Weekend update - Salolampi edition!

This weekend we did something different from our usual trips around town to the zoo or to the museum. Along with several other families from Suomi-Koulu, the Finnish language school, we all went to Salolampi, the Concordia Language Village's Finnish language village, for the weekend!

This was in our cabin. Love it!

Salolampi is just outside Bemidji, about a four hour drive from Minneapolis. And while I thought that we had snow... I had no idea just how much snow they still had! We had plans for nature walks, and Ella wanted to climb trees... instead, the girls spent a ton of time sledding and building a snowman and looking for animal tracks and just generally having as much fun in the snow as possible.



Spring in Bemidji

So, I have two stories to tell from the weekend. The first is kind of scary. SPOILER ALERT: everyone is fine.

So, some of you know that Maisie's had allergic reactions to tree nuts before. We had her tested and nothing came up, but her pediatrician advised us to err on the side of caution and avoid nuts, so that's what we've done. She knows that she's allergic to nuts, and we put it on all her health forms. So when we were preparing for this trip, I told our group's leader about her allergy, so it'd get passed along to the kitchen staff. Well, there was a slight communication breakdown, and at dinner on Friday night, Maisie turned to Aaron and said, "this cake is making my mouth all itchy." I went to the kitchen to ask about ingredients, and turns out the cake had ground hazelnuts in it. GAH!

Fortunately, there is a nurse on-site whenever there are kids at the camp, so she came over from Waldsee (the German village) right away with some Benadryl, which took care of Maisie's itchy mouth, tongue, and throat. Also fortunately, the reaction never got worse... there was no swelling or trouble breathing. The nurse gave us another Benadryl just in case (never needed it), and we checked with the staff about any other food items on the menu with stealth nuts (Maisie had to skip the apple cake Saturday night, and the muesli on Sunday morning).

I talked to our pediatrician this morning, who said that allergy panels can be inaccurate, and this third reaction pretty much confirms the allergy. He called in a prescription for an epi-pen in case of a severe reaction (like trouble breathing), and confirmed that Benadryl's a good choice for the milder reactions (itchy mouth but no swelling). So, here we are now, in food allergy land! Friday night was scary, but it's not the end of the world, and it definitely could be worse. Tree nuts are pretty easily avoided, as opposed to allergies like egg or milk protein, and we're now prepared just in case she does get accidentally exposed. And the lovely camp nurse said that a lot of children outgrow allergies, so this might not even be something she has to deal with her whole life.

(I seriously wanted to hug the nurse. She was so good with Maisie, and very reassuring and calm with panicky me. Yay for nurses!)
Now, here's the fun second story. All day Saturday, the girls were clamoring to go SAUNA! Salolampi has two saunas: an electric one in the main building, and a more traditional one with a wood-burning stove out in the woods. On Saturday afternoon we heard that the wood-burning sauna was hot, so we put on our swimsuits and made the trek through the woods to go sauna!

Whoever said it was hot wasn't kidding - it was up to 160 in there, and they kept throwing water on for lisää löyly (more steam), making it even hotter on the top bench! It was a nice, big sauna - we had five adults and six kids all hanging out in there, relaxing and being kind of silly. We started talking about jumping into and rolling around in the snow, as you do when you're in a steamy hot sauna in the snowy woods. Eventually, Maisie and I decided to take the plunge! We stood on the bottom step of the porch, held hands, counted 1, 2, 3... JUMP! We landed on our butts in the snow.

We were the first to do it, and that was my only snow-jump, but eventually all the grownups and all but the littlest kids did it too. Maisie and one other mom made snow angels, and one mom rolled and rolled around. It was hilarious and so fun! Maisie went in the snow four times, for which everyone said she was rohkea (brave). The walk back through the snowy woods was lovely, too. We'd gotten cold on the way to the sauna, but we'd gotten so heated up that the cold air and snow just felt nicely cool and refreshing. It was wonderful!

So those are our two big stories from our Salolampi weekend. When we weren't going sauna or having/panicking over allergic reactions, the girls were doing crafts (Maisie's now a REAL weaver!), and playing with other kids, indoors and out. Maisie and Ella each met and bonded with a girl just about her own age, which was quite sweet. We also ate a TON of yummy Finnish food, marveled at all the stars, and just generally enjoyed being together, out in the woods and off the grid for a weekend.