Takk Fyrir Sara! by Katie

At our most recent meeting, we had a guest visit and speak to us about Iceland. Her name was Sara Sigurdardottir and she came from a group of Icelanders based in Atlanta. She told us about her life, growing up in Iceland (and everywhere else she lived as well), and a lot about Icelandic culture! One thing I found really interesting is that in Iceland, parents have to choose from an approved list of baby names for their children, because not all names fit in with Icelandic grammar. She also talked a lot about swimming in Iceland, which is a big thing even in the cold weather! Apparently the pools are steaming hot and many people end up going out for ice cream after a swim in the below freezing weather! We all really enjoyed having her there, and we hope that she also enjoyed attending the meeting. She's definitely an important contact now, and she said she would continue to help anywhere we need it! Thanks Sara!

Theming Time! by Rosie

Hey guys! It’s Rosie writing! In the past few meetings we’ve been trying to come up with a theme for our trip. We were thinking about doing something along the lines of asking people from the different countries we will visit, questions revolving around “Courage, Confidence, and Character”, the three very important traits that Girl Scouts strive to help young woman develop. We would then upload the video to YouTube or another social site. We are still working on the details, but I think we’re coming close!
Rosie

A Snowy Filler! by Katie

It's been a crazy few weeks in Georgia with the two recent ice storms. We were supposed to have a meeting last Friday, but unfortunately Brittany was sick and I was at the State German Convention, so we've rescheduled it to this Saturday. In addition, we're starting our cookie booth sales this Saturday at a local Kroger. I'm just hoping the weather will let up by then!

Oh and once again, if you'd like cookies and would like to support Girl Scouts in general please do buy a box! If you don't really care for the cookies all that much or would like to support our troop and help us on our goal to get to Europe, please give a donation! Here's a little inside knowledge that you may not know:

For every box of cookies (they are $3.50 a box) that we sell we only profit 50 cents. If you could donate $3.50, then we would be getting a whole 3 dollars more than that one box!

We honestly can't thank you enough for your donations! 

Also, recently, we set up Facebook Groups to keep in contact with our sister troops in England and Iceland. We've already started some great conversations with the Iceland and England groups, and we're all looking forward to getting to know everyone in each of our Sister Troops!

Look forward to our meeting this Saturday, we'll have loads to talk about!

Stay safe and warm!

Katie

Meeting Happenings- Over Cups of Tea by Coumbah

(Note: We are so so sorry for the delay of this post! New updates will be up very soon!)

1/24/14

Hey this is Coumbah and I'm going to talk about the last meeting!

Food

Selina brought dinner for this meeting. We had potstickers, fried rice, and this soup called Sour and spicy soup and, like the name suggests, it was delicious! For dessert, she brought a nice fruit salad. Unfortuntally she didn't get to bring the usual "Selina Surprise". 

(For those of you who don't know, Selina usually brings something special and weird whenever it's her turn to bring dinner. Over the course of the years, we've had the privilege of getting to eat: pig ears, chicken feet, fish heads, chicken hearts, even pig's blood, and much much more!) However, she did promise a very special surprise next time around. ;) Look forward to it!

 

Meeting

Facebook

 At the Girl Scout meeting we decided to make two Facebook group pages, one for our Iceland Group and a separate one for our England group. We thought this would be an easy way for us to communicate faster with each group by direct messages and pictures; also we could talk to each other whenever we wanted and wouldn't have to wait for an email. I can't wait for that to get started! 

Iceland and England Team

The major discussions really at the troop meeting  was locking down the places that we can stay. We decided that for England, we would draft an email with our questions to the our England correspondence/sister troop. We are still waiting for correspondence from the Iceland troop too.

Themed Trip

We decided to come up with a theme or a project that we could do while on our trip. After discusing a bit on what we thought was important to our troop, we decided that we all loved the outdoors, meeting new people, and learning new cultures and points of view. We are forming a project as I write. I won't give any spoilers yet but it is very interesting! All I'll say is that it may have something to do with the Girl Scout law!

All in all the meeting was pretty basic, we laughed and discussed over cups of tea and it was nice to loosen up a bit with my friends!

Look forward to our next post! :)

Coumbah

Meeting Happenings- AN ICELANDIC SISTER TROOP!!! by Selina

January 10, 2014
Hallo Hallo!!
Havo segrou gott?
This is Selina, and here's an update!

So Friday's meeting plans were thrown off a bit because of the photos (see Lizzy's post below), but in the end I think we still made good use of time!

Food
Of course we wouldn't skip dinner!!
Scrumcilicious baked potatoes and chili with sides of salad and some good old southern cornbread, all completely homemade by Mrs. Susan herself! We were famished by the time we got to eat (which was 7), so the stuff disappeared pretty quickly. For dessert we had vanilla ice cream with peach and pumpkin custard! Mhmhmmhmm!!

Meeting

Cookie sales: Yes, it is that time of year again. Girl Scout cookie sale - a big fundraiser nationally for the Girl Scouts.  Well, we discussed a bit about cookie booths, which we will be setting up at the local Krogers around here soon. We are officially beginning sales, so if you like cookies and would like to support Girl Scouts in general please do buy a box! If you don't really care for the cookies all that much or would like to support our troop and help us on our goal to get to Europe, please give a donation!

The Surprise!: Boy! Two meetings with big surprises in a row! Well, if I could have a fictitious drum-roll:

(Dramatic pause)

 WE HAVE AN ICELANDIC SISTER TROOP !!

This is so exciting!!! There is a troop in Reykjavik, Iceland that is willing to email back and forth with us, answering questions and giving advice what to do there and helping us understand lots of about Icelandic life!  The troop has 16-year-old girls and a boy, and they also work on a search and rescue team!  We can't wait to start emailing them and getting to know them better!  And then we will get to spend time with them while we are in Iceland!!!

We now have contacts from Iceland, England, and Port Angeles,Washington (This was from our last trip. To view our adventures there, please click on the "Seattle Blog" tab on the upper bar).

We ran out of time after we freaked out over the news! We will have an update on sponsorships and England and Iceland Team on the next post, as well as some new Icelandic words! (Hopefully we can get some tips on our pronunciation from the Icelandic Troop while we are there)!!

That's all for this week!

New posts are coming up soon!

Takk fyrir en Bless Bless!!!!
:)

Selina

Lights, Cameras, Smile! :) by Lizzy

This past Friday, after much debate, the troop went to get their photos taken by a professional at Portrait Innovations.  I was quite tired from the day, but ready to be there. We were all in uniform and after we sorted everything out, we went to go take the pictures. The photographer lead us into a room and we began with taking a group shot for the girls and then more with the leaders.  The photographer took three shots of each photo and later we would choose the best one of them. After group shots we did individual ones and then back to groups. It was kind of scary thinking: “What if I blinked in all three shots?!?”, but it was also kind of fun and exciting. After the Girl Scout troop was done, Mrs. Susan had some photos taken with her family. Meanwhile the rest of the girls wrote letters to out to the England sister troop! After all the photos were done and loaded on the computer we figured out which shots would be the best, and then at the end we figured out which ones to print and which to keep on a CD. Ms. Susan dealt with the end price and the nitty gritty of her own photos while we continued writing our letters. I must confess I fell asleep in the end, but the  overall experience was good and the people at the studio were so nice and welcoming. They really knew what they were doing and I'm glad we worked with them.

Thank you Photo Innovations for your wonderful service!

Lizzy

Meeting Happenings: AN ENGLISH SISTER TROOP!!! by Selina

12/6/13
Hello everyone!
It's Selina and here's an update!
Last Friday night we had a meeting.

Food
We had delicious, mouth-popping Mexican food from Frontera, courtesy of Mrs. Donna and Brittany! Dessert was this beautiful winter themed cake with the man from Cake Boss adorning the box, which apparently was all that he adorned, since the taste was a bit of a disappointment to the buds!

Meeting
Professional photos: Lately we have been trying to get some professional photos done for our whole troop, but since funds are still running low, we were hoping to find a place that could give us a discount or even a free session including copyrights to the photos. The nice folks at Portrait Innovations from the Avenue are willing to do all this for a little more than $100 bucks. This will probably be our best option.

The Surprise!: All right, as you have no doubt read in the title, here comes the special surprise of the meeting...:

We've found sisters in England!!

On Friday night, Mrs. Susan broke the news to us! Our sister Girl Scout troop, or Girl Guides as they call it, are located in a cute place near London. They all seem to super energetic and hopefully just as ecstatic as we are over here! We got to read some of the letters they sent us and respond  to them with our one. There was a lot that we had in common! I absolutely can't wait to meet them in person, it will make this trip just a whale size more special!

England: Well, other than the amazing sister trip news, England team brought us more info on transportation with the Tube. Apparently, you can get on for free if you are a student, but we are not sure if an American student would count. Still looking into that!

Iceland: We found more info on transportation and activities we could do. Brittany found some good restaurants that we were told to DEFINITELY check out. (Including a very well known hot dog stand that serves LAMB hot dogs!)

Over the past few months, we have been increasing our vocabulary in some Icelandic words. We ran out of time to learn new Icelandic words this time, but here are the words that we have learned so far!

1. Yes - Jai
2. No - Nei
3. Hello - Hallo
4. Goodbye - Bless
5. Thank you - Takk fyrir
6. My name is... - Eg heiti...
7. I'm from... - Eg er fra
8. What's your name? - Havo heitir pu?
9. Sorry - Eg bid st afsokunar
10. How are you? - havo segrou gott?
11. I'm good, and you? - Allt gott, en pu?
12. Just fine, thanks - Baro fint, takk

That is all for this week!
New posts are coming up soon!

Takk fyrir en Bless Bless!!!!

Selina :)