I am so in love with you

I don't know how it happened, that I found you my love. It is strange - we grew up so far from each other - and now, there isn't such a thing as being too close.

It has been a very emotional time after wedding. Naturally different feelings are surfacing and it's been very interesting to deal with it. One of course is people sending their greetings and putting me through the big questions - how did it go? was it amazing? how does it feel now??? But I also feel that I have grown up a bit in the last two weeks. I know that I will always have my parents and Tonny will always have his - but I truly feel that it is us now against all the bad things that might come and also us enjoying everything good that it will bring. We are our own family now - small, but strong.

Here's some more pics from the Finnish wedding.

Minna my make-up artist making me pretty and finally... taking the steps towards the altar with my dad!

I was so glad that Daniel and Julianna were there. I know it raised up the noise level, but I didn't care. So sweet, huh?

One of the nice things of getting married has been that we have been receiving so many nice poems, thoughts etc. from family and friends. Very nice words, very inspiring. One of my favourites was a poem from a friend, Laura.

"Onnellinen on se, joka rakastaa. Onnellisempi on se, joka rakkautta saa. Onnellisin on se, joka rakkautta saa siltä jota rakastaa."

To the non-finnish speaking people loose translation: lucky is the person who loves. more lucky is the one who is loved. the luckiest is the on who is loved by the one he loves. How perfect is that? How, in a very simple way, it explains the basic human need - to love, and be loved.

We finally received some photos of the ceremony and celebratin from Tanzania in a digital form (thanks Katja). These are the ones that I want to share with you. Juddy, Tonny's big sis, was complaining that she's not on any of the pics - but you know what, for once I am so glad that these pictures are what they are - pictures of US. It will be so nice to look at them later on and go back to that moment in my mind. To me, our love is showing so clearly in there as well..

Leaving the church...

At the church steps...

And then we went to the beach near Malaika hotel to take some photos and enjoy a moment of peace before the big party. Our families were there as well to share it (and a glass of something cold) with us.

Baby Elisa was one of the flower girls.. :D She was a bit nervous, and did not want to pose for the pictures at all!

My maid of honor and THE best friend Jaana and her now-fiancé Pekka!!! (They got engaged in Zanzibar.. love is in the air!)

So, still missing some party pics but I think you can get the idea from these. The country is so beautiful that so many of the pics turned out nice - and I usually HATE taking photos. Of course it was very easy to keep the smile on my face on that day as well :D

P.S. The best advise came from my grand-mother. In the case of an argument listen to your husband, agree with him and then, just do it your way anyways. This is a woman who was married to her husband, my grand-father, for sixty years, so she should know... :D

I DO, part 1

Okay so it's been a total chaos for the last three weeks. No time for blogging, but now I'm back and finally able to take a moment and sit down.

On July 22 2009, Tonny and I promised to love each other forever infornt of God and our families. That day was the most amazing day of my life - until now of course - and after that I felt so secure and at peace that the stress that awaited us in Tanzania couldn't even touch me.

After hitting the hairdresser's in the morning I went to my mother's place to get ready, and wait for Minna to do my make up. How lucky am I to have a sister with abilities that would scare the world famous make-up artists! She made me look more beautiful than I've ever felt like. Sooo much better than having a stranger who doesn't know me and my style doing it. The best thing at MOM's that day was that both Daniel (Minna's son) and Julianna (Aki's daughter) were there to keep my mind off of the ceremony. Julianna is usually so shy, but it was like she knew it's my special day and kept coming to see me and make me smile.

Aki's and his fancy car took me to the church and while I was hiding in there (and spying on people who were arriving :D ) my amazingly strong and long tempered maid of honor was getting everything settled inside.

Here's me arriving at the church... So nervous, but excited. The last moment being Maiju Kemppi.

I couldn't find a dress that I liked from the shop, so I bought one that was almost and had my mom glam it up a bit with pink decorations.

With all these preparations I felt so beautiful and Sooo ready to shock my groom...

Here we go..

During the ceremony Jaana, my maid of honor, and my best friend since we were kids, read a chapter from the bible that Tonny and I chose together with the priest.

Here's Tonny's boys - Adam as the best man, and John. They both were busy trying to compete on who looks the most handsome. In my opinion - they both rocked their suits.

The ceremony itself took a while, since our Priest, Father Matti Nikkanen, had enjoyed our talk few days before and felt like he wanted to share our thoughts and feelings with everyone. We spoke alot about what love is - what is means to us, and how it takes part in our everyday lives. He told us that there is two kinds of love - love of God and love of man. In the end he concluded on speaking that love is a virtue.

It was so nice of him to use our conversation during the ceremony. We were a little bit nervous about him, because he was the summer replacement of the usual priest who holds the Sunday mass, but the way he had listened to us and was able to bring it up in the wedding was perfect.

I loved every minute of it, but of course the moment of announcing us husband and wife was the most memorable.

Finalizing the vows with the rings.

I designed both of our rings. Tonny's has a little diamond on it, and mine was custom made so that it fits perfectly next to my beautiful engagement ring.

Just as perfectly as Tonny and I fit together.

We also had a sand ceremony to symbolize our union our union and the union of our families. Here is the poem that I wrote about it and what we were planning to say before it, if my wonderful but a little forgetful husband had remembered to bring it to the chruch.

Today is the first day of the rest of our lives.
Today we are bound by love.

Love is strength, Love is hope, Love is pain, and Love is joy.
Love is family, love is God and love is LOVE.

With this ceremony we join together, with this ceremony,
we become one.

Our families represent the foundation that
life has given us for this marriage, they represent us as
individuals.

They also give their support, love and faith to our life
together - with pouring of the sand, they bless us.

My sand represents my love for you. Your sand represents your love for me.
Today we are us. As the sand blends together we become one, and like the
mixture of the sand our love can not be parted.

Katja and Minna (with the kids of course) represented my family and Blandina and Patricia Tonny's. And then Tonny and I mixed our colors to symbolize our live's becoming one - and our love being one. As you can not separate two pieces of sand, we can not be separated either. It was something completely new in Finland, and we were lucky that the Priest loved the idea, but I am so glad we did it. Because now and everyday from now I look at the vase filled with all different colors I feel that every singe particle of sand is a representing the love we, and our families share.

After the unity sand Daniel totally made the day by shouting Kiitos paljon! (Thank you very much) just as we finished. Got to love that kid!!!

After the ceremony we decided not to rush away, but because we did not organize any party after the church in Finland, we wanted to share a moment with the people who came to witness our marriage.

We also went to my mom's for a while to share a glass of champagne with the best man and maid of honor and few other important people. After which we drove to Minna's where we had a joined celebration on our and Daniel's birthday.

The day ended with us running around the apartment quickly packing everything and jumping to the bus at 01:15 am. I don't think that I really hit us until we reached the Amsterdam airport that we are husband and wife now. (Truthfully I still sometimes say that I'm his girlfriend, so definitely it will take a while to get used to it.)

So here's the first set of pictures, and the first chapter on this story. I will get back to this as soon as I get the pictures from Tanzania in a digital form. We went to the beach in Tanzania after our church blessing and the pictures turned out so nice...

Britney and a Baby

During the last weeks of wedding stress there were some fantastic moments of joy. Baby girl arrived to family Kauzeni and we were lucky enough to get the chance to visit the sweet thing just 12 hours after her birth.



I also was able to go with my soon-to-be-hubby to Britney Spear's concert. I know, not the normal fans of hers, but the truth is that growing up she was my number one idol, and I always have wanted to see her show.



It was an amazing spectacle, and a true Circus. Unfortunately so many of the new songs don't give her the chance to use her voice, since today's style is too much about computerized songs. But there was a moment when she sat down and sang Everytime, I felt that I truly was able to experience something that I always dreamt about. I wish God will bless her and keep her stable now that she has been able to get focused on her children and work again.



And now.. it's time for summer vacation, and more especially THE WEDDING is HERE!! (LOL)

Wishing, hoping, dreaming...

If you haven't checked you calendar the wedding is running towards us at a very rapid pace. So many things are still not taken care of and some things I am sure we have completely forgotten. My main concern is the things that I have ordered from USA. I don't know if the package will make it, put I'm so hoping for it. Luckily it does not have anything super important and nothing that we couldn't have the wedding without but the contents would add that final touch to it... Well there is still time, so I am not giving up on it.



On top of this we still have to work like crazy people, host guests every night, and while that in a normal situation it would be a nice change to the daily rythm, at this moment I am struggling. Less than two weeks to go to the finnish ceremony and then we are off to Tanzania (at least we have managed to get our tickets..) the problem is we have no idea what kind of a situation awaits us there....

Give me strength...

Riikka Hokkanen became Riikka Seppälä

Last night two families and a bunch of friends gathered and joined together. Riikka, one of my closest friends, after years of waiting and planning, finally got the man of her dreams! And no less than the wedding of her dreams. The ceremony was held in the oldest building of Tampere, Messukylä Old Church, and it was so touching and beautiful that I had tears in my eyes the whole time.. (could be because soon it will be us standing there, but anyways it was beautiful).



Riikka and Lari vowed to be there for each other during good times and bad. Even though the ceremony is pretty much the same at all of the weddings, somehow the vows sound just as beautiful as if it was the first time for us to hear them.

The bride was beautiful and the groom handsome. Riikka even got her bouquet of red roses that she was dreaming about already in 2004 when were stayed together in Thibodaux, LA, USA.

Luckily between all the traditions she had a moment to spare and pose with me.

And with Tonny as well..


The wedding waltz went very well, especially since we all know that Lari is not a big fan of dancing. He swung Riikka around the floor like a professional dancer.

Tonny got excited as well and I gave him a quick lesson of waltz and thus we were able to join the wedding party on the dance floor.

Tonny managed to record a decent clip of their first dance (with his new phone :P) So here, once again, is the happy couple.

It was a beautiful night with a lot of love in the air. I know in my heart that their marriage is one the ones that defy current statistics and lasts "until death does them apart".

The bachelorette party of the YEAR 27.06.2009!!!

I've always known that I don't have too many friends, but the ones I do have more than make up for it. This was again proved on Saturday... After laying in the sun for an hour or so I hit the shower... only to be interrupted by Katja (big sis') and Jaana (maid of honor) storming into our apartment. Clearly something was going on, they were screaming and shouting.. It was my day and what a way to start it off... :D

1. task of the day...

To start me off easy Katja and Jaana took me to the Tampere Spa for a nice and relaxing hand and foot treatment. They even served pink bubbly while we were there. And I thought that my day would be easy.. :P

2. task of the day...

Because I didn't even have a chance to eat breakfast, with these two storming in, we made a quick stop at my MOM's to get some nourishment, and a nice surprise, Minna (my other sister) showed up and joined the festivities.

I got another clue... Song lyric's went like this "...eteenpäin kun kuljen vastaani tulee joukko keijujen sekä menninkäisten.." For those of you that haven't known me my whole life this song is from an episode of Rölli (kid's program here in Finland) that I was on. The show is on Pikku Kakkonen -> clue was that we were going to the Pikku Kakkonen Park. (I was even able to guess this clue, must've been all the food that was put into my mouth :) )

3. task of the day...

"If your love for Tonny was a statue, what would it look like?"

They gave me clay. And I suck at all the artsy stuff.. But I also couldn't NOT do something...

So using my brain I made a big ball, yes even I can do that, and then drew a small Finland and a small Africa on it (let's not tell anyone that my Finland and Africa were almost the same size..:O ). I even put some small sticks on it to point out Tampere and Dar es Salaam. Then gave a speech - My love is so strong that it was able to reach all the way from Finland to Tanzania. They accepted and I was rewarded with a set of wings. Pretty, huh? Maybe I should re-think my look for the wedding..

4. task of the day...

The next clue sent all of us to Varala Sports Academy. They had organized "cliffhanging" to scare me off.. And while I loved every second of it, in a way it backfired because the crew (now Jaana, Minna and Katja) was way more scared than I was.

Just lean back and walk down. This was still ok..

and then I had to go face first... Not so ok anymore. I had to lean all the way forward to reach the state of balance, which felt really weird, but a super experience in the end.

Then there was a bonus.. Climb up a "ladder", if it can be called that, since it was shaking and swinging from side to side. It went up to around 7 m and then you are supposed to jump and grab a trapeze that is hanging 1,5 meters away. So, I got ready and thought, well once in a lifetime right? And succeeded. Amazing rush that you get!!! You might make it and you might not. Being a grown up you don't get that feeling of being afraid so much anymore - the adrenaline rush once you have completed the task feels just incredible.

Katja also made it, after few minutes of pushing her, and Minna too made it, after standing on top of the pole for about 10 minutes (she believed if she would grab the trapeze her hands would break). Jaana went all the way up, but had enough... Have to say, that we were not able to put as much pressure on her as we did to each other.. maybe if we had pushed a little bit more .. :P

5. task of the day...

Got a clue: années d'école... So off to my old school. When I was on second grade I chose to study french starting from my thrid year. I had already been at French language kindergarten so it seemed like a logical decision at that point. Unfortunately once I really started to study it, I pretty much lost interest to it. I've always loved languages - but not studying them... I'm more for immersion ;).

Anyways back to the task of the day: once we reached the old school (on a side note, it was crazy how similar it was - just felt alot smaller) I had to translate a French song into Finnish and then perform it. Used all my energy for this, but succeeded (so maybe I did learn something at school) and was rewarded with a tiara. Ahh...

6. task of the day...

Well we can not do the whole day of reminiscing without including some gymnastics. Luckily I did not have to wear my leotard (that I had been forced to pack in the morning) but my knowledge of the sport was tested. Anyways, I was actually supposed to spend the Saturday judging, so the first task was to write down all the connection values for floor exercise. This goes back to last January when I was sharing a room with Katja at the international judging course and we had a small dispute on what is the better learning method - she was learning things like AA+D, while I was learning things like layout - layout - flick-flack- double piked. So, this was being put to test... I managed to get almost all of them (I have to mention that I remembered much more than Katja) and got an additional part of my fairy queen outfit.

7. task of the day...

Last clue-card said.. Have you seen Angel lately?? Crazy-girl I was in high school, I completely and utterly LOVED Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and had a great friend to share that love with... It grew into obsession - which lead us naming some people at the school with these characters... hmm.. Anyways I shocked Katja badly by figuring this clue out - the last stop was my high-school!!

They actually gave me an exam. Questions about love: biology, history, swedish, literature... crazy and kind of hard. With some help I was able to finish it and was granted the licence to marry. And of course the final touch... a huge ring. Now I was ready. To celebrate I demonstrated my skipping skills.

Time to party...

After all the trials it was time to relax, we went back to my mom's place and had a nice dinner. Blandina and Patricia joined us for this and also for my bridal-sauna. Jaana had organized some traditions.

1) When I entered the sauna they had decorated it with candles and rose petals. I sat down and one of the thorns hurt my b-hind. I look around and Jaana is explaining - "marriage is not always just dancing on the rose petals (old Finnish saying), sometimes it stings like the thorn."

2) Katja and Jaana also brought a piece of bread and some salt in, "so you will never go hungry in your marriage".

3) Jaana washed my back with salt - this refers to an old Finnish saying "old salt making you thirsty" - which means that you are longing for your ex-boyfriends, washing it with salt made me loose that appetite :P

4) She also washed my hair and the rest of my body with an egg - to give us a fertile marriage

There are no pictures of this, sorry, but some privacy is needed ;)

After the sauna it was time to get ready for a party! So I put on my party dress and we headed for the town.

First stop - KARAOKE, my childhood shows aside I have not performed in public for years!!! And they made me sing.. INFRONT OF PEOPLE. Luckily I had some back up singers and it actually wasn't pure torture.

During my performance we had to desert our super table - luckily Katja can think fast and she recruited some boys to reserve it for us. They actually agreed and were rewarded with a drink. After my moment of stardom we had to change the location - the host was being a real MORON and didn't let us sing anymore. So off towards new challenges.

The plan was that I would have sung Aikuinen nainen (story about a real grown up woman who is ready to share her life with her man). But the host, again being very nice, declined since the song had been sung so much that night. Luckily on our way to a club we found an amazing singer on the street and he dedicated that song to us. Our "table reserving" boys happened to be walking by and asked me to dance...

He was so worried that my fiancé would come by and beat him up... :D (Later we found out that he was just 23 years old, which more than explained that comment). After that we decided to go boogie and went to LOVE HOTEL. The music wasn't very nice but the company made up for it. After a while I started to miss my baby too much and decided it was time to hunt him down (he was also having his bachelor party) - lame, I know.. But nobody can explain the thinking of a woman in looove...

My day was amazing! As I said in the beginning that I don't have so many Friends, but the ones I have more than make up for it. I wish that someday I will be able to return the favor. Jaana, Katja thank you so much for all your hard work and preparations - I would not have happened without you! Minna, Blandina and Patricia - thank you for being there to share the moments with me.