hehe ;D

Busy, busy, busy

I'm still alive! I started writing this post a week ago but then lost it and was too lazy to write it again. I'm sorry it has been so long, school has started a long time ago and cross country as well. 

We have these huge old Mabel threes in the front yard. It was so windy on Labor Day that one of the branches broke down, got pretty close to John's truck!

Labor Day was fun! We had some family friends come over. You can barely see me :D baby Aurora, Alayna, Gideon and Natalie:)

First day of school was crazy! We have about 1000 students in my high school so it's pretty good size. It really helped that I had been in the school before on the orientation day, when we went thru all of my classes and I practiced opening the locker:) 

The breaks between the lessons are hectic! The hallways are so crowded and you only have 5 minutes to go to your locker, open it! Get your books and find your next classroom ;D

On my first week I had different schedule than now. I had to change some classes. At first I did have math for this semester, geometry but it was too easy :P I guess there's first time for everything. 

So right now for my first hour I have English 11, with juniors, we have been doing essays and focusing on how to apply for college. 

Second hour I have sculpture and cheramics! We are making a head, so I chose to try and sculpt Natalie's head, we will have to see how that goes :D I hope I can put a picture of it in here!

Third hour: DRAMA! Which is awesome!! Our teacher is the best like for real :D he can really make every situation into the most uncomfortable, awkward but at the same time funniest scenes ever:)

Fourth hour: U.S history, I don't really have anything to say about that :D 

Fifth hour: I got to take another history! I have Hitler, nazi Germany history. That class is not normal! ; D the most lay back class in the world I'm sure! The teacher is cool and keeps asking questions about Finland, he was surprised that I knew who wrote our national anthem and other things:D We get credit for spelling our name right, I guess you get the idea.

Sixth and the last one I have choir, I thought I would like it more. But the girls in there are so fun so it doesn't matter. We had a group meet a week ago. We all went to a park and played games and just hang out. Everyone brought something to eat :)

I ride the school bus every morning so I need to be ready at 06:05. People who know me, yes I have been waking up at 05:20 every morning and apparently it's possible even for me ;D Though I did oversleep one morning. Julie, my host mom woke me up at 6 so I had 5 minutes to get ready and pack my stuff, that was not fun :D 

We live pretty far from the school so the bus ride takes a little over a hour, but I can continue my sleep there.

Ice bath!

School ends 14:30 and my practice starts at 14:55 and lasts about 2 hours. Cross country is running on the fields not on track. We have meets (races) two times a week:)

GO RED HAWKS! :D

The people have been so nice here and very interested in Finland. It has been hard to keep a straight face for some of the questions ;D

We had a meet yesterday and I met another girl from Finland! <3 I started talking to this girl and she cought my accent and told me that there will be running two exchange students in their team too a girl from Sweden and a other from Finland! My mouth just dropped! I was like what? In here? So we went to look for her. This girl was like hey Jenni come here! And I just said Moi and everything exploded :D We just screamed and jumped up and down! It was so weird!! And when we tried talking Finnish nothing came out! It felt so strange for both of us. I can't really describe the feeling. Well other runners did get some entertainment. I was surprised how hard and how bad I was speaking Finnish :D neither of us had talked Finnish in weeks. I hope I see her again :)

We have 5 exchange students besides me in my school. Carol from Brazil, Mathilda from Sweden, Olivia from France, Carina from Germany and a girl from Japan who I haven't talked yet.

Huh so everything is going so well in here! Miss you all<3

Hunting face paint:)

Baseballia :)

Täällä asiat paremmin kuin hyvin!

Mackinac island postaus on tulossa kun kuvat saan koneelle:)

Viimeinen lomapäivä olisi edessä ja Laborday dinneriä luvassa. Kurssit on valittu ja viimeinen rokotus pistetty :) Kyl on jännää aloittaa koulu näin kolmen kuukauden jälkeen toisella puolella maapalloa! 

Tänään oltiin aamulla kirkossa, joka on oikeasti yllättävän mielenkiintoista joten suosittelen kaikille vaihtareille osallistumista kaikkeen :) 

Kirkosta ajettiin suoraan stadionille baseball peliä katsomaan!! 

Oltiin vähän ajoissa, paikka täyttyi aika mukavasti :)

Eturivin paikat! Oli kyl aivan mahtava kokemus. Ite oon aikaisemmin käynyt vain lätkää katsomassa ja siitäkin monta vuotta. Palloa en saanut kiinni mutta ihan hyvä, mun onnella kopin olisi saanut mun pää ja kolmas aivotärähdys olisi ollut hyvinkin mahdollinen ; D

Toivottavasti kaikille kuuluu hyvää <3

Aika menee niin nopeesti!

Hejsan!

Viimeisestä postauksesta onkin vierähtänyt jonkin aikaa. Kameralla ottamia kuviani en pysty tällä hetkellä vielä laittamaan mutta lisään ne myöhemmin : )

Nyt on perheeseen tutustuttu paremmin. Asun täällä maissipeltojen keskellä isossa talossa kolmen koiran (Zeek, Max, Sophie) ja Host vanhempien Julien ja Johnin sekä Host siskoni Natalien kanssa. 

Nää on aivan ihania ja ymmärtäväisiä! Natalie on 8-vuotias ilopilleri.

Otin tämän kuvan tänään näistä sulosista palleroista <3

Palataan siis toissa viikon lauantaihin! Juhlittiin Brooken, Allisonin ja mummun synttäreitä : D

Family dinneriä, grillausta ja pihapelejä :)

Seurassa oli Johnin tytär Allison, kahden tyttärensä kanssa sekä Natalien isovanhemmat. Tuli sitten syötyä ; D Uusi lemppari ruokakin löytyi meinaan viinirypäle-pähkinä salaatti. Uitiin Natalien, Abbyn ja Brooken kanssa.

Sunnuntaina menimme perheen kesken kirkkoon. Ensi kerralla kirkko pitää joka vuotisen ulkoilma tilaisuuden jonne jokainen vie jotain syötävää yhteiseksi.

Aika paljon olen saanut chillattua, yli viikko on tullut oltua kipeenä mutta nyt rupee tuntumaan jo paremmalta. Natalie on ollut lasten kesä päivä hoidossa Campus Kidsissä mutta nyt oon saanut sen tänne mun seuraksi kahdeksi viimeiseksi viikoksi :)

Sophien letit ; D <3

Täällä sitä ollaan!

Noniin nyt sitä ollaankin täällä maailman toisella puolella!

Päivittelen tuossa tarkemmin kun saan uuden adapterin ostettua, läppärin laturin johto onkin sitten ainoa joka ei tuohon mahdu. 

Matka oli PITKÄ! Tuntui ettei tiistai loppuisi koskaan : D Lähdimme kotoa kahdelta yöllä joten enpä mennyt nukkumaan. Oltiin noin puoli viisi lentokentällä jonne mun kummisetä ja rakas ystävä tulivat sanomaan heipat <3 

Lento lähti seitsemän jälkeen Helsinki-Vantaa kentältä Frankfurtiin jossa odoteltiin lentoa Washington DC:hen neljä tuntia. Pientä vaihtelua, DC:ssä odoteltiin kuusi tuntia, joka meni hyvässä seurassa nopeasti :) Päivän viimeinen lento oli Chicagoon, jossa yövyttiin lentokenttähotellissa. Saatiin kaikki omat huoneet! 

Aamulla olikin sitten vuorossa viimeinen lento Grand Rapidsiin!! Lento kesti vain puoli tuntia :) 

Vastassa oli mun Host-perhe Julie, John ja pikkusisko Natalie kyltin kanssa<3

Käytiin syömässä perus Amerikkalais ravintolassa! Oli kyllä aika jännä fiilis ; D

Ruuan jälkeen ajeltiin kotio. Mulla on oma huone ja kylppäri. Nää oli laittanut tän tosi söpösti! Sängyllä odotti tervetuliais lahjoja :) <3 Nää on liian ihania! 

Käytiin Julien kanssa ruokakaupassa ja kun tultiin takasin niin simahdinkin sitten heti. Yöllä tuli saatua viisitoista tuntia unta, taisi väsyttää heh :D 

Eilen chillailin kotona koirien kanssa. Vein niitä ulkona, uimaan ja leikittiin pihalla. Täällä on tuollainen iso lampi näiden takapihalla. Syötiin yhdessä illalla :)

Tänään kävin Sophien kanssa lenkillä. Taisi olla tytsylle rankka reissu ; D

Elikkä kuuluu pelkkää hyvää, tää oli tällainen nopsa postaus kännykällä joten kirjoitus virheitä löytyy varmasti paljon :D

Viimeistä päivää..!

Tää tunne on outo,

                                                       sanoin kuvaamaton...

Samaan aikaan olo on jotenkin ontto mutta samalla tuntuu, että halkean tästä onnellisuudesta ja jännityksestä... Vaihtarit tietävät ;D

Nyt voi vaan sanoa että huhhuh! Laukut on pakattu ja viimeistä päivää vietetään täällä koto Suomessa. Pakkaaminen oli yllättävän vaikeata! Mitä pakata vuoden reissulle kun viikonkin reissuun pakkaaminen tuottaa vaikeuksia! Matkalaukut ovat aivan liian pieniä ;D hehe.

Lähtö on siis ensi yönä... Helsinki-Vantaa lentokentällä tulisi olla viimeistään viideltä! Tampereella kun asutaan niin aika aikaisin täytyypi lähteä. Saa nähdä saanko unta.

Mutta aivan IHANAA nähdä muita vaihtareita <3 Itselläni on luvassa neljä lentoa joista pääsen kolme nauttimaan muiden vaihtareiden seurassa :)

 Meillä on yöpyminen lentokenttähotellissa Chicagossa joten host-perheeni näen vasta keskiviikkona.

Toivottavasti oon muistanut kaiken :)

I will miss you all my loves <3