Three times is the Charm! Getting Married # 2

I had my wedding dress…
It was gorgeous…
It didn’t fit anymore… I was too skinny.

We were done with the first full month of chemo and into our three times a week for 48 weeks "period", and yes, I had survived so far. I also survived the surgeries and yes, I even survived the fact that we cut my hair (all that was left of it) and I found out that I was more vain then I ever thought I was going to be about the whole hair thing.

Apparently losing your hair doesn’t seem too bad until it is gone… And yes, every Sunday Bastiaan would drive me to the farm so I could do the payroll for our boys who so desperately with him, my parents and my brother were trying to run the dairy…

We didn’t even think about the wedding that we were supposed to have in July…We were in FULL SURVIVOR mode.

Our Catholic priest was also in full survivor mode.

On our way to Ohio is a beautiful church. Exactly like we have them in Holland (big, old and tall) and as soon as Bastiaan had asked me to marry him I told him I would love to get married in that particular church. We only had one little problem…. Bastiaan was not raised Catholic…

We met with the priest and explained that we would love to get married in his church and join his parochial. He told us getting married there would be all right if we went to a “marriage session” and he had to ask the bishop. Of course we also would have to go to church every Sunday and raise our “soon to be” kids Catholic… The session is a whole blog post on its own, trust me…

We went to church, went to the session and got to know the priest a bit better. After we got the "news" he came over to our house and we had an ointment for the sick and he told us he would be back and check up on me.

On a particular Tuesday, don’t ask me what Tuesday cause I really don’t know, he told us he would come by and we needed to have my mom and dad present. I had no idea what he was coming to do. I just knew I had to keep my Big Mac down that I had the day before after my nice shot of chemo, and focussing on keeping my body still (from trembling uncontrollably) and try not to fall asleep. That was all I could focus on. I asked Bastiaan what the priest was coming to do, but he had no idea either. We finally came to the conclusion maybe he wanted to do another ointment of the sick???

But that was not what he came to do…

He arrived with a briefcase, candles, ointment and a booklet. It just didn’t make sense to us.

I was wearing my oldest, and I mean OLDEST, sweater and maybe (I cant be completely sure) I wasn’t even wearing a bra!?! Bastiaan was wearing his favorite (I don’t wanna come out, cow poopie stained) jeans on and mom a dad just arrived from the dairy so they didn’t think about dressing up either. The priest looked a bit confused by our appearances but didn’t say a word.

We all sat down on our couch and he took out all his instruments, lighted the candles and put on his nice “thingy that he wears around his neck” cloak dress. Bastiaan was just looking at my mom and dad and I was just in THE "chemo" zone…

He preformed the ointment for the sick and steamed, and yes I mean STEAMED, like a STEAMBOAT that can’t stop, into: “do you Bastiaan Meewis Oostdijck take Leontien Martina Francina Wilhelmina Maria van de Laar to be your wife?”

“WHAT???!!!”

“Oh no no NO…. You can’t marry us in these clothes, on our couch, without anybody knowing, in poopie stained jeans, without family and friends, ON OUR COUCH!!!”

Bastiaan said “I do”. And so did I. My mom and dad signed the papers he had brought.

I puked and went to bed.
Bastiaan let the priest out.
Mom and dad called my brother (it was too late to call my sister and Bastiaan’s parents in The Netherlands) and went to work at the farm.

Bastiaan and I talked about that day a lot. We figured the priest thought I was in such bad shape (and yes he probably was right), I might join the Good Lord soon, so he better marry us while he could so at least we would be joined together in front of God.

But what this priest did not know is that I am stubborn. As in very, very stubborn. And I wanted to marry my love the right way. In a church. In a white dress that I already had for 6 months. In front of our family. In the presence of our friends. And defiantly DEFINATLY NOT on our own couch!

Bastiaan and I decided to kick this whole cancer thing even harder in the butt so we could do it the proper way.

But with another priest.

All we had to do was fix me…

Next Monday, Yes, THE THIRTH TIME IS THE CHARM!!!


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Three times is the Charm... Getting Married # 1

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Some people get married once
Some people get married twice
Some people get married three times to THE SAME guy… and yes this would be me…

How do you get married three times, well, it isn’t because I really wanted too but sometimes life throws you a little curve ball and you just have to go with it…

Bastiaan proposed to me in November of 2007. In a really nice restaurant in Fort Wayne, we had been together for over 6 years and he figured it was time, and so did I, so I said “YES!” (And we got a free dessert from the people sitting next to us in the restaurant which made it extra nice).

We set our date to be on July 5th 2008 so our family and friends would have enough time to come over and book a flight from the Netherlands, Canada or Australia. At that date we would have the party and our church wedding. Of course we just started milking on the 20th of November and everything was still very hectic, exciting and stressful but also an immense adventure and we were loving every moment of it!

Because Bastiaan’s visa was going to expire in February we needed too make sure he would be "safe" and we decided to get married in the Courthouse in Bluffton, just to get the paperwork done. Go to Holland make sure the visa’s were in order and then get “really” married in July. For us this “wedding” was a necessity. We would of preferred to have done it on the same day as our church wedding but if you have so many people coming from abroad you need to give them proper time to make arrangements and plan flights. Telling them in November you are going to get married in February is not enough time, we figured.

I do, # 1...
We were already flabbergasted when we went to the courthouse to get a marriage license. Question one; ‘Have you been married before?’, ‘ No…’. Question two; ‘Do you have any children?’, ‘No…’ Question three; ‘Do you have mental problems?' ‘HU? NO!!!’. Those questions plus the actual license cost us $9.00 which was shocking (Yes, the price as well as the questions)! They told us now that we had the license we should get our witnesses and we would be ready to go…

On January 18th it was COLD!!! As in we (Dutchies) are not used to this kinda weather! But because I wanted to make sure this was at least a little special, it was our wedding after all, I wore a skirt (never mind the fact that an hour before I was still running around in coveralls on the farm trying to get things in order and Bastiaan was working on fixing a tractor!) and Bastiaan got a nice new shirt and my mom & dad and brother were coming, all dressed up too after running around on the farm all morning. Because of the dairy start up we hadn’t really had the opportunity to meet a lot of new people who could stand in as our witnesses and so my parents were going to be our witnesses.

We agreed with Bastiaan’s parents and my little sister that we would put them on speaker phone when it was time to do the ceremony so they would listen to us say our 'I do’s'. We did not want them to feel left out, but we also didn’t want them to travel two times, after all the June wedding was going to be our “official” wedding, and we rater had them there at that time!

So on this cold day we went to the Bluffton Courthouse and which was another SHOCKER where out of the courthouse and married for the very first time WITHIN 15 (if it lasted that long) MINUTES!

Before Bastiaan and I knew what was going on we were officially married! The only thing I really remember was the major saying those things that we only hear on TV or in the movies, now for real right in front of us which was pretty amazing! And naturally my new husband being very sweet and handsome!

After we got out off the courthouse we went to the Mexican restaurant to celebrate and got a great lunch, after that it was pretty much back to business as usual…

Soon after our “Court Wedding” Bastiaan and I picked the venue and the church and met with the priest, picked what we wanted to eat and who we would love to have at our special day and THAT was pretty much the extend of what he wanted and needed to do… (Being a boy and planning weddings apparently doesn’t go together…).

Me and a friend on the other hand decided on getting organized and we got a Marta Steward planning guide (haha, yep) and the next months we were extremely busy getting everything done and ready. In the beginning of April 2008 the first wedding invitations went to our 200 guests all over the world…

On April 15th I got a phone call.
‘Sorry, but you got cancer…’.
Within 5 minutes our whole world as we knew it changed.

Four weeks after getting “the news”, being true several surgeries and debating different types off chemo, we canceled the wedding...

Together we decided to fight this beast first, make sure we were healthy and yes then we would get married, for Real. But at that time we really did not know or realize how bad it was going to be...

Next Thursday I’ll tell you about us getting married for the second time, without us really realizing what exactly was happening!


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How to end up with my perfect guy...

There is no such thing as the perfect guy, right??? WRONG!

This past Monday I told you about our Bar in School (Bar 6-) and this cute guy that walked in while I was doing my weekly shift of bartending…. Yes, on a weeknight...

Bastiaan, was his name.

I figured this was a good, solid name and I quickly checked his hands (pretty important for a farmer) and checked his teeth (pretty important for a farm girl). They were both fine so we started chatting.

He just came back from Australia where he spent 8 months working at a cotton farm a sheep farm and doing some backpacking. That sounded like music to my ears because I already had traveled 3 times to The States, once to Canada, several times to Sicily (all by myself!) so I was pretty content with the fact that I found somebody who traveled (by himself) too and wasn't afraid to see the world.

We talked a hole in the night. Of course I was too busy talking to notice the time and D finally told me, “Hey Leo, shouldn’t you close the bar?” Oh yeah, close the bar... Bastiaan helped us close the bar (which included cleaning the whole place, clean the toilets and the outside so the next morning “normal” students could go to school) without finding left overs from the previous night and we did this same thing the next night and the next…

Although I told him the second night, “You have to know, when I grow up, I’m gonna live in The States!”, that didn’t scare him off. He just laughed and asked if maybe I wanted to come to Australia instead.

“NO WAY!” … Yes, yes determined stubborn is something that some people would label me with…

On our 4th night he walked me back to my car. We also had dorms on the school property and the first year they recommend you staying in the dorms (to get adjusted to the life, as in, don’t drink and drive but just crawl home...) but because I was already in my third year I “upgraded” my bottom into a real student house (in the suburbs of the town). Bastiaan had his room in the dorm (after all he was brand spanking new), but I had to drive to my house every evening. 

While walking "home"/to my car from the Bar listening to a Belgium band, Lasgo with their hit song Something, Bastiaan kissed me! And yes this was one of our OPENING SONGS at our wedding (our THIRD wedding, but I’ll tell you all about that later) and yes he is about 1.5 years younger but he also knew how to take charge... hehe…

The music was great, the weather was great, the evening went really well and I was in the best company a girl could wish for. When I got home I woke up all my roommates and told them we had kissed! Of course they were very happy for me and asked me what my plan was next. I hadn’t been in a serious relationship for a while and I told them, "we would see where it would lead us". To D I said, “I don’t know, he is awfully young, maybe it will last 3 months and then something else will come along for him”…

This year we are together 10 years with LOTS of ups and downs; as in: break up’s, get together’s, emigration to a different part of the world, battling cancer, starting a large dairy together with MY mom, dad and brother, leaving his family for me, leaving his friends for me and try to find new friends, putting his dreams away on a shelf so i can chase my crazy American Dream, going true a truly awful time financially and mentally with our dairy so soon after we started up, learning to love cows while actually he is a crop farmer and no, crop farmers are not dairy farmers..., hoping that one day he can become a daddy, that is if my body and mind  is ready to have little ones... and oh, did I mention BATTLING cancer with me…?

I really KNOW i found my perfect match. He’s quiet, I’m blabbing all the time, he’s understanding, I’m wondering AND worrying about everything everywhere, he thinks things true, I’m a spur of the moment kindda girl, he’s perfect , I’m far from….


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Wordless Wednesday...

Yep... That's me...

And yes, that is a BIG cat!
And yes, those are pig poopies!

Have a fantastic Wednesday, do some bloghopping and don't forget about my love story  here at Four Leaf Clover Tales tomorrow (Thursday)!


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How do you end up with the most perfect guy?

You don’t…

There is no such thing as the perfect guy. Same as you can never be the most perfect wife! Sometimes you just mess up dinner, sometimes you forget to do the laundry and SOMETIMES you just don’t feel like doing the hanky panky thing.

But for all of you out there who ARE believers, here’s a little love story...

Jared Leto, maybe not perfect but definatly HOT!








When I was 22 I was in my second year of University. I was studying Agricultural Economics and trying to get my teaching degree and I was struggling! I had 5 classmates (all boys, cause who on earth wants to be an agricultural economics teacher these days) who helped me every single day. Besides school I had a pretty active social life (maybe that was why I had to struggle so much IN school). I was pretty much in every after school’s activity and one of those activities was being vice president of our bar. And yes I mean bar as in a place where you can buy drinks and get drunk. IN SCHOOL!

The bar is called Bar 6- because as you all know The Netherlands is 6 meters below sea level…

It was run by students; you had a president, vice president, head bartender, head supply and so on. You would get credits for running the bar and it looked good on your resume and all the money that we’d make went to improvements of the school or set on an account to do renovations to the bar OR throw more parties. I loved this bar, I loved the people in it, loved the people who I had the pleasure to try to run it with and I loved the daily lessons that we got there (and believe me there were a LOT of life lessons to be learned).

Besides our weekly meetings everybody had to take a night shift of actual bartending. One day a week we would be the main bartender and close up shop whenever we felt it was time (officially we needed to close the bar at 1 am but sometimes we just had to much fun and the bar stayed open till 5 or 6 am…).

Bar 6- in Holland










At one of those days in 2001 it was my shift and I was stoked. I had the music planned out, the kegs ready and was ready to pull off a great evening with one of my friends tending the bar with me. The bar was getting nice and full and it promised to be a good evening. It was always a challenge to see who would draw the most people in.

And in he walks…. One of the MOST gorgeous boy I had seen. All nice bronze looking (farmers tan I found out later), tall, skinny, cute haircut, eyebrow piercing (Yeah I know?!?) and just SEXY!

I turned to my friend and told her “WOW that just might be the sexiest guy I have seen in a long time!” She snickered and said that I should go for it…

And I didn’t!!! I was way to insecure and pretended to be really busy with bartending and I didn’t see anybody that I knew that knew him to start a conversation with and that way I could get to know him.

A couple of evenings later, and yes I would be at the bar every single night, planning myself in, in order to get a chance to see him again. Finally after scouting out the whole school grounds during the day and being at the bar all evening, he came back into the bar.

And heaven be hold, he came in with somebody I KNEW!!!

My guy...












So this was my chance…. Told my sweet friend D that I was on a man hunt and she needed to watch my back. I went around the bar and sat down on a stool besides this gorgeous male specimen and his friend and asked how they were doing. Yes very lame, I know. The friend that I knew pretty much got it really quick and introduced me to his friend, Bastiaan…

Thursday this love story will continue and you will know all about MY perfect guy.


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Friends and side effects

Cancer, chemo and side effects go hand in hand. My chemo was Interferon… A nasty drug which I had to take for 52 weeks…. 4 weeks of  5 days a week, IV’s in the arm and 48 weeks of shots, 3 shots a week... It didn't last 52 weeks, it lasted longer...

I was done with the first month of treatment, the IV’s and we had started with the first week of the shots, my dear friend Niels and housemate in our student home in The Netherlands and his girlfriend Moniek came to give me some moral support and see the country. And what is more fun & comforting than seeing the country by going to the hospital together with your “sick” friend???

Usually my mom, dad, Bastiaan’s mom and dad (they came over for 5 weeks from Holland),Bastiaan, Hanneke (my sister), Jan Willem (my brother) or other friends would come with me but now they all had a day off too. Niels and Moniek were more than happy to come with me and I would normally be awake the whole ride home (about one hour long) and then fall asleep in my own bed, before the real side effects would start, as in shaking, trembling, throwing up, running a fever, not be able to go to the bathroom or going all the time, and did I mention the shaking and trembling???

So, we got to the hospital, I get my shot (the second one that week, it was Wednesday) chat with all the nurses, have lot’s of fun and show Niels and Moniek the differences between hospitals in Holland and the USA. And introduced them to all the fantastic nurses and doctors in Fort Wayne.

We get the car I sit down and I’m just rambling feeling GREAT! I would get some anti nausea medicine, some flu resisting medicine, sleep medicine and some good pain killers together with the Interferon. And somehow this time the little cocktail was doing its work fantastically! I noticed that halfway home I’m slurring a bit… not too much…. Just a little bit, or so I thought. Niels and Moniek who never had been in the company of someone who is on chemo didn’t know what to expect so they figured it was normal.

But it wasn’t…

They put me to bed, which apparently wasn’t that easy. On really bad days Bastiaan would escort me out of the car, in the house and in bed. Niels and Moniek had the privilege this time. And all the time I was mumbling, speaking in slurred sentences and not making any sense in whatever I was trying to say.

They put me to bed and I slept…

In the evening the side effects started again, like clockwork, and that Thursday Niels and Moniek went home. My dad’s turn was that next day, on Friday, and we went to the hospital. Before they hooked me up to all the proper machinery and gave me my shot I told them about my strange drive home and that if was feeling so woozy and that I had problems making normal sentences.

And then all hell broke loose!

My fantastic oncologist, a colleague oncology doctor, and 5 nurses were standing by my chair, asking me questions, taking blood and arranging MRI’s and CAT scan’s…

They came to the conclusion the nausea medicine they had given me for the last month was only supposed to be given to me for one week (or given once every 3/4 weeks like you have with more often used chemo). Not five weeks in a row every single day…

Luckily there were no long lasting effects, but they gave me 2 weeks “off”, as a breather and recover from the buildup of medicine. After those two weeks we continued with the interferon but I can never have any nausea medicine again.
But that’s all right with me; I wasn’t planning on getting sick no more anyway…

And yes, now I know…
• Sudden numbness or weakness of the face, arm or leg, especially on one side of the body
• Sudden confusion, trouble speaking or understanding
• Sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes
• Sudden trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance or coordination
• Sudden, severe headache with no known cause

... Means get YOUR BUTT back INTO the hospital, chemo or not!



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Oh Canada! Feeling like a girl…

Being in Canada was very different from everything I was used too! (And yes If you haven’t read “Oh Canada, part one, I would recommend you do that now…)

The first day I arrived I got a bit of a culture shock but Mavis, Chris and Wendy were so sweet that I didn’t feel completely as an alien, and yes the hundred horses and the beautiful landscape helped too! With me arriving there were 3 students on the farm and one girl’s was there a week, and she did not look happy, i thought.

Oh my, my heels...







Within another week she decided to go home. This was pretty eye opening to me, because I still had a hard time with the loneliness of the country and the lack of other people besides the family and us, but I was determined I wouldn’t fly half across the world and then wimp out because I felt home sick!

And of course there was Fox Trim Classic, the MOST BEAUTIFUL stallion in the world (how a girl get’s a horse), even prettier than the horse in the movie the “Black Stallion”, and Kate (the other student) and the family. Our days were pretty full and long. On breeding days we would start with “finding” the horses out in the pastures. Try to locate the head mare and lead them back. We had to do this on foot, and it was always a long, long walk to find them and a long but little shorter RUN back to keep up with all these mares and fillies. Yes, at that age I had really good stamina…

The Mares going back to their pasture






One of us would start helping Chris with the breeding and the other girl together with barn manager Barb, would start cleaning out the stalls, after we were done with chores and breeding we would ride the horses that needed training. This could be anywhere from 5 to 10 horses a day. And as a cherry on the cake I got to ride Fox Trim Classic. After two weeks I started to feel pretty happy being here; Great people, great animals, I got lot’s and lot’s of mail (hehe, the good old days) from home and in the evenings I had time to relax and think about my life (which is very good for the inner self).

Kate and I got along really well and on Saturdays we would get Chris’s truck and we would drive 20 miles to the closest town and eat at the local hamburger joint. NO, they did not have a Mac Donald’s so you can imagine how “big” that town was… Being from the Netherlands I still had the need to dress up every now and then, and with dress up I mean, put on my short skirt and my high heels…

Yes, THE truck....









Kate would tell me I was nuts, but I felt it was important to feel like a girl every now and then to keep centered. This was my center piece, 13 cm or 5.1 inches, heels! And yes it would take some time to get in that huge truck (being used to all the "little" cars in Holland), but if Kate would give me a push it would work out great! It didn’t help I just got my drivers license a couple of weeks before and the truck would be popping out of its gear, like, every 10 minutes… So besides getting in, driving it was equally as hard…

Getting out was the easy part… you just slide out… but you had to make sure your skirt doesn’t ride all the way up over your buttocks…

So we would drive to town, slide out of the truck with as much grace as possible, eat a burger and watch cute Canadian boys in their trucks drive up and down Main Street….

We tried to enter a bar once but I can’t remember clearly how that went so I assume we didn’t get far (being only 19 and all…).

Those boys diving up and down Main street were! And I honestly think, they had never seen a crazy Dutch girl with crazy high heels in their town, and all I can say I NEVER seen teenagers driving UP AND DOWN the street ALL EVENING for fun!?! I asked Kate what was up with that and she explained that that was what the teens would do because it beat sitting at home and they were not allowed to go out to a pub, club or bar, like we did in Holland. I have to say it was pretty funny to see the same faces checking you and the rest of the town out, turn around at the end of the street and drive by again. And this would happen every 10 minutes for hours!?! Kate and I could not stop laughing and we had a really good time.

I know... I know...

We didn’t stay for hours but long enough to enjoy and after a little push and pull I was back in Chris’s truck, we would drive our assigned route, up and down Main street, and headed back to the safety of the farm and watched Austin Powers on the VCR with Chris, which by the way I did NOT get the first 2 times watching…

Life was good in Canada

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Tractor disaster! Driving in circles...

Oh, I was so happy!

It was my first time in this wonderful country named America and I LOVED every single moment of it!

Of course it was not only pleasure, you got to earn your way around (no matter where you go) and so I was “helping” my uncle and aunt baling hay for their horses.

Note the “helping”…

Feeding time at our farm








As you might know by reading Tractor Disaster (if you haven't yet, please do!) I was not the natural that I would have liked to be, but I had some more experience driving tractor back home in Holland and my uncle thought I was ready for the real work!

My aunt and uncle had a field a couple of miles away from the farm and it needed to "be done". Making hay bales is simple, first you cut the grass (usually done by a pro, my uncle, otherwise you have too much grass left standing in the field), you wait a couple of days or hours depending on the weather, you rake the grass (throw it around a bit so more air can get underneath and it will dry better) and then you make little dunes (rows of grass piled together so you can pick it up easily) where you can drive over with a tractor and baler and make hay bales!

And yes all of this gets done with a tractor and a piece of equipment and it really is, lots of fun… if you do it right…

My task for the day was making dunes (rows) of grass, so my uncle could come later in the day and start to bale the hay and we would load it up and bring it back to the farm. My uncle dropped me off in the morning, showed how everything worked and I started driving around the field.

Manure hauling on the fields








It was beautiful weather and I saw deer, flowers, birds and grass, grass and grass! I and was fantastic! The field was a bit rolling so I didn’t get the feeling I was doing the same thing the whole time, every hill brought something “new”… And the rows of grass were perfect and I really thought my uncle would be so happy to have these perfect rows so he would be done in a swiffy and have perfect grass bales!

Yep, perfect it was…
I don’t remember how many hours later, my uncle comes with the big tractor and baler and stops in the field.

HE JUMPS OUT AND COMES WAIVING HIS HANDS AND SCREAMING FROM THE TOP OF HIS LUNGS, RUNNING TOWARDS ME!!!

“Hmm, what is he doing…” I thought…
So, I stop. Turn off my tractor and get off…

“What do you think you are doing???” “Hmmmm, making nice perfect rows, so you can bale your hay???” (I am miss smarty pants) “YES”, he yells. “The rows are great but look at that tractor?!?” So I turn around and look at the tractor… and I don’t see anything wrong with it…“Just LOOK AT IT!” my uncle insists… And then I see it… The tire is flat… And not only is the tire flat, the rim is bent… And not just a little bent, NO COMPLETELY BENT…

"Euhmmmmmmmm…. how does that happen???” I ask him with a face as red as a lobster…

Did I tell you my uncle is a fantastic guy?

Harvesting grain and straw for our cows







He took a couple of (deep, very, very deep) breaths and explained to me that, THAT happens when you drive around for several HOURS with a flat tire…

Then I had to explain to him why I did not notice…
Well, I really didn’t know. Like I said, the field was not completely flat and I was just focusing so much on making these prefect rows and enjoying the nature and wildlife I just hadn’t figure out why I was leaning to the right like… A LOT!!! Not even when I switched from going round in right circles to making left circles…

My uncle had to get a whole new rim, and yes tire too, and I felt really, really bad. My uncle did let me “help” some more with the hay bales, but I didn’t drive too much tractor anymore those months.

And yes it is Friday so let's hop! Farm Friend Friday.... See the button (Yes i did it!) and the Social Parade (button will follow!!!)

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All I ever wanted… Was a real kiss!!!

All I ever wanted… at age 14… was a real kiss!

Nope, not a kiss from the guys in my class (who were boy friends but NOT my boyfriends, big difference at that age) not a kiss from mom or dad and not a wet, all over your cheek, kiss from grandma (although I loved those)! NO I was ready for my first real boy kisses girl, like in the movies, kiss!!!

Bastiaan & me Kissing!







Whenever a boy or girl from our class would have his or her birthday everybody would be invited to his or her birthday party and it would be lot's of fun but nothing too crazy. On this particular Friday evening my neighbor boy had his party and I was allowed to go! And I just knew this was gonna be my night!

All my girlie classmates had had their first “real” kiss, and yes by this I mean all the most popular girls (yes, peer pressure is everywhere even in The Netherlands) and I just desperately wanted to get it over with, so I could talk about “that” feeling and the of course, GORGEOUS boys, me and my girlfriends would be dreaming about!

This was a very special party because there would be boys out of the BIG city coming! Not the hillbilly boys that were my classmates, noooo REAL BOYS!!!

I had this in the pocket!

I put my best looking jeans on, stuffed some extra pads in my bra… (Yes, I know)… Gave my mom and dad a kiss and told them I would be home by eleven. My friend picked me up and with our bikes, as in bicycle, and we rode the half mile to my neighbors house.

The party was in full swing but they boys from the big city had not arrived yet… Good thing cause I needed to prepare. The big thing, or so my girlfriends told me was, if they boy in question would ask if I would like “to go out”, that meant he wanted to kiss me and I better put a piece of gum in my mouth if I wanted to make sure this was gonna be a good first kiss..

“Oke!”, I had it all under control…

Bastiaan & me almost kissing at the farm in the snow!













Finally the boys from the big city arrived! Two handsome blond guys and 3 dark haired, even more handsome guys. One of the dark haired guys was the captain of the soccer team and he, according to my girlfriends was "the one"! After some initial shy introductions i learned his name was Robbie, he was 15 and loved playing soccer.

The rest of the night I was pretty nervous, but I “slow danced” on Roxette, Toto and Duran Duran and even did some sitting on the couch discussing latest “best shows on TV ever” with Robbie. It was almost eleven and I was freaking out a bit because he hadn’t asked me “the thing” yet! Desperately I looked to my friend and she was just shaking her head… having an “I don’t know” look on her face.

At ten minutes to eleven I went outside to find my bike and figured this was not my night after all and tinkered with the lock. Robbie who followed me like a real gentleman, helped me and while we are standing there, he asks me; “do you wanna go out?”…

My response: “Hu? Why??? We are already outside???”
He was looking at me if I just landed on earth from another planet, and for a moment I thought I was…

And then IT hit me!!! He was asking me to do some kissing!!!

Oh, I was NOT prepared at all!!! First off; how could I respond after I asked this incredibly dumb question and second; I did not have any chewing gum!!! Anywhere!!!

He came closer and closer, took my hand…. Put his other hand on my back… and we kissed…

I still had one hand on my bike…

At our wedding day KISSING in front of our farm!






YUCK!!!! my gosh, all this slime…. And this tongue…. And this slime… YUCK!!! And why is he acting like our almost broken, clothes washing machine on spinning cycle with that tongue… YUCK!!!!

This was nothing like in the movies!?!
I think it lasted 3 minutes... Tops…

I grabbed my bike, hollered to my girlfriend to get her butt and bike and speeded away, home!

I never saw Robbie again, and it took quite some time before I ever wanted to kiss a boy again.


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