Vanilla Bean Ice Cream and little brothers

We were raised in a good "old fashion" Dutch way. This meant we only had one glass of pop a day (normally this would be coca cola because we don’t have Mountain Dew in Holland). There would be a cookie waiting at us when we came home from school and on Saturday’s we had a private party because we got a little bowl of chips. And on Sunday some candy when we visited grandma… But that would be IT as far as the sweets went. An apple, a pear, a banana, as much or as many as we wanted BUT NO SWEETS!

In the summer sometimes my mom and little sister made popsicles out of water with usually a strawberry flavor. They were really tasty but if you would suck hard enough the strawberry flavor would be gone and all you had left was frozen water.

But sometimes my mom would buy some REAL ice cream! And yes this would be vanilla (hehe) and she would make us little bowls and then we could put sprinkles on them or wiped cream (my dad’s favorite). And if it was a real real special occasion we would have the popsicle faces with a gumball as a nose on it or those really fancy looking Magnums that were huge!

It was a beautiful day and we were all playing outside. We had some great swings and a sandbox behind our house in between the two pig barns. I vaguely remember it was a Saturday or Sunday and me and my sister were playing with our dolls and bears in the sandbox (yes I know, dirty dolls) and my little brother was driving around on his “skelter”. This is a little four wheeler but you have to paddle with your own two feet instead of having a little engine doing all the work for you…

Our mom came out and brought us an ice cream (so it defiantly must have been a Saturday or Sunday) and while my sister and I enjoyed our ice in the sandbox, Jan Willem was pretty content sitting on his skelter, licking and driving at the same time. After 10 minutes all of a sudden we hear a scream! Not the same kind of scream as when my little brother decided to see and FEEL what would happen if he peed on the electric fence .......... but similar…………………………….

My sister and I run over towards where our little brother had stranded and he was just holding his head and screaming his lungs out!?! We were is serious panic mode and while my little sister ran to fetch my mom i was holding my brother.

Mom hurried down and started to check all his vitals and trying to get him to come inside. After we got him inside and on the couch she called our doctor. The doctor asked all the standard questions but we really did not know what was wrong with him! Finally the doctor asked if he ate something. "Well", my mom said, "he just ate an ice cream not to long ago..." And that was IT! The doctor explained that he might have a 'Brain Freeze".

We had NO CLUE what that could be (and yes in Dutch Brain Freeze is still a Brain Freeze). So the doctor explained: It is caused by having something cold touch the roof of the mouth, and is believed to result from a nerve response causing rapid constriction and swelling of blood vessels and that results in you have pain going from the roof of you mouth to the top of your head. In this case my brothers head. The doctor also told my mom that he would be alright in a half hour...

And yes half and hour later, my little brother was paddling along on his "skelter" and me and my sister were playing with our dolls and my mom had recovered from her heart attack! Oh, those good old days, when little brothers could turn your world upside down...

My little brother still LOVES ice cream! And yes, so do I! So when i was asked to participate in the Ice Cream Flavor Face off by the Progressive Dairyman i was really excited! I didn't really know what to do,  but i had to pick a good flavor of ice cream! My flavor is Vanilla Bean, and somehow i managed to get into the second voting round (totally unexpected i might add)!

Sooooo, now i would like to ask you.... please, please, pretty please... can you hop over to The Progressive Dairyman and cast your vote??? We are only in Round Two yet, so there are still some other flavors competing, but as long as you vote for VANILLA BEAN too... I will be the happiest girl in the world!

Thanks so much and if I get true into the next round, i promise, I'll try to write another funny story about ice cream...

THANKS!!!


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How to become a pyromaniac

Yep, you’re reading this right. I’m going to tell you the basic rules about becoming a pyromaniac.

First: you need a LOT of wood.
There is just no fun in burning down somebody’s house, barn or shed…Well OK, if it is a really really old barn or shed and there is nothing in it no more except spiders (burn baby burn) and it is a real sore to the eyes… maybe then you could… BUT you have to have permission from the owner…

Second: You need some fuel.
Yes I know with the fuel prices these days, you’re not gonna spill a whole gallon on a big fire, but trust me, you get GREAT satisfaction when you see that all the wood goes up in flames… well... if your still not convinced you can always use some used oil from tractors, lawnmowers, cars and scooters…

Third: You need a wheelbarrow, a shovel and a pitchfork.
In order to create a good fire that last a couple of hours you need the wheelbarrow to bring all the branches and wood to the fire. And you need the shovel and pitchfork to clean up the fire and make sure it doesn’t get too big or out of control (as in burning your house down).

And finally: You need supportive parents!
Well actually the parents are the REAL pyromaniacs but you can’t tell the neighbors, they might get scared!

In Holland you are not allowed to burn anything. We used too maybe 10 - 15 years ago but nowadays you can’t do anything anymore not even making a nice little fire in your back yard. You have to remember Holland is one third the size of Indiana and Indiana has 3.3 million people whereas Holland has 16 million. Yep…. That is why, no fires in The Netherlands…

When we finally got our visas and moved here in February of 2006. We were happily surprised that the weather was already 60 degrees Fahrenheit (the ONLY year that happend since we been here!). Me and my dad had spotted a great little house not far from where the dairy was going to be, a couple of months before we actually moved, and we had contacted the lady who owned it. She really didn’t want to rent it out but after we convinced her that we really were “nice” and “decent” people and our sweet crop farmer put in a good word for us she let us rent the house.

Now you all want to know what we did those first couple of days…. Right???

Well, we burned and burned and burned! All the leaves, all the old branches, entire threes, the half collapsed chicken coops (yes there were several) and after 2 weeks of burning stuff we had nothing to burn anymore. It was 40 acres of forest after all... took some time to clean up... The best thing was that my mom and dad had a smile on their faces from morning till evening because they felt so liberated! You could burn things here! No, the police would not show up. The neighbors wouldn’t call the fire department just because the smoke would come their way. No way! This is the land of the free!!!

Having a little fire every evening really made us feel happy and content with the huge decision of immigrating to this beautiful country. And yes every now and then we turn into little pyromaniacs again (especially when my little sister comes over from Holland), and we have ourselves a little bonfire and enjoy this immense country and eachothers company.

 
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Crazy Americans & public restrooms

Ok…
American’s can be a tat crazy…
I know I know, Dutch people are cheap…
Belgium people are not so smart (or so they say)…
And French people just DON’T wanna talk English when you are on vacation in Euro Disney…

No typing and peeing!







We love to put people in small little boxes, so we can make ourselves feel better. This post is not about that! I love everybody, every ethnic group, every religion, every culture, every “we do it our way” and this post is just meant to be funny and make you think (a bit).

Since we immigrated to this beautiful country I have noticed some strange things and some of them make me lay awake at night and think and some just make me chuckle and turn my head. I would love to share these thoughts with you and hope you’ll enjoy and maybe get a chuckle out of it as well…

So here we go with my first “Crazy Americans!”

The things you see when you first come into this country are astonishing! EVERY THING IS BIG, OR BIGGER, well except for the public restrooms that is!

And i'm sorry to say but he people are truly bigger here too. (I see the difference getting smaller, USA versus Europe lately, but 15 years ago the difference was really shocking). My sweet aunt took me to a local grocery store and that is where I encountered my first “obese lady”. I can tell you my mouth and jaw almost reached the street, and I had to sneak behind her to watch again, and again, to make sure my brain was NOT playing tricks with me. She had a normal big size torso, normal big size legs but her butt was almost as big as the whole sliding door of the grocery store! I looked at my aunt and she just shook her head, as if to say, "keep your manners and don’t stare". But I just couldn’t help myself. I had seen nothing like this in my sixteen years being on this planet…

An American restroom...














A couple of weeks into my stay here we went to the movies. I think it was Star Wars but I could be wrong, and I desperately needed to go to the bathroom. I walk into the bathroom and the first thing I notice is that there is about ONE INCH AND A HALF of room between the door and the frame!

“WHAT’S THIS?!?”

“How am I suppose to pee, if anybody that walks by can just watch me sit there and do my business!!??” You feel embarrassed enough when the walls don’t go all the way up and if you pee everybody can hear you, but SEE you… Well that is a whole different dimension!

So while I’m sitting there figuring out how I can pee comfortable without anybody peeking in, I was thinking about how I came in this little restroom in the first place. The door opens INWARDS!!! “Hmmmm, why would that be….?”

Soo I finally got the peeing done with and was pretty proud of myself for not sounding too loud and I got up, try to open the door and to my amazement (what I didn’t “get” coming into the toilet) I almost had to sit back on the seat in order to open the door and get out! And you have to keep in mind at age 16 I weighed about 50 kilo’s…. uhmmm… 114 pounds...

Even in Moscow they have doors that open outwards!






From that moment on I have checked every public restroom (I know, I know, who’s crazy now…) But for every 20 public toilets there is only one that has a door opening OUTWARDS! So now we go back to that lady at the supermarket in 1995. If I already have so much trouble getting in an out a public restroom (and yes this includes, your Walmart, your rest areas, your restaurants, your movie theatres, your casino’s, your schools, your racetracks your airports, your public buildings, your hospitals, and so on and so on) besides the fact that it is just embarrassing to hear or SEE somebody pee (or worse), how on earth does the average American women who in most cases is slightly bigger than me, manage to get in and out of the restroom in a decent manner???

And no I haven’t had the guts to check the men’s restrooms, but I’m sure it can’t be that different from the ladies…


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