2016

The week started out meeting up with my first and third host families who I will be moving to in February. My first and third families came to my second host family's house where we had coffee and talked. It was nice to get to see everyone. I had already met everyone before, but I had only interacted with my third host family one or two times before. Side note: earlier that day I had been working on writing thank you cards to the Finnish hockey players on the Minnesota Wild for their signatures and gifts. I was reading what my teammates had written and it was funny because one of my teammates wrote to Mikko Koivu that if they win the Stanley cup, then come to sauna with us at Laineentie 5. Well, my third host family lives on the same street just a few houses up. When they were over they mentioned how one of my teammates lives on their street which I had just learned earlier that day. We talked about hockey and the dance coming up in February.

Wanhat dance picture from last year

All of my first host families were very excited for the dance since it is a big deal and since I am like their daughter and I am the first daughter in each of the host families to do the dance. In my first host family, their oldest daughter will do the dance next year, in my second host family, their daughter is nine so she still has a few years to go if she decides to go to the high school and my third host family doesn't have any daughters.

For you Americans, that don't know what I am talking about, let me tell you. Basically this dance is the Finnish version of prom, only it's not. People are assigned partners and they have to take a class for it to learn the dance. Then of course everyone gets all fancied up and then they have the dance... only it is in front of the parents and teachers. I asked if I could join and they said yes. One of the English teachers helped me get a partner and I will start the class on Thursday.

Then that evening, after everyone had left, we figured out when we could do shopping for my dress and when I can change host families. I have a very busy schedule this month as I have eight hockey games this month. Hopefully I can get a goal!

Then on Monday I finally pinned most of the pins to my Rotary jacket. I had been too lazy to sit down and do it all before but I finally put most of them on. I needed a few safety pins, so I didn't put them all on yet, but I got most of them on. It took about four/five hours. In the evening I had hockey practice and I told my teammate that I will be his neighbor soon. He was happy and said that I could make him lots of American cookies which he really liked (he didn't want to try the peanut butter ones though since he doesn't like peanut butter).

Tiistaina I did some chores and chilled.

Keskivikkona we went to Seinäjoki and found me a dress for the dance. My host dad was saying that I'll have to try on fifty dresses, but it only ended up being three. I'm renting a dress and you can find out more about it as the dance approaches. That evening I had hockey practice and we scrimmaged. My coach was our second goalie. It was fun.

Torstaina we ran some errands and visited my first host family. I have got to say: their little puppy from a few months ago is almost as big as their other dog. We bought some fireworks an went home and watched Sweden play against Canada in the U20 world championships. We melted tin horseshoes we bought and dumped them in water to see what shape we got. Then we looked up what the shapes meant and I got boat twice which means happy and lots of travel. Then we lit some fireworks as the new year came. Happy New Years everyone!

Perjantaina I helped my host dad clean up his garage. To give you some perspective, he races and fixes cars, so he has a lot of stuff and it was really messy. I helped him clean it up for a few hours and it was still messy in there but it was better.

Tänään we went to Alavus to the large shopping mall there and we got me some shoes to match with my dress as well as some safety pins for my jacket. That evening we watched the Finland versus Canada game. It was very close but in the end Finland won. After that it was USA versus the Czech Republic and USA crushed them.