Kakkuparty

 Yesterday we had a cake party with the girls at Elina's house. The idea was to experiment with some new recipes, also with gluten free variations. Some were a success, others... maybe not :D

Alina, Elina and Laura ready to dig in.

 This cake consisted of chocolate, butter and cream :D 

Needless to say, it was rather rich! But oh so good :)

 This was some sort of blueberry crumble pie. Basically blueberries with sugar and a crumbly oat-mixture on the top :) Also good!

 There were also two other cakes, one a carrot one made by Elina for the day before and which we finished after lunch. No pictures, but it was good, of course.

The other was made by Alina, a sort of chocolate cake, but moist :) Also good!

And we come to the winner :D

It was supposed to have the consistency of a cheesecake... It looks more like a plateful of melted ice cream :D

Also, with yoghurt and cream cheese and lemon, it tasted too much like sour milk :/

I don't believe I'll be making that one again...

Family

 As every year, we had a Christmas dinner with my dad's family on the 26th. My aunt raises Leonberger dogs, we used to have one too, years ago. They're huge!

This is me with Late, one of their bigger ones. He's like a bear :)

 Ludi with Late

Jade, my cousin's 10 month old daughter :)

Kisu

Snow :)

Let there be light!

 During dark winters every single ray of sunlight is appreciated (unless you're driving south on an icy road...)

It's so pretty how it turns trees pink :)

 This picture was taken at noon on the shortest day of the year, December 21. For the one hour the sun could be seen from our house it never got higher than the treetops and traveled just a few degrees southward. 

May summer come quickly! :)

 LIGHT

The sun :)

A long dark night

 When you work a morning shift you won't even see the sun at all. It's kind of dark. But we've had a beautiful full moon that brightens up the long nights and makes the world seem almost enchanted. It's really incredible to take a late night walk in a forest covered in snow with moon shadows all over the place, bright stars in the sky and sparkling snow on all the trees :)

And lights! Candles, fireplace, christmas lights... candles make my life happy :)

 moonshine

 snow :)

somebody got us funky neon led lights for the tree outside...

Home for Christmas :)

 I get to be home this Christmas :) At least most of it, after working Christmas Eve. 

They found an interesting tree for us this year... It has a bald spot. A big bald spot. I feel kind of sorry for it :D

The cats like the tree :) Last year our tree dried up way before Christmas since they drank up the water. This year the tree has survived thus far :)

hei hei Turku

 After my birthday I spent four weeks doing a practicum at a nursing home in Turku. It was great fun and I also learned some things :)

 I moved. Packed up my things and left. This is what the room looked like after I had moved most of my stuff out.

 The day before I moved I succeeded in locking myself out of my apartment. Oh the joy :D

So I took a bus to the other side of town to pick up a spare key and walked back. The church happened along my way and I stopped for awhile :) It's so calm and peaceful inside!

Happy half a century ;)

Mom turned 50 on Dec. 13. I went home for it and Laura flew home from Sweden as a surprise :) It was great fun planning all the details and trying to keep it all a secret. I ended up taking the bus from Turku to Helsinki Thursday night and met Laura and Dad at the airport, then in the morning we drove up to Ristiina and had the lady at the post office call Mom up and had her come 'sign for a special delivery' - Laura. She was rather surprised and happy :)

On Sabbath we had cake and hot chocolate at the church with our church family and then had friends over for the afternoon. These two cakes were made by Alina.

Only now do I realize I don't really have a picture of the birthday girl... :/ Sorry Mom!

 There's Mom, dishing up stir fry

 Our colorful fruit salad on Friday evening :) with grapes, kiwi and pomegranate, among other things

 With my Kisu :)

with most of my sisters. Ludi couldn't make it home for the weekend :/

Alina, Elina, me, Laura

Oi Suomi katso, sinun päiväs koittaa...

Finlandia - Sibelius

I found these words written to Finlandia. I'm used to singing Be Still My Soul in english, so This Is My Song was new to me.

This is my song, o God of all the nations,

a song of peace for lands afar and mine.

This is my home, the country where my heart is;

Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;

But other hearts in other lands are beating,

with hope and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country's skies are bluer than the ocean,

and sunlight beams on clover leaf and pine.

But other lands have sunlight too, and clover,

And skies are everywhere as blue as mine:

O hear my song, thou God of all the nations,

a song of peace for their land and mine.

May truth and freedom come to every nation!

May peace abound where strife has raged so long;

that each may seek to love and build together,

A world united, righting every wrong;

A world united in its love for freedom,

proclaiming peace together in one song.

Here's still the original Finnish version on YouTube :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL6z2XjFsuQ

Finlandia

Today we're celebrating 93 years of independence :)

I think I'll celebrate by listening to Sibelius - Finlandia and the Karelia Suite :)

As kids we'd dress up fancy and go visit friends and watch the presidential Independence Day Ball on TV. It was great fun to evaluate all the ladies dresses! The men were rather boring :D They all looked the same..

This year no TV, no party.. maybe I'll have my own :D

Representing my country on Mt Kenya

Hopefully I can do the same on many more mountains! 

Our prayer

Lord, open up our eyes,

let there be no disguise 

of the pain we see.

Lord, open up our hearts,

to not ignore 

the cries of a world in need.

And open up our ears,

so we can hear 

Your call to share the hope 

You freely gave.

And open up the path,

so we will have no fear 

as we go out to reach 

the world you long to save.

Celebrations :)

 Both Ludi and I have our birthdays this month, so when she came to visit me the other weekend we celebrated by buying Ben & Jerry's ice cream (amazingly good stuff!) and making fruit salad. It was good :) 

Feliz cumple Ludi!

Pizza, anyone?

Ludi's 9th grade class had a pizzeria to raise money for their class trip to Nice, France.

The theme for the pizzeria, not coincidentally, was Paris.. :)

Mom, Dad and I helped out in the kitchen, and Ludi was a waitress.

Mozzarella pizza. I so wanted to taste one the whole time we were baking! Finally in the end, after about 5 or 6 hours of baking pizzas, there were enough left over for us to have a few pieces.. :)

Nice would be located where that yellow blob is

my 'french' sister :)

inside the workshop.. all in all I think we baked 213 pizzas. It was crazy at times with impatient waiters at the door asking every 30 seconds whether their pizza was out of the oven yet, and new ones coming up with orders of 6 or more pizzas.. But it was fun! :) We had a great team and I think we all enjoyed the evening :)