"If You're Not Dutch You're Not Much"

The kids and I just returned from a wonderful visit up north to Canada. It was unexpected and a little untimely with snow storms beating down and Christmas just around the corner, but worth every minute of it. The purpose of our trip was to meet my mother’s cousin, Wolter and his adorable wife Truus from Holland. Wolter recently found out he won’t be alive much longer and was treated by family to have his lifelong wish to go to Canada and meet the “other” family members. Unfortunately, not much of the family remains in the area he was visiting, and so we made the trek.

I cannot express in words the beauty of Wolter and the inspiration he was to me of living life to the fullest and enjoying each moment – never knowing how much longer we may be able to enjoy it; and still, knowing that with death life does not end. What a sweet sweet man I was able to spend hours playing Phase 10 with, joking and teasing and learning from this relative of mine – who reflects his constant saying of “no problem”. He and his wife adored my kids and not once did I feel like they were “too loud” “to rambunctious” “too rude” or “too” anything. My children learned a few words in Dutch, they discovered how to feed peanuts to squirrels right out of their hands and they grew to love people who hours before had been perfect strangers. Dutch St. Nicholas came and left goodies galore… Oma was there and it was a pleasure to spend time with all the family and even 18 hours in the car with my brother!!!

Today was spent doing laundry, settling back in and getting our Christmas tree of course! It was absolutely freezing outside and quite the adventure dodging stumps and holes (Mr. T even got a bloody lip falling!) But in the end, even though Mr. Man could spend weeks searching for the perfect tree, we were successful! It fills up our whole front room, but is gorgeous! This year was Little E’s first time to put the star on the top of the tree! We’ll post completed pictures later! Merry Christmas!