The Lavaja Diaries: Birthday

This birthday I felt especially grateful for all my friends and family. I received mail from my family in Utah, my sister in Arizona, and both sets of Grandparents in California. My family is the best! Even though I am so far from home, I was so happy to still feel their love- thank you guys!! It made me miss them, but I will be back to the US in just about a month!

Throughout the entire day, I was blown away by everyone's kindness. After Rusty's morning practice, we went and ate at, Rauhula, our usual lunch spot. The owner/chef brought out a piece of traditional Finnish cake (which was super good), with a candle in it and sung me Happy Birthday. How cute is that?! I was so surprised and appreciative of his thoughtfulness! Later that day, Rusty had a volleyball game. I was soo happy it was here in Oulu! During the game- I think it was in between sets- Seppo, the team helper who is about seventy-years-old, saw me in the crowd and started singing Happy Birthday. It was equally as cute as the chef's song and even made me blush a little haha.

That night, we had a cake party with some of our friends. As I have mentioned before, us "Etta Girls", were pretty good at planning get-togethers. At our soul food night, I mentioned my birthday and just like that, a cake party was planned. So after the game, we grabbed something to eat (we went and got pizza so it would be quick), and then everyone met at our place for the dessert night. Rusty lit 26 candles on the cake, everyone sang Happy Birthday in English and then Finnish, and I even got gifts! We stuffed ourselves with confetti cake, rice krispie cake, cheesecake, and chocolate balls. Soon enough we were all on a sugar high, taking tons of photos, and making a dance video lol.

We have the greatest friends out here. I am so grateful for all of them. Thank you to all of my friends and family who made it the best birthday ever!

(Cake at Rauhala)

It's crazy how fast time is going by! We will be going home in just two months, which feels like nothing! I am super excited to go home and also for my sister Kirsten to come out and visit! But, the volleyball team STILL hasn't gotten us our visas, so it's stressing me out!! Rusty and I work on it almost everyday, so keep your fingers crossed the President of the volleyball club will actually get it done!

Rusty's volleyball team won their game 3-0 this weekend, so Rusty got Monday off! It was perfect timing too because my birthday was the following day. I Googled things to do near Lamia. There are mostly small villages nearby, so there's not a ton to do, but I did find a National Park about 30 minutes away in a place called Ypati. We decided to go there and look for a hiking trail.

We arrived to find a little village set in the side of a mountain. As we winded up the mountain, we saw a waterfall, which I was so excited to see, I made Rusty pull over immediately haha. We eventually made it to the center of town, which was almost completely empty except for a lady sweeping outside of a shop and an off-duty police officer. We stopped and asked the police man for directions to the park. He said there was no park (which I am still skeptical about because there were multiple signs directing us to the park), but he told us about a famous church on top of the mountain, so we went to check it out. The church was not very impressive, but the location was awesome. It was right on top of the mountain and right down the hill from the church was a huge fighter jet, so we checked that out as well. I don't know if we ever made it to the park or not, but the signs we followed made me wonder if the "National Park" was just all the grassy fields we passed while driving around. I guess I'll never know! haha

We set off to find a spot to have a picnic- I love picnics! We randomly discovered the perfect park (which couldn't have been the National Park because the signs directed us past it). But anyways, it was filled with big trees and flowers and had benches around it. The weather was perfect; the sun was shining through the trees as we ate our lunch. It was a great day!

On my actual birthday, the following day, we ate lunch at our favorite restaurant- I still have no idea what it's called because it is too Greek for me to even sound out haha. After we finished lunch, we went and got a piece of cake, which I love, from a place called Deli House. We have become friends with the manager there. She is from Canada, so she speaks English. She gave me a huge brownie as a birthday gift! After Rusty got home from practice we went out to dinner...and what would a birthday be without cake and candles, so we finished off my 25th birthday by having cake back at our apartment! I can't believe I am getting so old ;)