My first Thanksgiving

                                   Happy Thanksgiving!

10.10.2016

This weekend I got to experience my first Canadian Thanksgiving. I really love the idea to spend day with your family and friends eating good food and thanking all the things you are grateful in your life.

Saturday I prepared a finnish theme meal for my host family and their friends Gary and Debbie. 

We spend six hours in a kitchen with mom preparing appetizers, meal and desserts. It was fun but lot of work too. We both baked Carelian pies (karjalanpiirakka) for the first time :D

I also raise money for Shelterbox which is a box that contains all the equipments a family needs for spending two weeks without home if there is a earthquake or hurricane like in Haiti now. I decided that is time to take action and raise money for the box now when hurricane Matthew have done huge disaster in Haiti. So idea is to serve dinner and enjoy good food and helping people at the same time! Guests pay for the meal and money goes to Shelterbox.

Finnish menu

Appetizers 

Salmon mousse and crackers

Carelian pies with eggbutter

Cranberry drinks

Main course 

Finnswedish meatballs with mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and gravy

Wine

Dessert

Vanilla custard with raspberry topping

Dinner was a success and we had great time!

Maxine, Debbie, Gary and Dale.

On Sunday we cooked traditional Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, stuffing, different kind of salads and mashed potatoes. It was so good! Alex and Jackie had a dinner with us. 

I stuffed the turkey with onions and spices

Alex cutting the turkey and Jackie in the background

Traditional Thanksgiving dessert: Pumpkin pie 

We also visited in our neighbours house, Kristine and Helmet are wonderful old couple who have moved here from Germany.

I cooked a dinner for our cats Isis and Lucy: I fried turkeys neck and heart.

Monday was an official Thanksgiving day and we had a day off from school. We went to burn calories in the aerobic class in the morning and when we got back I trained hip hop couple hours. 

I got an invited to have a Thanksgiving dinner at Robins and Pats house. Robin goes to same aerobic and yoga classes as me and Pat is rotarian in our club. We had a big delicious dinner with their children and grandchildren. Thank you for having me!

Maxine (my host mom) and I are part of potluck singers and once a month we go to sing in elders house for seniors. Today was the day and we went to sing to elders house. It was my first time and it was so neat to see how much power music has, some seniors sang with us and jammed.

Now is good time to be thankful about everything. I feel so blessed and happy to be surrounded by awesome people here in Canada and in Finland. Thank you that you are always there for me and remember that I'm also here for you! I want to thank both of my Rotary clubs for this amazing opportunity to go on exchange. This has changed my whole life. 

xoxo Roosa

Roadtripping

Hello!

25.8-5.9.2016

It has been over a month when I arrived to Canada! Time flies and I feel super happy and blessed. English feels like first language for me now (even it's not fluent yet) and I feel more comfortable to write in english because speaking and writing in english is part of my daily life now.

I have had an amazing opportunity to travel around British Columbia since I arrived to Canada 25.8.
My counsellour Marlana has took me to experience so many awesome things.
She's the best and I feel so grateful!

I flew from New York to Calgary and from Calgary to Grande Prairie.
I didn't feel really well in last flight to Grande Prairie because plane was very small and there was lot of turbulence during a flight. At the same time I was excited and super tired (jet lag is weird combination, eh?) and have crossed so many time zones in four days that I threw up in a plane. :D

My wonderful counsellour Marlana Blouin was waiting me at the airport and we started our roadtrip adventure immediately driving to Hinton, Alberta in same day.

We stayed at a motel and started driving next day. We drove thought National Parks Jasper and Banff. Nature is so beautiful here: Rocky mountains, turquoise water, green forests and wildlife. Saw three bears!

We drove to Cranbrook to celebrate Marlanas cousins wedding. Venue was beautiful and wedding reception was outside near by mountains. Brides and grooms families stayed in a camping area near by venue and we slept there one  night before wedding. I got to meet Marlanas whole family! We stayed in a tent and we had a big bonfire in a camping area.

I had lot of fun in the weddings! Canadians are super friendly and social.
We danced till 2am in a morning.

Bonfire, good music and big family having fun and enjoying beautiful summer night!

Marlana and me or as Lane said, Marlana and her mini version :D

Next day we drove to Abbotsford to visit Marlanas husband Jason and his sisters family. I brought them some salmiakki and Fazerin sininen for souvenir. Thank you for everything, I had lot of fun with you Kent, Danet, Macie, Caleb, Oakley and Marnie! They were super welcoming, and they are awesome people with big heart. We celebrated Jasons birthday, had a game night, Once upon a time-marathon, played Mario Kart, went shopping, we visited in Storybooke (where Once upon a time was filmed) and had fun swimming in a pool in camping area!

Jason studies in Burnaby in BCIT (British Columbia Institute of Technology) and we visited there often and I got to experience small piece of a campus life!

We stayed 4 nights in van in camping area near by Jasons school. There was a swimming pool and hot tub in camping area so swam and just relaxed there couple times.

We spent one day in Vancouver. Oh how I loved that city! We visited in Stanley Park, crossed Capilano Suspension Bridge (super cool) and did Fly over Canada in Canada place. Fly over Canada was the coolest experience ever! It's virtual flying experience over Canada and in 15 minutes you get to see all the beautiful nature, cities and culture Canada has to offer. Almost cried  (:D) because it was so amazing and made me appreciate and love Canada even more.

Canadian rainforest is so cool! Thousand year old trees, fresh air and unique wildlife. 

New York fries

Stanley park and restaurant were we ate, Stanley Park pavilion

Canada place

We found cutest candy store ever from Storybrooke which also had Finnish liquorice!

Macie, Marlana, Caleb and me playing super fun family game! ( + Tried to use selfiedtick)

Capilano Suspension bridge

We spend Labour day weekend in Seymour Arm, surrounded by beautiful nature without service with Marlana, Jason and Jasons childhood friends. We had so much fun! We roasted a pig, ate well and sat by the bonfire listening old records under thousand stars. It was so neat!

Next day we spent in a secret place which is amazing place! Water is so clear, sand is white, sun was shining and you can see the mountains. Jason showed me waterfalls and we went running. It was really cool!

We drove a big round around Alberta and British Columbia! 

Labour day Monday we started our trip home and said good bye to Jason who drove back to Burnaby.  I had a blast and best road trip ever!
After 10 days and 4000 kilometers I finally arrived to my wonderful hometown Dawson Creek.
More about my life here in a next post!

xx Roosa