On being Finnish, American and Finnish-American

We are a family of three. There is a Finn (me), an American (husband) and Finnish-American (lil man). I have some Swedish heritage and some of my ancestors were born in the U.S (although they were still all Finns). My husband has German and English heritage, some of his relatives came with the Mayflower. Our son is of course a mix of all of this. 

I've often wondered if our son will consider himself Finnish, American or Finnish-American. He was born in the U.S, so he was born American. But as soon as I could get his birth certificate from the Vital Records, I made him a Finnish citizen as well. He is bilingual, I speak Finnish to him and husband speaks English to him. We hope that we will be able to bring him up so that he'll value both cultures and nations. I'm sure there will be times when he wants to be considered just Finnish or just American, depending on where we will live, but hopefully eventually he'll be a proud Finnish-American. 

Flags in Stockholm

I'm proud to be Finnish. Although I'm sometimes quite embarrassed by some of my fellow citizens, mostly due to their alcohol use and ignorance, I still love my country. I wouldn't want to be anything but Finnish. In the U.S I often get mistaken for a U.S citizen, but I always correct that I'm Finnish. I'm always happy to tell everyone about my wonderful country and I don't mind answering their sometimes quite ignorant questions about my Nordic nation. I have never felt prouder to be Finnish than when living abroad. I have grown to respect my home country much more after facing life outside Finland.

I'm proud that my husband is a proud American. I sometimes call him my souvenir from Nebraska :), but I mean it in with all my love. I'm happy to celebrate the holidays of his beloved home country eventhough we (from his perspective) live abroad. I don't always agree with what's going on in his country of birth, in fact I often don't agree with politics that go on in his home state. But I admire that he loves his country, with all it's flaws, since that is how I feel about Finland as well.

I'm proud that our wonderful son is Finnish-American. I'm happy that he will have opportunities that neither my husband or I have ever had, because we are not dual-citizens. He'll have plenty of open doors to choose from. I'm happy that our son will have the freedom to choose which nation he wants to live in, he can even be the president of United States or Finland someday, if he chooses to (no pressure of course ;)). I'm proud of our son on so many levels, but then again I'm his Mom and to me he is perfect.

Celebrating 4 of July

(Please excuse the unprofessional blur)

I feel blessed to have been able to live in three countries and to have gained experiences that I hope will be of assistance when raising our Finnish-American lil man. I'm happy to have lived in the United States, and perhaps someday I might live there again, but I'm also so grateful to be able to live in Finland. I'm so delighted that my husband is happy living here too, Finland is after all my home country. I know he misses his home (I know I missed mine when I wasn't here), and I'm so proud of him that he was brave enough to leave his comfort zone and move to a foreign country, after living his whole life in Nebraska and never having been abroad before.

I plan on exploring what being Finnish means to me later in this blog, but for now I'm just going to say that while I may not always appreciate the cold, the darkness and the negative approach to life some Finnish people have, I do appreciate the honesty, the security and the wonderful nature of my amazing home country and  I'm so very proud to be from Finland.

Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend!

Second First Anniversary :)

Today is the first anniversary of our second wedding and to celebrate it I'll post a bunch of photos from our Nebraska wedding. So be aware, wedding photo flood follows!

Bride getting prettied up by the groomsman's sister (who is also matron-of-honor's sister-in-law, small town)

Wonderful bridesmaid helping the bride get dressed.

Time to say I do again :) There's our lil man in the bottom right corner!

Getting blessed :)

Our transportation, a Cadillac Escalade

Some bubbly in the car

Arriving to the venue

Some decorations

Christmas-y treats

Our cakes, yummee!

The head table

Citygirl-blogger found these restroom signs funny :)

After eating plenty there was some dancing...

...since we had a great dj!

Some more dancing...

...and then some more dancing, I think this is the cupid shuffle :-)

And some toasting...

...and group hugging :)

This was our last song (you'll most likely have to watch it on youtube):

And yes, it was the Glee version ;)

I had such a good time going through these photos from a year ago, what a fun wedding and lots of great memories!

Husband I are going to the movies tonight to celebrate, yay! :) 

Hope everyone is having a wonderful week!

An eventful Monday - work, passports, hairstyle :)

So today was a day full of exciting things. First, my husband had his first day at work. Then, the lil man and I headed to the police station to apply for new passports and then, I had my hair styled :-) Lil man and I also went to the mall and got some fresh fruits to make a yummy smoothies (peach-nectarines, bananas, green apples and avocado).

The most exciting news were without a doubt my husbands first day at work. I'm happy to say he loved it. The work seems exactly what he wanted and his co-workers seemed nice. He also has some nice benefits and they pay isn't half-bad. Now he just has to do well during his probationary period and he has a permanent position :) The only suck-y thing about this job is that we're not 100% sure if we can have our second wedding in December in the U.S. It depends on whether my husband gets unpaid leave or not and it's way too soon to be asking that kind of favors at work.

While the hubby was hard at work, lil man and I went to apply for the new passports. When we got married, we decided it was better for all of us to have the same last name. I wasn't really all that attached to mine and my husband had family reasons in keeping his, so we chose his last name. The only thing I was worried about was that my name no longer sounds Finnish at all. I have such an international first name, that you can't tell from my name I'm Finnish. I know it sounds silly, but I feel like a part of me being Finnish is gone. I'm often told I don't sound very Finnish (whatever that means), but I'm really proud to be a Finn! Well, I still accidentally use my old last name all the time, but I'm slowly getting use to the new 'Merican last name. It's not that bad ;)

What is bad is how much passports and especially passport photos cost :D Couldn't exactly go to the photo booth with the lil man, so we had to go to a store to take our. And it was 19 euros per person! Holy crap! All together these passports cost us 144 euros. We still have to go to the U.S embassy and get the lil man a new U.S passport, and that'll be even more expensive. U.S sized photos 29e and then U.S passport for a minor 78.75e. And that was only for the passports, then there's driver's licenses etc. Name change don't come cheap!

Last, but not least: a new hairstyle. I've been a blonde for most of my life and I can't say I'm very particular about how my hair looks. I like it long/shoulder length and I curl it sometimes, but that's about it. I just usually let my hairdresser decide whatever he thinks is best. This time he decided to add dark highlights and I have to say my hair looks drastically different! I'm not yet sure what I think about it, it looks fine I guess. It'll probably take some time to get used to, but a change is a good thing :)

I don't have any approriate photos to add to this entry, so I'm going to just attach two photos that our lil man took of himself :) Hope everyone is having a wonderful week!

Quite the little artist, eh? ;)

Woot Woot - Happy Days!

The most amazing thing happened today, my husband got his first job offer in Finland, super yay! He had applied to about a 100 places, but hadn't had any luck so far. Out of those hundred places only four replied and two of the companies invited him for an interview. We had almost given up hope, and were already planning a move back to the good old America. I mean my husband didn't go to college just to hang out at home with us and being unemployed really wasn't ideal when he has to start paying back his college loans :) But if everything works out, he'll start on Monday at the new place! I have to say I'm probably equally excited about this job opportunity as he is! Out of those two places he interviewed for only this one had anything to do with his studies, so it's perfect for him!

When we lived in the US I had no trouble finding a job. Actually on my second day in the Midwest I walked into the place I wanted to work at and they hired me right away :) I was probably really lucky, jobs in the field of History are not so easy to come by. My husband on the other hand had no such luck in Finland. The job seeking culture here is a bit different, it's all about the applications and resumes, less about the casual drop ins. But when you get the job, it's yours to keep. In the US you can basically be given a two week's notice any time for any reason, there's often no written job contracts and people just leave and never go back to their work place. That was a bit too black and white, but hopefully you got my point. I think the application process in Finland is very formal, probably like applying to government jobs in the U.S.

I think the biggest problem for my husband was that he has only very basic Finnish skills and that's probably why he wasn't called to be interviewed. They told him flat out at the Employment Agency that he has to first study Finnish to find work, and they were probably right. I think my husband got lucky that he found a job where Finnish was not required. There probably are thousands of IT jobs that are as flexible. Other areas of employment usually require Finnish skills.

Anyways, I'm superhappy my husband got offered the job, and not only because of financial reasons ;) I'm so glad he has the chance to show what he knows, increase his knowledge of the field and start building a career. He deserves all that. I might be bit biased when I say that company couldn't have gotten a better employee!

Time to celebrate :)

edit. I just noticed this related article on yle: Study: Language and support key to immigrant employment and I quote "Foreigners are on average able to find work in Finland just as well -- or even better -- than native Finns, according to a study published by the Ministry of Employment and the Economy (MEE) on Tuesday." Well, maybe it just takes the 100 applications to find a job;)

Mr & Mrs

I'm super excited to go on our honeymoon in just a few weeks, but first here's a photo of us as a married couple :)

Update on my life II

Update on my life

The tickers tell it all :)