Seeing The Fingerprints

100 years young Recently my adopted Grandmother turned 100! I was given notice that there would be an open mike for the evening and I thought it would be nice to share our story. So here it is. A few words for the lovely lady in the room!  First off, some of you may be wondering who I am?  I hold the bragging rights of being the guest of honor, Grandma first granddaughter!!  When I was a little girl I had only one biological grandmother alive in a far-off country and she passed away when I was 8.  When those grandparent’s days came around at school each year it was a bit of a sad day for a little girl.  My mom decided enough was enough and figured there had to be a lovely lady who would visit her daughter on this special day.  You know what?!  She found the loveliest grandmother of all!   Grandma, I want to thank you for coming each year after that to see me on grandparent’s day!  It made my heart sing that someone special was ...

These posts don't have much story to them.  However the Saturday was probably my most favourite day of the whole trip.  I wanted to journey to the Netherlands to connect with my Mom's family again.  It's just such a huge part of her story and it was just nice to be with family!  Even if I haven't met half of these people as soon as I was with them I was comfortable and everything felt familiar.  I could pick up character traits from siblings.  So thankful we were allowed to make this journey to spend time and create memories with loved ones. These are my mom's brothers....they're always joking! Trying to get all of us organized for a family photo....we will wait for the version that we're all actually in! After I asked them all to do some crazy pose....I don't know why they all listened?  Then I said if the picture didn't work we could swap heads meaning in photoshop....however we all moved around instead.  Should've...

Today we woke up to our own tune. No rooster to interrupt us bright and early.  It was sooooooo quiet!   Our car in front of our luxurious hotel.  (cousins are the best!) Today was time to explore a part of the Netherlands we've never been to before.  We headed to Friesland for the day with our trusty tour guides my cousins to lead us through the day!  (Should've tipped them a little better). The first village we walked around is known as the smallest city in the world. Started up in the 13th century with the sea all around. Today it's still small but there is land all around.  (I'll have to insert the name of this town after as I didn't write it down.)  The windmill in the smallest city Toured the next town of Ijlst. Here we explored a sawmill windmill. No restricted areas for exploration!!! (As the guy said this probably would never be  allowed in North America)  So we were warned be careful!  Sel...

This photo stared us down daily.... Unsure if you can see the price tag 800 euros... Today was the last day with the rooster cockadoodling to wake us up bright and early. And what do you know. None of us woke up from him making his song this last morning.  Quickly bought some cheese from the farm we stayed at...lekker! We packed up all our bags and then we travelled off to Zwolle to have our first Canadian size cup of coffee with our beautiful Tante (aunt for those who don't know any Dutch).  After a lovely visit we stopped to explore the town of Giethoorn by boat. This was a destination of mine as it brings back many good memories of when I travelled to Holland with my parents many years before.  It was a favourite of my Mom's.  She would bike from her town on holidays to go sailing in knee deep water :) We travelled fine by boat.....but some tourist didn't do so well. We had some good chuckles.   Apparently Giethoorn is on the latest world ed...

This was the very first night that I officially slept well.  Finally transitioned over to the Dutch time zone.... Started the day with by filling the stomach with a good Dutch style breakfast.  If you're not Dutch could you guess what it is? With full stomachs we headed out for the day.  It was a rather frightening start down the skinny Dutch little road.  It barely can handle a bike and a car passing each other.  So to our surprise a massive semi truck was barreling down the road.  We pulled over in a pullout but  became trapped between a large truck and the canal. That canal was not looking too pretty for a swim.... Glad we didn't end up going for that swim and the we had no extra rental car bills to pay as the truck nearly missed the sideview mirror.  After safely arriving to the park n' ride we caught the bus.  This is a fantastic system if you're in Holland!  It cost 5 Euro to park the car and ride the bus for up to 5 people! ...