soooo yeah....

its been ages. but to be honest, blogging and pictureing have been put on the back burner while i try and spend every second I can of my last TEN days. Thats right, I'm coming home in 1 week and two days.....oh my gosh. This post will be short, so no amazing details about what I've been up to, but in short I have: talked with my family; bought new jeans; went cycling at Elixia; went to horse camp !; baked cookies; watched Ice Age 2 with Petra; camped in a home made tent made of chairs in blankets<3; jumped on a trampoline; said goodbye to Lauri, Juuso, and Harri for the last time :/; explored underground mines of "KanaVuori" which means Chicken Mountain :D; moved back to the Turpeinens; visited my host sisters at Scouting Camp; went to anninas over night and curled her hair :); spent saturday packing almost all of my things, which miraculously are all fitting into my suitcases !; got rid of three bags of clothing; talked with booboo online<3; went to Alvar's confirmation; ate a TON of food; got a cold >:O; got my report card from school; finished off some presents; wrote in my blog. If you'd like to know more, please write down your questions and keep it in a safe place until I return (:

This is what I'll be up to for the next ten days, probably not filled with blogging: have my going away party at the Viertolas cottage in Kangasniemi with annina, piia, petra, anna, maria, mimmi, nuppe, sirpa, raija, and me :D; celebrate Midsummers night eve, where the sun doesn't set, at the turpeinens cottage in tampere (vehnäjärvi) until sunday; go rowboating with raija and say my goodbyes to them; spend the night at anninas and spend the WHOLE ENTIRE day with her on tuesday; finish packing everything, say my last goodbyes, and head down to helsinki on wednesday; fly off on thursday ! i shall reunite with my family (hopefully :}) around 2 30 p.m. on thursday afternoon.

thats it ! <3

my first mo ped rideeee :)

Petra got a mo ped a while ago and took me for my first ride on one ! It was a blastttt :D We went downtown to see Slumdog Millionaire which was really good, I thouroughly enjoyed the entire thing (: And then we rode back home and we took the path along the lake which was gorgeous as the sun was just beginning to set, (at 11.00 at night...it doesn't go all the way down until pushing 2 am. and then comes back up around 5 ! yeah. sleeping is getting more difficult. but its so niceeee<3) and it was so pretty. Today I'm baking twice baked potatoes and yummy chicken for the Sainpalos, the potatoes are sizziling in the oven (should they be?....) I just heard from my mom that my one and only big brother Jordan shot a 73 and 74 in my dads Golf Tournament this weekend and ended up with the lowest score next to my dad with the lowest score with his handicap. He won 150.00 bucks ! Ah, I'm so proud, congrats beefy, that is wonderfulll. And congrats to you too dad, it looks like your kidney held up ! Maybe its like a lucky kidney or something ? :P Anyways, so thats really awesome news. And tomorrow morning I think I get to skype with my lovely family members one last time before i come home (which is in a shocking 19 days. now its less than 20. getting closer and closer...) My going away party is from tuesday the 16th to wednesday the 17th at the Viertola's summer cottage in Kangasniemi. I went to that cottage in the winter to cover up some trees, but we didn't stay long, so I didn't get to experience it. But now the lake is all warm (well probably not really warm because our weather has sort of sucked this past week. its been in the mid to high 40's this whole week, on wednesday it was only +3 (38 or so) degrees outside. in SUMMER. gee. fun. But today the sun is shining a bit and its +8 right now at 11 30. not the best, but its not raining ! I'm listening to my little host sister obnoxiously singing singstar in her bedroom...its cute, but shes very loud....(reminding you of anyone ? ;D) Maybe I'll sit outside her room and film her ? ahaha. yeah maybe. Today I'm maybe going with Petra, pinja, and maria to this fairytale land in the town that Annina lives in. It sort of sounds like fun !? I don't really know what it is, just an amusement park fairytale land with a witch that walks around or something. and then ! this week Maria is going to a 3 day horse riding day camp, from 9 30-6 monday tuesday and wednesday. And then anna called the lady running it and asked if I could go with her one day, the lady said yes, but I would be an actual part of the camp. I mean of course I can help out with the kids, but I'll be actually doing the things, riding the Iceland Ponies, doing the arts and crafts, etc. So on tuesday, I am going ! To horse camp ! With a group of 10 year olds! HAhhaha. I'm really excited :D All I can think of is the one year Kelsie and I went to Miracle Ranch :) That was so fun ! I heard my brothers girlfriend is working there this year, how fun ! Anyways, then on thursday I leave to go back to Säynätsalo...and then that weekend I'm helping Raija bake lots of nummy things for Alvar's chruch confirmation which is on Sunday. He asked me if I would bake hime cookies, how sweeet ! I baked with Maria yesterday, she made (or tried to...they came out...interesting tasting...) White Chocolate Muffins and I made really tasty Mint chocolate chip cookies with white chocolate chunks, delicious. Anna and Lauri really liked them. And yeah. Thats it for now I believeeee. heres some pictures, more on my flickr !

We did it !

Hooray ! :) We finished our race ! It was a total of 5.4 km, roughly the equivalent of 3.5 miles, in 41 minutes, 22 seconds. We didn't run it all out, just a good steady pace and we never stopped ! But it was really fun, although the worst possible weather ever. Rainy, freezing cold, super windy next to the lake and over the bridge, kind of miserable. But altogether really quite fun :) We got a huge picnic lunch dinner thing afterwards as well as a free plant ! Haha, how cute :D But yeah, here are some pictures from it ! The first two pictures are of this old man who picked my number randomly and then read my forecast from my palm. I had no idea what was happening ! It was really hillarious and the girls just kept laughing and laughing down below, haha. Good times. The next picture is of our whole team with our medals ! :D Andthe last one is of me piia, piia's friend Lili i think, and annina :)

my video

of my speech and my choir singing on the last day of school, is UP ! on my photobucket.

www.photobucket.com/josesuomessa (i think....) anyways, go watch it !

these weeks go by like the seconds on a clock.

does that even make any sense? It's already been another week since my last post, this is probably one of the last few that I'll post before returning to the United State, June 25th still seems far away however. I dont even know where to begin, I've sort of forgotten what I've done on each day thats passed. I took a few tests, Englsih and Religion, I got a 10 (A) from English and a 7-(B-/C+) from Religion, but to remind you the whole class was taught in Finnish and then my test was translated into english. So it was acutally a fairly good score seeing as I had no english material the whole course ! Anyways. Then I had a good wednesday off which I sat around and enjoyed the sun. Thursday I gave my big end of the year presentation to the Rotary, all in finnish which surprised almost all of them who had no idea I had mastered the language so well. So that was fun :D They gave me some really nice books to take home (gee, more heavy things...). Then that same night, thursday, was Lyseo (my school's) "Art Night" and the theme was animals. There was a play put on by the teachers that was hilarious, I ahve part of a video to show when I get back. And then there were various performances put on by the students, mini dramas, bands, musical pieces, etc. It was really fun though, and I got lots of pictures with my friensd, some of which are on my flickr ! Friday I went to anninas in the morning and went running with piia, not very far, maybe 2 miles. And then I spent the whole day with her translating my speech in to finnish which I wsas giving the following morning to my school. I was really nervous about that...But we just spent the whole nice day together, and then I spent the night and it was really fun. In the morning we were up at 5 to do our hair and get ready for our last day of school. We were singing in the choir, John Lennons Imagine, which went realyl really well, we got lots of compliments on it. I have video of it that I can maybe upload this week somtime. It also includes my speech that went realy well, althoguh I spoke really fast....as always. But the crowd laughed at my jokes and gave me a nice long applause and cheers, so I felt good. That weekend we, the Turpeinens and myself, went down to Helsinki for Lauris graduation party, it acutalyl was really fun. The beginning was a bit awkward, I just stood with Mimmi on the side randomly saying to people I didnt know, and neither did she. Haha. But once the crowd died down The cousins and I all played really long games of barefoot soccer and jumped on the trampoline. The next day we did the same things and also played Risk, the boardgame. In which Mimmi and I won ! By completing all of our missions first, and capturing all of north america, Ha :D It was actually quite an exciting game, I realyl liked it. We left their house in the evening and returned home around 23.00. On monday I went downtown with Annina and toured this really gorgeuos foresty part in Jyväsklyä that was realyl awesome, and I took pictures, flickrrr. I have a sun burn now ! which will turn to a tan ! Finalllllyyyyy. I really thoguht I'd have to go home stark white. Today was a bit oversast but annina and I went on a crazy long run around the lake, and without stopping, not even once, we finished 9.3 km, roughly equivalent to 6 and a bit miles. It was death, and my feet hurt, but it was realyl nice ! And ! I don't ahve to go on the big trip that would have taken 9 days to Turku anymore, I'm staying with the Sainpalos from today until next thursday which means I get to go on my run with the girls ! And stay in Jkl. ! Hooray ! So I'm really stoked for that, but I actually should be leaving now so I can go catch my bus to go there. Hopefully I can blog again soon, but no promises....Pictures on flick. Three more weeks. Jeee !