Annual Finnish party

J and I attended the Scandinavian Society of Greater Cincinnati's Annual Finnish party this past Sunday. It was filled with blond hair, blue eyed pasty people of all ages. Several people came up to me and started speaking Finnish before looking at my name tag with the American flag on it, which indicates I don't speak that funny language (yet anyway). Does that mean I'm just as pasty since they thought I was one of them??
We had a nice time and Jarmo got to have conversations in Finnish, something he doesn't get to do often. We also met two couples who were from Northern Finland, just like Jarmo. One couple has only been in the States six weeks, but their English was great.

They don't celebrate Halloween in Finland, so I thought I'd have them over to carve pumpkins since they both have young kids. Do you know of other fall/Halloween activities we could do?

We don't like Ike

The remnants of Ike hit Ohio Sunday afternoon. Winds were recorded at 76 mph, that's considered a Level 1 Hurricane.
The damage was extensive. Siding torn off houses exposing the plywood below, traffic lights falling from their wires shattering on the road below, and fallen power lines dancing in the wind across highways.
Power outage extended from northern Kentucky to Cleveland. At one time the power company said 90% of their service area was in a blackout. Many schools still remain closed because they had to throw out all their food and can't serve students meals until fresh shipments come. The grocery stores are slowly able to restock food, but many are still waiting on shipments to arrive, as well.
We were fortunate and only lost power for two days and had no damage to our house.

This is a storm Ohio will talk about for years, yet it's only a fraction of what Texas had to incur with the full brunt of Ike pounding them. I struggled to find meals to prepare on our grill with the power out, but knew I'd never go hungry. Those in Texas struggled to find clean water or a place to sleep. While we moped about losing the food in our refrigerator, many in Texas lost everything.
So, I'll go to the grocery store this weekend, replenish our food and be grateful that it was only a wind storm.

He's too legit to quit

That's right, our favorite Finn is finally a legitimate, legal resident. What does that mean exactly? It means he received his permanent green card last week!
It makes our lives easier when traveling out of the country (because you know we're quite the jetsetters) and when filling out legal documents for cars, house, jobs, etc. I'm certain there's more valuable reasons to this rather expensive card he received in the mail, but I can't remember.
So, now the real marriage begins for us. I can't boss him around and hold the fact that I can have him deported over his head anymore. Damn.

The end of summer flu by

Yes, I mean flu, not flew. We spent our last remaining weekend hunkered down in the house fighting the flu. Jarmo volunteered at the AVP games this past weekend and brought home some sort of 24 hour flu bug.
Nothing like sitting at a restaurant enjoying dinner while your husband dashes for the restroom to let's say "dispose" of his food. I'm certain the other patrons assumed it was the food that made him sick because I noticed a few people push their plates away as my honey made a second quick trip to the restroom.

Saturday evening brought back college memories...a long night of little sleep intertwined with frequent dashes to the bathroom to "inspect" the toilet. It made me realize I'm so glad I'm past that stage in my life and hey, there's nothing wrong with going to bed on a weekend night at 10pm and getting a solid eight hours of sleep.

How was your Labor Day weekend?