klompengirl

For those who don't know what the name of my blog means, let me explain.

Klompen = wooden shoes worn by crazy Dutch folk

Girl = human of the female variety

ergo,

Klompengirl = a chick with a pair of clogs

That's me!! My dad was born in the Netherlands (note: the Netherlands does not = Holland). Which makes me, by default, a Dutchie.



Actually, he was born in a province called Friesland where they speak Frisian, not Dutch. But that's another story.

Given this heritage, I took it upon myself to get my own pair of klompen, so I asked my Uncle Bill to bring a pair over some years ago. He must have chosen the ugliest pair of klompen in all of Friesland. Wouldn't you agree? (...yes, those are horse heads...)



But, lucky for me, my lovely cousin Mary Simon Stenekes, took pity on me and bought me another pair of (way cooler) klompen for Christmas. These ones are slippers!



How cool is that?
I am stoked. I have my very own pair of klompen slippers.

For my more "cultured" readers, here's some information about an art exhibit featuring klompen, as pictured below.



And just to make you laugh, here's a video of some crazy Dutch folk dancing in their klompen (32 seconds).

ringing in the new year - in proper annalise fashion

yessssss, what year would be complete without annalise falling on her keister now and then? as luck would have it, i managed to sneak in one more classic fall on Dec 31st. chris was busy taking these pictures while I fell, rather than helping me up...and he enjoyed them so much afterwards that I thought I'd post them for the whole world to see. for those interested in details, we were snowshoeing in the "bush" behind the family house in Bancroft.

1) a bit nervous as i start down the hill. concentrating hard on not falling.



2) concentrating more. pretty confident that i'm going to make it. if i can just concentrate...a little...harder...



3) WHAM! there it is.



Sigh. This, and then I got beat by Chris' dad at cribbage just before midnight too. Let's hope I got all the bad luck out of the way and cleared a path for all the good luck to come in 2008!

for other funny showshoeing pictures, have a look at this post .