Cheesecake

So Steve came home the other day and says that there is a tradition at his work where the new guy needs to bring a cake for his department. The funny thing is that he asked when the tradition started and they said with the last guy. So I am debating what to make because I am not a cake baker or at least not enough to impress others. I feel fairly confident in my cheesecake skills, so I decided to go get ingredients for a chocolate cheesecake.

I headed into the store, kidless so I could concentrate, and found the eggs. Then headed to find the graham crackers, sugar, chocolate chips, vanilla, condensed sweetened milk. Finally about 15 minute later I put my pride down and tried to ask where I may be able to find these things or if they even carried them at all.

I was on what looked like the baking aisle and asked someone there if they knew if they carried chocolate chips and they pointed me to the chip aisle. Asked someone if they knew where the vanilla was and they pointed me to the vanilla milk. I was able to find the sugar on my own because it was labeled sugar. I just got strange looks when I asked about graham crackers, but there was girl there that pointed me to a thing called "digestive crackers", which are pretty good actually somewhat comparable to graham crackers.

I ended up leaving with eggs, cream cheese, digestive crackers, vanilla milk(only because I felt bad that person went to all the trouble finding vanilla for me), sugar, a chocolate bar instead of chocolate chips and margerine. I will get better at this and maybe learn some yummy foods that they make here so I don't have to stress about ingredients.

Their bakery is pretty amazing. Everything I have tried has been super yummy. Interesting looking, but very yummy. I will post pics of my cheesecake and some yummy bakerstuff once I get my cord to the camera.

Oh and by the way the cheesecake turned out pretty good, even though I couldn't get all the ingredients. I am enjoying living here. It is such a fun different experience.

Serenity, Serenity, Serenity!!

She is my sunshine. She makes me smile when skies are grey. I absolutely love this little girl that is so full of energy. I have no idea where is gets it from. She is very curious and loves to take life on every second and drag little Ezra along with her.

It has been very difficult to say the least with all of her energy and curiosity to keep her reigned in during the bus, bank, temporary apartment furnished with glass tables and collectables galore, market, etc.... I am so very tired. Today at the bank I fell apart and I am sure everyone thinks I am the crazy American lady that started crying in the bank, but it has finally caught up to me. I cannot wait until we get our own place. We have had 4 weeks it feels like of vacation and to keep my little ones entertained for that long has been a challenge.

I love my baby girl she is a beautiful amazing child and I am sure if she slowed down for one moment I would be worried something was wrong. I am grateful for her hugs, smiles and laughter. I just needed to let it out and for some reason my blog has been a nice release for me, so like I said before if you are reading this you can pick and choose the posts I am just enjoying the moment to myself to write.

Small world

So today I got on the bus with my two little ones in tow in the stroller. When you get on the bus there is this place that you can stand next to the stroller with the kids still sitting in it making it easier to get on and off the bus. The only thing is there is only room for 2 strollers on the bus, so if there is already 2 strollers on the bus you can either wait for the next bus or fold up your stroller and ride in the seats with the kiddos. As I got onto the bus there was already another stroller on the bus which was fine the other parent just made room for me and my stroller to stand next to him and his child. Well as the bus rolled away I was not quite ready and pretty much fell on top of the other parent,but it was okay it happens he says. So we got into a conversation about kids and his wife had just had a baby. blah blah blah. Well mid way through the conversation he asks me where I am from and I tell him that I am from Utah. Then he asks me the next question that is associated with Utah. Are you Mormon? To this I answer yes. Then he says so am I. Wow. Really out of all the people to run over on the bus since less than 1 percent of the people from Finland are Mormon I just thought what a small world.

Church

Last Sunday we went to church and no one was there because of Stake Conference. lol. This Sunday we got to meet our new ward. I want to back track and talk about how ever since we have been in Finland everything has seemed so different and new which can be exciting but sometimes it is nice to know the Familiar. Even the Mcdonalds are different here.

As I walked into the church building it was like I was at home. Everyone was so welcoming and friendly and that same sweet spirit was felt there. I am so grateful to have that comfort of being so far away from home and knowing that I have the church here.

I now know what it is like to listen to a head set and a translator during Sunday school and Relief Society. They were so sweet since I was the only one being translated too. I would have been happy to just sit and soak up the spirit. There are two American families in the ward. The interesting thing is that the bishop said that there always seems to be at least 2 or 3 American families in the ward at a time. The other two families are leaving at the end of the summer, so I guess we will see if another family joins the ward.

There is going to be a Christmas party for the ward and the Relief Society next month. So excited to be able to spend any time with the ward. Also they said they are going to have the best Christmas hat contest. That is what Steve said anyways. I think it would be hilariious if he is the only one to show up with one. lol. Not even sure what a Christmas hat here is.

Altogether we got to church at 2 and got home that evening at 7. Long day, but a wonderful day.

Cooking is a new experience here

Figured out today that 5 dl in Finnish measurements does not mean 5 cups. lol. Somehow it seemed to work out in the recipe I made yesterday, but today I fear I have made dinner a little less appealing. Watery cheesey pasta not so good. I will learn quickly I hope. haha.

When I go to the grocery store I feel like I can do this just look at the pictures, but when I get home I realize that the pics don't tend to help when preparing the meal. I have been using google translate, but some of the words don't translate, so I end up guessing. I will get better at this. lol. I just am sorry that my family has to suffer through some of the meals. lol.

Dryers?

One other thing I wanted to post before I forget. Steve and I have been house hunting. We found a beautiful place in the city center on the a fifth floor apartment building. Hopefully we will get the one we loved. The thing I wanted to mention is there is an odd thing about not having dryers here. Maybe the nicer homes have them, but most of the time they are not included in a rental. They are not really talked about to much. A few places had drying rooms or clothes lines, but dryers are kind of an afterthought here. That is one thing I definitely am going to have to get used to. I will post pics of the new place when we move in. Probably sometime at the beginning of December. Also the lighting fixtures you have to be in charge of even the ceiling lights. In a rental. Very interesting. Just something different that you normally don't have to think about in the US.

The Bus

Okay so again I am not posting pictures, but I am trying for some reason my computer will not let me upload them at this time. I just wanted to make another post because I am rather proud of myself for taking a bold move to take the bus today by myself with all four children. I am writing this blog to keep family and friends up to date of my family going-ons in Finland, but also hope to print it at the end of the year into a journal, so some of this may seem mundane kind of like sitting down and watching family home videos when it is not your family. lol. The good thing is you can pick and choose which blog entries you want to read and which you don't.

On with my story, so today I decided I did not want to sit in the flat all day with nothing to do. I gathered up all my children we layered our winter gear on and I gave a good talking to Serenity that she needed to sit in the double stroller while we rode on the bus. (In Finland you can roll onto the bus through the middle doors with your stroller and your kids and mom is free, but if you sit in a seat you need to pay). I do have a bus pass so it does not matter the pay, but I prefer the little ones to sit in the stroller so I am not chasing them up and down the bus. So far Serenity says she will sit in the stroller and be a good girl, but as we arrive at the bus station she starts trying to get out of the stroller and throwing one of her famous fits. (take a deep breath)

I brought juice and snacks to combat. Hoping that the bus would get there. (Guess I should have checked the schedule, but the buses run pretty often).

A bus did come 15 minutes later and was able to transition onto the bus pretty easily. The ride isn't that long, I just have to lock the stroller wheels and sit by the stroller. The only difficult part of the ride was keeping Ezra and Serenity entertained while on the bus. We got to the shopping area fine and was able to roll off of the bus easily. When we got to the shopping center they have a little kid play area. I set my two little ones free. It was fun to watch how they interacted with the other children. They had no idea what the other one was saying(or maybe they did). It is so neat to see that kids are so adaptable, no matter where we go they just are kids.

We ate at an all you can eat pizza buffet anywhere else did not seem kid friendly. Not the best food. They did have shrimp pizza(hmmm?), but my kids said this is the greatest place ever we need to take dad here, so maybe we will go again just for them. Prices are crazy here though. For the buffet it was 29 euro for all of us. Ok maybe we won't be going back. lol.

After we headed to the supermarket( K market). The markets here are nothing like the ones in America. Very small and not much to choose from, but it makes it easy to not spend a lot and I can be in and out of the store quickly. As we headed into the store the older ones started bickering and the little ones started squirming in the stroller. When I realized that the stroller wasn't even going to fit in the aisles I turned around. Things here are so much smaller.

When we got to the bus stop the bus pulled right up and was able to easily get on. I looked out for landmarks so that I didn't miss our stop and was able to get us back home. Walked home and made it inside to our 2nd floor flat.
(sigh) put little Ez to sleep and ate some chocolate. It was a good day.

The beginning

I have not been able to download pics yet, but I wanted to start a blog before it's too late. I wanted to blog our adventures in Georgia and that never happened. I don't want to make the same mistake again. So far I feel like I am living in a dream. Mostly because I feel like I can't catch up on my sleep because of a three year old that is stuck on Georgia time, but also because I am living in Europe!!

I think that when it actually hit me the most was when I was walking in the main part of Helsinki and everyone around us was speaking a different language. The people here are so pretty. When they speak there words flow so smoothly kind of like a song. I tried not to say to much because I felt like if I did it would break up this beautiful sound with my honky tonk American accent. I hope that over the next 3 years I pick up a lot of the language and maybe some of the accent. My next post I hope to have pictures. Things are kind of still crazy we are living in a temporary apartment and so the internet isn't always that reliable.