Life is good

I haven't posted any pictures lately, and I apologize for that. These pictures are from March and April!

 At a senators baseball game

Life

 After musical cast party (I am not in the picture)

Our family in one picture

 Seniors at the open mic night (choir that I am in)

 Bff's!! I guess we can't get good picture together

 At my surprise birthday party

My amazing 'Dairy Queen' Ice cream cake!

-Ella

Last few weeks...

So what is going on? I just want to tell something that I have been doing lately, because it feels like I don't tell much about my "every day" life here.
 The past two weeks have been awesome! I have had days that I literally couldn't stop smiling. I am having really good time here... Last week we had auditions for schools musical and I got in choir! The musical is called Hello Dolly and I am so excited. I have always wanted to do musical and now I'm HERE doing it. The rehearsals starts after Christmas brake, and the performances are in March.

Santa's little helpers!

When you are an exchange student it's a good thing to keep yourself busy. Then you don't have so much time to think about how things are at home.  Right now in my free time I am doing musical, show choir, I am in our high schools spirit club and sometimes if I have a chance, I do volunteer working. I also spend a lot of time with my host family and almost every week I go to basketball or hockey games with my friends.

 Basketball game & beach theme.

 Pink out!

 Yesterday we had chorus/chorale concert at school and after that I went to my friends house. We had a christmas party and sleepover at my friends house with bunch of people. We ate, shared presents (they shared because I wasn't prepared for that :D) and watched christmas movies. I had so much fun and I am so happy that I got invited. The best lunch table ever <3 I didn't expect any presents and I got so much stuff from them. I really appreciate that they had thought of me!

Last saturday we went to New York city. The day trip was awesome and  I'm going to talk more about that later and also put some pictures!

 So sweet <3

Can't wait for Christmas! Only two (three)  more days.

-Ella

Second month

2 months in Pennsylvania...  I don't know how I should start, first thing that confused me is that two months from now is almost christmas. And then is new  year's eve, what? When I'm thinking how fast these two months went it scares me to imagine time after new years.  It always goes really quickly, and now I'm here!!

I really do like my family. We get along really well, they're caring, we have so much fun together and I can be myself around them. I really enjoy being part of this family and that's exactly how I feel, I'm one of them! I love that they're joking all the time but they still know when to be serious.  I think we've got much closer after month and it's neat to see that.  First month was kind of getting know everyone  and adjusting  to be here. Now, I feel more like home, this is not just some place I'll spend next 8 months. Believe or not, at first it was hard to say  "I'm going home " or "We're going to our house".  Now house where I live feels like my home and it's nice to say so.

I played soccer this fall and actually I still do.  We made it to districts and it's the first time ever our  soccer girls made this far. Our first game is on monday and I am really excited.  Our team has had dinners together, breakfast and we also raised money for us by washing cars!  I love when we are doing things like this together and we'll have more.  I feel our team is close and everybody support each other. I have got good friends because of soccer, so I can't  recommend enough to start playing sports while your exchange year.

My everyday life is nice, no doubt. I don't have much homework and usually it won't take long (=because every other day I have two studyhalls "läksy tunti".) when I'm back home after school we eat dinner together and share things that happened. I really like to help my parents here with food because it's good time to talk about everything what is on my mind. I always try to go to bed early, but it usually doesn't work because a) I always stay up hanging out in the kitchen talking or b) our day was just really long and busy. There is five kids in our family (including me) so we have always something. Now, when soccer season is over our life calms down, haha. Last two months we had soccer games every week, sometimes we had almost ten in a week! All the kids play soccer and my older sister plays softball. Sports definitely keep us busy!

School is going okay! Tests/quizzes are much easier than in Finland because usually we have multiple choise tests or matching. Some words are harder for me and I have no clue what they mean, but I try to learn them! Spelling isn't that hard though. In Finland teachers were really strict about english words and their spelling so it's quit easy to write them correctly. However here it seems to be harder for students. That's why I love finnish. You write it how you pronounce it.

 I am really happy right now I love to be here and I try enjoy every day. Time goes soo fast and I have so much things that I want experience while I am here. 3rd month started today and we'll see what happens. On sunday we had pumpkin carving and dinner with soccer team. I carved my first pumpkin and I'll totally do that next year it was really cool.

Have a great week!

-Ella

First blogpost

Moi!
Olen kohta 17-vuotias tyttö Helsingistä, jota odottaa lähtö Amerikkaan elokuussa 2014. Blogissa tuun kirjoittamaan tulevasta vaihtovuodestani ja ajatuksista ennen lähtöä. Olen aina halunnut kokeilla bloggaamista ja nyt siihen on ainakin pätevä syy... Tarkoituksena on kirjoittaa kuulumisia perheelle ja ystäville, mutta on mahtavaa jos muitakin kiinnostaa!

Hain vaihto-oppilaaksi järjestöön nimeltä Into. Hakemuksen lähetin lokakuussa ja haastattelussa olin muistaakseni lokakuun lopussa. Kaikki sujui oikein hyvin! Paperihommat olivat valmiita marraskuun lopussa ja hakupaketti lähetettiin. Voin myöhemmin kertoa järjestöstäni lisää, sillä en itsekään ollut kuullut aikaisemmin siitä mitään.

Sijoitustiedot tulivat vasta helmikuussa. Siis mitäääää, olin aivan häkeltynyt että miten mulle on löytynyt perhe - muutamassa kuukaudessa!? Siitäkin tulen kirjoittamaan myöhemmin, mutta niinkuin varmaan huomasitte, osavaltio missä tulen viettämään vaihtovuottani on Pennsylvania.

Ella