Freddy's Birthday

Freddy was officially 18 on March 25, which is oddly enough only one day different from our first exchange son, Felipe's, whose is on the 24th.  Eighteen for a Finnish kid, doesn't mean a whole lot here in the US, but when he gets back to Finland he will be able to drink alcohol.... legally.  It was a busy weekend but we squeezed in lots of birthday activities.  The morning of his birthday we had American breakfast, pancakes & sausage, before school.

That night Freddy had a birthday party with friends.  Saturday we went to Birch Run for some birthday shopping and a birthday lunch.  We finally went to Tony's.  It's famous for HUGE portions.  Freddy got the BLT (bacon lettuce tomato sandwich) with 1 full pound of bacon!  He ate much of it but could not finish it.

That night we had a family birthday dinner.  Freddy chose and we had steaks, frites and salad.  Huge sirloin steaks of which Freddy ate the entirety of.  Mike and I split one.  The frites were sweet potato and I made a smoked paprika butter for the steaks. Very delicious meal.

Sunday we had birthday cake.  When we asked Freddy what kind he wanted, he stated that he wanted an American cake.  Isn't cake American period??  No?  Oh okay.  Epicurious was a big helper and I found a decidely American cake, Devils Food Cake.  We topped the three layers with a caramel frosting and it was mouth watering.

 The final part of the celebration was the following Wednesday.  We bought Red Wings tickets for Freddy's birthday present.  We had a great time even though the Wings got slaughtered.  Not a bad replacement for the drinking birthday that he would have had in Finland.

Adventures in Finnish Cookery

I really love to cook and my husband might let you know that with recipes I have the attention span of a gnat.  I hardly ever make the same thing twice, I'm awful at following recipes (I'm always improvising due to pantry supplies or food allergies) and I always like to try something new.  I'll make/try anything once.  So, it is no wonder that along with our exchange students come new cooking adventures for me.  I wonder if my sons ever get tired of me asking how things taste, if they've had anything similar before and what kind of recipes are close to it in their country.  I'm so curious about food and I love to eat!

So, below are some of my adventures in Finnish cookery this year.  I haven't done a ton of Finnish cooking, because one of Freddy's goals is to try EVERYTHING American.  But, it has been really nice to try some special things at Christmas and recently for Fat Tuesday (Shrove Tuesday).

New Apron and Oven Mitt from Finland for Christmas.

Christmas I made something that was a wide step outside of my comfort zone, Gravlax.  For a very long portion of my life I never liked fish.  Sounds ridiculous now, but I think I only did fish sticks a couple times as a youngster and I decided that fish and I would not be friends.  My Dad wasn't a fan either, so I never thought it was a weird thing to pass on food with scales.  When I got food allergies, I realized how fortunate I was to be able to eat any food, so I took a new position in my food life...  try everything that I'm not allergic to at least once.  That philosophy has had a hand in leading me to the land of fishes and while I like most of them, salmon is just not one that I'm a fan of.  Gravlax is cured or marinated salmon.  I'm currently wrinkling my nose thinking about salmon.

But, fortunately for me, once finished Gravlax doesn't taste very salmon-y.  I liked it quite a bit.  At Christmas time we also made the traditional gingerbread, rutabaga casserole and Christmas pudding.  Pictures coming....

Freddy's parents sent me a note telling me of a Fat Tuesday pastry that they normally have and how much Freddy liked them.  They offered to send me the recipe if I wanted to try to make them.  Really... did they have to even ask?  Below are pictures of making the fastlagsbulle.  Freddy said they were great and Mike rather liked them too.

 Then on Sunday after our drive back from Columbus we told Freddy that he had to cook dinner for us because he has not cooked a thing here in the US (really we were just feeling lazy!).  The closest he's gotten to cooking is stirring something for me on the stove and putting together peanut butter & jelly sandwiches.  He said he had the recipe for Macaroni Casserole that he hadn't made.  We of course all went into the kitchen and made it together.  Quite tasty.

Freddy even made his own "head chef" hat.

Doing dishes while Freddy was watching the stove.

The finished product!

Happy Holi-daze!

The holidays were amazing, but all too quick.  Unfortunately just before Christmas, I had a big project (that I'm still drowning in) come up and it zapped a lot of my time and energy right at holiday time.  It was stressful, but in the end it all worked out and we still had a great couple of weeks.  

Finnish Christmas Dinner

For Christmas, I wanted to make sure that I did something special for Freddy.  So, I sought out advice from his Finnish parents (Erik & Anki) about what Christmas is like in Finland.  It was very easy for me to get in touch with them because they are so very helpful and communicative.  They were quite pleased to help me with traditions, recipes and all other things Finnish.  Mike and I planned to have a three day Christmas celebration.  

We began on Christmas Eve, with our first trip snowboarding/skiing for the winter season.  We all had a great time.  Freddy showed me a few tips (this is only my second year snowboarding) and I did very well for the first trip of the season.  I even did one of the steepest hills with Freddy by my side.  Freddy really is an exceptionally great snowboarding partner.  He always stayed behind me or slowed down to make sure I was all right.  And, of course, when I hit the ground he'd make sure I was all right.  We all had so much fun and it was a great start to the holiday.  That night when we got home I began putting together all of the "top secret" Finnish food I had been working on.  We had told Freddy that we were going to have Finnish Christmas on the 24th, but I left many things out.  I warmed up the glögg, ham and put the rutabaga casserole into bake.  I also made up a bit of a smorgasbord for us with multiple other things (salmon, especially for Freddy).  It went great.  We also got online to skype with Finland after all of their festivities were over.  It was very nice to chat with Erik, Anki, Mimmi and Oskar.  After chatting and dinner we opened presents from Finland.  We got some amazing gifts and we're so thankful for a little piece of Finland!  The best gifts I received were cookbooks!  Freddy brought me a book from Greece and the rest of the Boijers sent me a beautiful Finnish cookbook.  I am so excited to make something out of both.  Although, technically, I've already made rutabaga casserole that is in the Finnish book.

We continued with American Christmas the next morning.  Freddy had his first American stocking and we had nice relaxing day at home.  I got an AWESOME present from my husband.

A mazel t-shirt!  So fantastic along with my immersion blender.  Freddy became a normal American teenager with a new iPod.  iTunes was tough for him to learn, but he's clearly got the hang of it now.  

That evening after a couple of skyping sessions Mom, Dad and Dana came over for dinner.  We had leftover Finnish Christmas dinner with some American added in.  Eggnog, etc.  We played a couple of good natured games of Scene It and then we were off to bed for day 3 of the festivities.

Day 3 was Christmas with the family at my Mom & Dad's house.  It's always a long fun day of food presents and games.  We did stockings as always and then a little breakfast before the big presents and opening of gifts to/from each other.  My Mom apparently needed kitchen supplies this year because she got 2 waffle makers and 2 food processors!!  We finished the day with Freddy's first time playing Pit.  Sooooo much fun!  I'm pretty sure he thought we were lunatics when we all began shouting at the top of our lungs, but it took him only one game to be shouting louder than all of us.  That game is definitely a favorite!  Misc pictures below.

The New Adventures of Old Becki & Mike

Well, last week we started a new adventure with a new son from a new country.  We have been going non-stop ever since.  Freddy joined us from Finland on Wednesday, August 4th and will be staying with us for a whole year.  The only reason I have time to write in my blog is because I am starting my new hobby as a hockey/football mom tonight.  We are at the ice rink so Freddy can meet his coach and some of his new teammates.  He just walked past me and he was the size of the stay puft marshmallow man. 

Freddy has been settling in very well and has made friends fast.  It is what we expected from him because been talking with him since April, but still it was great to see it actually happening.  After arriving, the very next day he went to a football conditioning practice.  Then by Sunday night at midnight he was an official part of the St Johns football team and he started 2 a days.  We have officially tired him out which I thought would take a bit longer, but we did do a number on him.  

Thursday was a day for him to unpack and poke around the house while Mike and I were at work.  He got his bearings quickly and on Friday we picked up Walker at the farm for a full day of activities.  Walker gave him a complete tour of the farm that took almost an hour!  Walker left no equipment unexplained.  It was great!  Then we spent the rest of the day running errands with Walker, Sarah and CJ.  We went to the market, out to lunch and to Sam's in Lansing.  Friday night and Saturday were spent getting ready for the party Saturday night.  The welcome cookout was fantastic and Freddy got to meet many of our best friends and family.  It was a wonderful party into the wee hours of the morning.  Freddy slept in on Sunday and then Sunday night he headed off to football practice.  He said the first night/day of practice was pretty confusing, but today he said he actually knew where he was supposed to be running when they called out the play numbers.  Monday night we wanted to see if we could all ride together efficiently for the upcoming DALMAC, so we went on our 20 mile loop around Rainbow Lake.  It was a great ride and Freddy was feeling pretty good afterward, so he thought that it would be a good idea to meet up with the hockey team tonight.  It appears that he was wrong.  He is tired!!!  Good thing we have nothing planned tomorrow and Thursday.  I think he will need the evenings to recover a bit.

We have a fun weekend upcoming.  We will be at the pond for our annual community group campout.  Freddy has practice on Saturday and we are planning a longer bike ride for Sunday.  Maybe 40 - 60 miles.  We'll see what Freddy can do.  One thing is for certain... he will not be gaining any of that "American Weight" if he keeps this up!


The adventure continues...

He that is busy is tempted by but one devil; he that is idle, by a legion. - Thomas Fuller

We are so busy that I'm not sure if any devil can catch us in order to tempt us. If he did,  I'm sure we'd blow by the temptation with all of the things keeping us busy.

Two more very busy weeks/weekends have passed and they were filled with work, dinners, a graduation, a wedding, cycling, projects, parties and even a little bit of sleep. Two weekends ago we attended Lisa's graduation and had a delicious German congratulations dinner for her.


At the dinner I attempted my first try at Spaetzle. In the end I prevailed, but it took many tries. I owe big props to Chef Martin Block as I watched his video instruction as a primer that day before I tried to do it myself. Lisa said it was great and that she had never had homemade Spaetzle before!! She also said it was way better than the Spaetzle that they had when they dined in Germany in Epcot. Haha! Disney Chefs! I have prevailed over you!! Suzzy made an awesome beer braised brisket that I could eat for every meal for the next decade. It had an amazing flavor. We rounded it out with stuffed kohlrabi, a green salad and some other things that I have forgotten. What I haven't forgotten though, are Mom's 3 loaves of beer bread each made with different grains. One was an ancient grain mix, one was spelt and the third was oat. We have some exciting things happening in the Moore girls' kitchens.


Then on Saturday we worked in the yard and attended Caleb & Teresa's wedding. It was a good day/night. The ceremony was early and very close to my favorite burger establishment. So after a drink with the family at the sports bar we jetted off to Birch Run to get Jeanna open toed shoes and to get me some Halo Burger! It was delicious and I finally talked Mike into buying a t-shirt for me. It says, "Seven days without Halo Burger, makes one weak." I love it! We had a great time at the reception and we had a "few" beers. See the pictures for the full definition of what a "few" means.


Sunday we finished off the weekend with some relaxation and a little buggy work/barn cleaning.  No one faint, but Charlie convinced Mike to clean up the barn.  It looks great!  Charlie & Mike have been at work ever since turning our extra buggy frame into the Sageman-mobile.  CJ is very excited!

To Be Continued...

 

A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken.

Well, Memorial weekend the lawn mower wasn't broken, but we were fortunate enough to have Mom Keenan visiting to run it for us.  Mom & Dad Keenan came up and Friday and stayed through Monday for a nice long holiday weekend visit.  It was very nice and we had gorgeous weather.  A little warm but I will not complain.  Though you won't see me complaining about cooler weather either ; )  It was a busy weekend that we began with dessert at our house with both sets of parent on Friday evening.  Mike and I made an impromptu Cherry Vanilla Frozen Soy Yogurt that was delicious!  And we also finally taste tested a pie from the infamous Sweetie-Pie.  Well, I didn't taste the pie as it is not wheat/gluten-free, but I wanted to treat everyone else.  The famous, "award winning" pie was good... but all agreed it wasn't good enough to buy another for the price.  A $20 pie better be pretty amazing and it was only semi-amazing.  We all had a nice visit and then off to bed.

Saturday was a busy one.  We got up early and had a chat with our new exchange student, Freddy, and his family.  It was very nice to be able to introduce him to Mom & Dad Keenan and chat about whatever.  We got a tour of his home in Finland via skype and I was very jealous of his Mom's oven!  I need one of those!  Then we had breakfast of eggs with spring onions and homemade bread.  Yumm!  Next on the docket was picking up Sarah and heading for Everlastings in the Wildwood.  I love to go there every year and it has become a tradition of sorts for Sarah and I.  We also stopped at the Owosso Farmers Market along the way and picked up a few goodies.  Some greens, asparagus and a nasturtium for my herb box.  We scored all kinds of goodies at the nursery and came home with a truck full of work for both Sarah and I.  We finished Saturday off yard work, a nice dinner and a visit to Charlie & Sarah's to watch Rashad's fight.  Rashad was victorious!  I slept through all of the other fights except his.  After such a busy day, I could barely stay awake... period.

Sunday we went for an awesome bike ride with Momma K.  We found a new loop from our house that was about 23 miles I think and paved most of the way.  Great training route (read: tough hill climbs) and very pretty scenery.  After that we headed back to the pond to do battle in cards and against the mosquitoes!  We had a Euchre tournament to benefit the 4-H fund in memory of Michael Pettigrew that my generation is setting up.  He meant so much to us, we had to something in honor of such an amazing man.  Mom & Dad took off the next morning and it was nice for them not to have to rush home on Sunday.

Groovin' Along

Well... I know I've been awful at blogging from the start, but I really did think I would get better with time. Mmmm... maybe not so much, but I'm still hanging in there and hoping that one day I will be better at keeping up with it.

One thing that may help is our most recent exciting news. We are getting another exchange student in the fall. His name is Fredrik (goes by Freddy) and he is from Finland. Mike and I are very excited to have a new son! He will be living with us for the entire 2010-2011 school year and he is a hockey player. So, he will be playing hockey on the St. Johns/DeWitt team. I imagine for how athletic he seems though that he will be playing many more sports. I have a few projects in mind to finish up around the house before he arrives and I look forward to working on those in the coming months. I need to make a complete checklist for myself so that I'll have something to work towards.

We just returned from an amazingly fun and relaxing weekend on Myrtle Beach with the Keenan side of the family. Mike's Aunt & Uncle were gracious enough to invite us down to the beach house they had rented to stay with them. We not only got to spend lots of quality time with the family we also got to hang out with Brandon & Cynthia. We really enjoyed seeing them after such a long time! The weather wasn't that great at the beginning of the week, but it warmed right up by the end of the week and I got two full beach days in. Enough to get a little bit of color to return to MI with. Mike played golf, we did a 1,000 piece puzzle, we visited some gorgeous gardens, had great seafood and Mike & I went kayaking together for the first time. Fun, fun, fun! The most enjoyable part of the week, no disrespect to anyone, was playing with my little niece Helena all week. She lives so far away and I was overjoyed to be able to hang out with her for a whole week. I have some great pictures of us together and I love her to pieces!!!!!!

Mike and I spent a lovely weekend on OMP with Ken & Janet the weekend before we left for Myrtle. We had such a nice time!! We did a little bit of everything and really enjoyed all of the adventures. Especially an exciting run in with nature at the lighthouse! Just a hint, a couple of geese did not appreciate Ken & Mike. We'll leave it at that!

This weekend will be a quick trip up to OMP (Old Mission Peninsula) and the Leelanau Peninsula to do some wine tasting with a large group of girls. It should be super fun and I'm looking forward to it!!

Other news:

We have quite a bit of the finishing touches on the chicken coop and it is working out beautifully. Mike and I designed & built a great new coop and I couldn't be happier. Chores are enormously easier now and I think our flock is infinitely healthier. So healthy in fact that yesterday we got a record breaking 32 eggs!! Holy mother of eggs! We ran a new fence to keep them out of my garden, but it blew down in a thunder/wind storm and they figured out that they could hop it. Now that it's back up... they just hop it. Argh, chickens are smarter than most people know.

The garden boxes are just finally dry enough to plant a bit. I'm looking forward to fresh lettuce for salads and some radishes for breakfast!! I'll plant some of my garden tonight and cover the box with windows. That way the chickens won't be able to hop in my garden box and dig up all my seeds and I'll have a greenhouse effect going on. At least until the plants get big enough and we get the chicken fence re-run.

Photos to follow.......

Who Knew?

Who knew that the world of exchange student hosting was so competitive? Yikes.

Mike and I are heavily considering hosting another student this fall. We thought every other year is a good time frame for us. We can bump it back if we need to and make it longer between students, but we'll aim for every other and see how it goes. So, the weird thing is though, that now that we're moving forward and begining to look for a student we're getting sales pitches. Our program is the best, our students are the best... Crazy.

So first, I guess, is that we're still being courted by FLAG. We had already decided that we would not go the FLAG route again because of their lack of structure. So, instead we settled on looking into YFU. We're familiar with them and their program so, it seemed like a good fit. We put in our interest on the web and got a call the same day from a representative. Talk about being on the ball and trying to sell it. The representative was very nice, but was certainly hoping to "hook" me. Which is weird, because I didn't say I was looking at other programs... because I wasn't. Then a moment later it seems I got a call from a friend's friend who is working for yet another program and was trying to sell us on hosting with them as well.

I understand many people currently don't have the means to support another body in their household, so it may be tougher to place students... but man, I didn't expect to be a piece of prime "hosting family meat" that everyone is trying to get!

This definitely gives me an impish grin and a devilish mind about the situation though. I'd like to figure out what these people can do for me. I mean how badly do they want us to host a student?? hehe

Oh What a Feeling!

A 16 year old Brazilian boy. Did we know what to expect? Not really. Do we love him and the outcome? So much so that it is a bit amazing actually.

In August of 2008 my wonderful husband, once again, agreed to one of my crazy ideas and we decided to get an exchange student from Brazil... for a whole school year. It was all a bit of a whirlwind. We were asked about hosting a student on a Friday and the following Friday we decided to go forward and within another few weeks we had a teenager! What exactly brought me to the conclusion that we needed a 16 year old from another country living with us, while I was finishing 2 college classes, working full time (plus some), Mike was getting ready to sit for his PE, being an assistant coach for a HS wrestling team and working full time, I can still not definitively say. I know it had a lot to do with the general reaction that I received from my friends and family in that week that we were thinking about it. Most of the reactions were some version of disbelief or doubt. I don't take kindly to people doubting me. Call it a flaw, but I like to prove people wrong when they doubt my choices. I can still hear Mike saying in a high pitched and tentative voice, "Well honey, if you think we can do this, okay then." If anything, I think I can confidently say that my husband will always have a new adventure as long as I am still kicking.

And so a tall lanky Felipe Ferreira Lisboa Luz joined the Keenan ranks on our little farm in St Johns. Neither of us had lived with a teenager before, (besides when we actually were teenagers!) So, we knew we had a challenge ahead of us, but we had no idea what kind of challenge it would be. Funny as it sounds now, we sat down before our new son arrived and made some rules together. Curfew, chores and the like. All very reasonable items to consider and we wanted to have a united approach to what we were about to tackle. It always happens in situations like this that you are prepared... but not for what is really about to come. And it was the same in this case. We were prepared for a teenager, but not the one we got.

We couldn't have had a better experience together. Mike, myself and Felipe all learned so much from each other. And somewhere along the way of trying to find rides and figure out how to get him to go out with his friends more often... we became a family. The time flew by and after lots of trips and adventures we suddenly, to our dismay, were at the end. June was upon us and we once again had no idea what to do. We all struggled through our goodbyes and our Brazilian son was gone. Our Felipeson was gone.

For several months it was a weird thing. It was only a short period of time, less than a year that he lived with us, but it felt like there was a large gaping hole in our house. Why did it take so long to re-adjust after Mike and I had been together so long and Felipe been with us such a short time? I believe it is because it doesn't really matter how long you have known someone... if you put your whole heart into a relationship that is what you'll get back. And we did, our hearts are bigger now because they have our son Felipe in there.

Yesterday, as I was ironing and watching TV we got an email from him. The shirt I was ironing got more than a few tear drops. It was amazing to hear from our Felipeson that he had the exact some feeling about us as we did about him. Oh what a feeling! He thanked us for all we did for his time in the US and for making him a part of our family. I thank him as well, for becoming a part of our family.