Hyvää Uutta Vuotta

We had an enjoyable Christmas. 
We found some gifts under our tree.

We made a roast for our Christmas dinner. 

With potatoes, carrots and a salad.

We enjoyed visiting with kids and grandkids all afternoon and evening. 

I worked on my puzzle that a sister from knitting gave to me when she learned that I enjoy puzzles.

With this puzzle, instead of making the picture that shows on the box,
you make the picture of what the ranger is seeing.

That makes for a challenging puzzle! I finished in on Wednesday!

We had planned to go to the temple on Wednesday because the missionaries who were in town for My Plan were going to be there, but Elder Shurtz had a bad cold and wasn't feeling too great. We decided it would be best not to share his germs, so we stayed home instead, which is why I had time to finish my puzzle.

Elder Shurtz got a package in the mail on Thursday. 

It was a bunch of car fobs. He was in need of more fobs.

It is a small world, especially in the church! 

Dana had sent me a photo of a missionary over a week ago. 

Melody (her sister) and Sean are good friends with a man who is not a member of the church, 

but who has family who are. His cousin's grandson is serving his mission if Finland. 

Melody and Sean asked if we would ever see him. She assured them that we would.

Elder Oleson arrived the beginning of Dec. We have seen him several times, but he came into the mission office, so we took a picture with him to send to Melody and Sean.

They were thrilled to get the picture and sent it on to their friend. 

He sent it to his cousin who was amazed and excited to see the picture.

On Friday it was our 45th anniversary, Steve was still not feeling his best. 

We decided we should do something to celebrate later when he was feeling better.

We decided to make an oven stew for dinner. 

It was either use the meat or freeze it as it was at its best by date. 

It had to cook in the oven for 3 hours, so we fixed it at the mission office. 

We invited the sisters to come and eat with us. There were then a series of unfortunate events.

The stew wasn't quite done like it should be. Maybe the pot was too big for the amount of stew? 

We cooked it for longer on the stove top. Now it was boiling hot!
When sister Stephens dished up her stew, her bowl got extremely hot and 

she dropped it when it started burning her hand.

They were both so sweet and kind and thanked us for feeding them, 

even though the vegetables were still a bit crunchy and the meat was tough!

We woke up to more snow on Saturday. It is interesting to drive around on snow covered roads. 

Most of them have already been plowed, but they are still covered in snow. It is not nearly as scary, 

and feels much safer to drive around on snow covered roads here than it does back home. 

I think that is because the studded winter tires do a much better job than all-weather tires back home.

Sister Aura was very concerned because brother Aura was going to Colorado, Utah and Idaho and was renting a car. She wanted him to rent a car with studded tires, but he learned that is not a possibility.

The snow covered trees are sure beautiful!

My amaryllis blossom didn't last long. It wilted and fell over and a new shoot started growing.

Maybe it lasted longer than I realized. December went by so fast! We couldn't keep up on our little advent calendar. We finally finished it on Saturday. That was doing at least two a day since Christmas!

The temperatures dropped dramatically by Sunday morning. When we woke up, my phone said it was 6 degrees F, feels like -8F! It was so interesting to drive to Church. There were people with their dogs and their babies out walking in the COLD! (Many more people than we usually see on a Sunday morning.) 

I even saw someone in a wheelchair going for a stroll on the path near the waterfront!

The sun was just rising as we parked and were walking to the church. This picture was taken at 9:41am.

There were lots of people out when we got out of church. 

I think the temperature had gone up to 8 or 9 degrees F. 

The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day!

This picture was taken at about the same spot at 12:30pm.

I think that if we were at the same spot at about 3:20pm 

you could see the sun set on the right hand side of this same view.

Because we see so little of the sun, I wanted to be out in it just like everyone else. 

At about 2:30, we drove around trying to find a bit of sunshine. 

I took this picture to show just how long our shadows are. 

Our heads on our shadows are on the pile of snow over past where our car is parked.

I thought it was interesting how the sun was coming through the snow on the fence, 

although you can't really see it on the picture. 

Steve tried to find a spot where he could bask in the sun!

The sun was dropping fast!

It was beautiful, but hurt your face kind of COLD!

There were other people out walking and some cross country skiing.

There were also people ice skating and playing ice hockey.

One last attempt at finding a spot where I could be in the sun from head to toe!

We drove over by the temple. 

The trees across the field were do pretty covered in snow with their tops in the sun.

The temple as we were driving past.

The nativity with the temple spire in the background.

I learned Sunday afternoon that the new 2024 youth theme music video is out. 

It was partially filmed in Finland. 

We know many of the people who are in the video (most of them as extras)! 

It is so fun to watch. Every time I watch it, I see someone else that I know.

Our service missionary, Sister Saarinen is in it, as well as several missionaries and ward members.

If you haven't already watched it, here is a link. 

 https://youtu.be/wi_Pc1VZ2jk

We enjoyed playing games on New Year's Eve with some of our kids and grandkids. 

We especially enjoyed seeing little Samuel without his oxygen. 

What a cute little guy!

We started hearing fireworks around 6pm. This picture was taken a little before 6:30.

Because we were playing games, we ended up welcoming in the new year.

Happy New Year 2024!

Sunrise/sunset Sunday 31 Dec 2024

Espoo Finland 9:26am to 3:22pm for 5 hrs 56 min of daylight.

Provo Utah 7:49am to 5:10pm for 9 hrs 21 min of daylight.