Happy New Year!

pictures from Google

                                             Happy New Year everybody! Hopefully the year 2014 will be amazing and successful!

Year 2013 was so wonderful and full of great happenings. I finished my first year of high school, had my 17th birthday, travelled to Paris and Brussels, went to a motorcycle road trip to Lapland and Sweden with my dad, made other trips all over the Finland, and worked as a youth confirmation camp and a cooking club leader, and did a bunch of other stuff. After the summer, I came to the USA, Pennsylvania state, met my host family, started a new school, went to Baltimore and New York City with AFS, visited other great places, worked hard with Production Companies and celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas in America. Over all, I've met so many new incredible people and got a lot of new friends and experiences, which I will remember forever. Thanks to everybody who has made my year unique and unforgettable.

Christmas

Hersey candy cane kisses in Finnish Mariskooli bowl :)

Cute little gingerbread houses made by my host sister :)

It's been such a nice holiday, I really enjoy sleeping in and just relaxing. I've been spending a lot of time with my host family which I enjoy a lot too! During the last two weeks of the school I was so busy with the Holiday Concert that I didn't even had time to sit down to everyday dinners with them. I'm so grateful to have such a wonderful host family, they are a perfect mach for me. 

On Monday night I went to LCBC church with my liaisons. Even thought I'm not really religious, I've wanted to go to a church here. Just basically to see how different it is compared to our church and to experience new things. Well, the "church" was nothing like I was expecting it to be :D It was more like a concert, where they had a speech with religious references in it. It was really nice to go there and enjoy the music. Sadly I didn't had my camera with me so I don't have pictures from there. 

I've used to celebrate Christmas on the Christmas Eve, but in America they celebrate it on the Christmas day. I wanted to share some Finnish traditions with my host family so on Tuesday 24th I made Christmassy spice cake and glögi, glögg, mulled wine or whatever you want to call it. They had this cool chocolate orange, that you smash a couple of times to the table and then it peels out automatically to slices and is ready to eat. So cool :D

 Later on the Christmas Eve I went to a church again, this time with Nanny and my youngest host sister Molly. The church that we went was more like our church and they had a nice Christmas worship with a lot of music. My family has this tradition to go to a church on the Christmas Eve, so it was really nice to do it here too.

Molly came to wake me up on the Christmas Day. Mom had made a big breakfast, beacon, sausages, pancakes and etc. I've used to have snow on the Christmas but this year it was different. When I looked outside, it was looking more like a spring or something else than winter. But holiday music and decorations made it feel more like a Christmas.

The best envelope I've ever got, thanks Alex! :D

Then it was time for the moment that we all had been waiting for, to open all the presents!! I seriously wasn't expecting to get this much presents, but it seems like I've been very nice this year ;) I got so many thoughtful gifts, can't even describe how happy it made me feel. Beautiful dresses, cozy socks, books, yummy teas, Warriors blanket, and of course a stocking full of candy.

I got this the most beautiful make-up bag from my parents. They didn't want to send me a lot of presents, because it would have been really stupid to send me a lot of stuff that I'd had to bring back home. (and I already bought myself some presents.) My mom got this for me from Moscow, I'm absolutely in love with it. 

Later on the Christmas Day we went to Nanny's and Pop's house. They offered us some glögi and snacks, and then we exchanged more gifts. From the grandparent's house we headed to Sheetz to pick up Alex from work and to get free coffee. (We need this kind of places in Finland too, who wouldn't love to have a free hot drink!) The rest of the day we were just chilling and watching movies. My first American Christmas was so great in every way! Hopefully you all had amazing Christmas :)

Kitchen Kettle Village

Well this post is kind of late but however, we had our last Production Companies performance last Saturday at Kitchen Kettle Village. It is a really nice shopping place, there are a lot of different little shops all around the little town called Intercourse (haha). It is basically Amish town, they are selling products made by Amish people and you can see so many Amish people hanging around there. On our way there we saw so many Amish horse buggies, it's always really funny to see them. (If you don't know who Amish people are, google them :D)

Sabrina, Cheyna and Emily!

Emily!

We had two performances at the outside "stage". Luckily the weather was nice and it wasn't raining  like it was supposed to. We got free lunches and before heading back home we had time to shop around the village and do last minute Christmas shopping :) The only things that I bought were sugar free chocolate for my host mom and caramel popcorn for my host dad! (You can see more pictures from the performances at http://srfilmvideo.zenfolio.com/p349926570)

Later on the Saturday I went to Nora's house, where we had a little pre-Christmas party and sleepover with Rachele and Luisa! It was really nice to meet up and talk with the girls. Even thought me and Nora are in same school we rarely see each other. 

Hopefully you all had a nice Christmas, I will post later about my American Christmas experiences! Enjoy the holidays :)

Holiday Concert part 2

Here we go, part two and more pictures from the Holiday Concert! So the Production Company continued after Happy Holidays to Kwanza, Hanukkah, La Posada and Christmas. 

Then we all, Holiday and Winter Productions, Concert Choir and Middle School people joined them to In December. We all had candles in our hands and the auditorium was dark, I think it might had looked pretty nice and full of Christmas feeling. 

(http://srfilmvideo.zenfolio.com)

Then it was time for the last numbers, That's the Good News and Hallelujah chorus with the orchestra.  

My choir buddy Kelly!

Louisa from Brazil!

My AFS liaison Larissa!

The school had provided food for us to eat after the first show and then it was time to do the same show again! I was really exhausted after the second show. I'm really happy I auditioned for this, I had so much fun and I got to know a lot of new amazing people! Definitely a memory that I will remember forever.

Holiday Concert part 1

Finally I have time to write about our Holiday Concert! I've been really busy, on the last week of school I had a lot of different things going on. But now it's finally holiday, so I've got time to chill out and go trough all the pictures! There are so many nice pictures from the concert so I decided to make two post about it, otherwise the one post would have been really long. 

Kelsey and Hannah!

Emily, Sabrina and Louisa!

Winter and Holiday girls!

Sabrina and Courtney!

Choir robe selfie!

So because the Saturday's show was cancelled, we had two shows on Sunday. Before the show, when we all arrived around 2pm, we had costume-check and warm-up. Then the Orchestra started and played their music for about 30minutes. After the String group it was time for the Concert Choir and we started with Betelehemu. Then we sang Dai Diddle Dai, Breath Of Heaven and Do You Hear What I Hear. 

(http://srfilmvideo.zenfolio.com)

After the Concert Choir part 1 was done, we had quick costume change and five minute intermission, while the Grease group were dancing a little sneak peak from the upcoming musical! Then we Production Companies started our show with Happy Holidays.

After the first song the "Show Choir" group of the Production Companies continued with other holiday celebration songs. More about those in the next post!

While we weren't on the stage, we had opportunity to watch the show in the choir room. It was a really good thing, because we knew exactly what was going on and when we were supposed to be ready to go to the stage again. Before the first show started, I saw that they were live streaming the show online. So I asked the man who was operating it, if I could get the web address and then when I got it, I sent it to my family in Finland! They were able to watch the entire show online, even though it was midnight there! :)