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